Monomyth

The various stages of honing a new skillset.

When we deliver trainings, our clients are often curious about what it takes to become a ‘pro’ in the field in question.

If we make a point to outline ‘where to start’ and include recommendations on ‘dos and don’ts’, we also know that there are different paths to mastering a skill and believing that there is only one defeats the purpose.

Yet, as we offer a wide variety of trainings, it seems that the path to success is a ‘monomyth’ of sort. Simply put, mastering different skillsets would follow similar patterns. These will be outlined below:

Stage 1: Initiation

When discovering a new skill, many people are eager to try it out quickly. Some also perceive that, beyond its application, there is a community of people who see the world through a different lens, informed by this seemingly ‘new’ practice.

Those intuitive learners can more easily take a beginner’s posture and identify mentors to explore this ‘new world’, possibly different from the trainers who will be responsible for building their skills per se. At this stage, this leap of faith does not necessarily reflect an adhesion to another worldview.

Stage 2: Craftmanship

Guided by their mentors, learners can embark on stage 2: learning the trade, making the ‘classic mistakes’, proudly anticipating a few, and managing their ego.

As they gain understanding of the various schools of thought in the field, learners may trade their mentors for ‘heroes’ who embody what they consider to be ‘best-in-class’, and perhaps unreachable.

Completing stage 2 grants learners the status of practitioners, which carries greater weight outside of the field than inside.  

Stage 3: Mastery

Entering stage 3 requires a conscious decision born from the simultaneous adhesion to the worldview intuited at stage 1 (i.e., the realization that the skill has inherent value besides its practical application), and that the relevance of one’s know-how will depreciate over time. It is less a leap of faith than a show of humility as the recently dubbed ‘practitioners’ accept to become ‘learners’ again.

With enough awareness and experience to assess their own talent compared to others, learners can develop their own blended practice, picking and choosing from existing schools of thought.

Thriving in stage 3 requires ‘killing the father’, i.e., emancipating oneself from the heroic figure identified at stage 2 and therefore not measuring up one’s value to it.

Having acquired experience, autonomy, and sometimes elegance in their practice, many successful trainers are at stage 3.

Stage 4: Grace

Stage 4 holds a more spiritual challenge, part of which includes letting go of the idea of mastery itself, for it is an individual endeavour. For performance to subsume in harmony, ‘eternal learners’ need to find their place in the broad community of practice.

The loss of individual validation is compensated by the ability to connect with other practitioners at ‘stage 4’, in a desire to pass on the spirit of the practice rather than the skills themselves. In this fluid move, generosity trumps elegance.  

Indeed, at stage 4, one starts to let go of the desire to be recognised in the field in the first place, whilst also being conscious and thoughtful about one’s contribution. Such selflessness is distinctive across fields of endeavour and enables people at stage 4 to connect across practices, granting them a more spiritual form of validation.

“But can anyone actually achieve stage 4?”, asked the Mouse.

To a certain extent, yes, as stage 4 is less about the skills as it is about understanding one’s place in the universe, so to speak. Yet, stage 4 is of a different nature than the first three, where learning becomes a way of being instead of a goal.

To achieve stages 1 to 3, one needs to accumulate knowledge and experience in hopes to improve their efficiency. Accepting the fact that there are no permanent solutions to recurring challenges born from worldviews in tension, learners at stage 4 can let go of a problem-solving mindset to learn in their transformational journey. As they embody the worldview that the intuitive learner inferred at stage 1, they can also let go of storytelling.    

Yet, even when reaching stage 4, ‘learners’ can still lose confidence and be shaken up in their practice. Burn-out, failure in other areas of life – including personal relationships – or trauma, no one is immune to exogenous shocks.

The healing process follows similar stages as the learning process:

• Stage 1: being brought back to the status of a beginner, practitioners focus on their loss of confidence instead of honing their skills. It is a way to stay external to their pain, which sometimes leads to blame.

• Stage 2: engaging with their pain, practitioners train their way back into honing their skills.

• Stage 3: owning their pain, practitioners integrate the shock into a more resilient practice.

• Stage 4: forgiving oneself, practitioners can assist other learners in disarray.  

As it appears, a skill-building journey can be rewarded by personal growth when it comes full circle. The conscious learner of stage 4 nurtures the curiosity of the intuitive learner from stage 1 in front of new practices and technologies.

As they remain centred in a moving world, conscious learners prove that humility is modern, if not fashionable.

Baptiste Raymond - 07/2022.

PS. this piece is dedicated to Ariel L. who introduced me to conflict resolution.