Jean Roberts

A lot of my time in working as a consultant, trainer and writer is spent in the company of words – thinking about them, comparing them, searching for their meaning, and marvelling at the variety of interpretations that are made of a simple word. My dictionary is never far away from my keyboard, and I find myself using a range of tools (including, but not limited to, internet search) to become better acquainted with words, their meanings and their interpretations.

One of my favourite tools is to write a group of words across the page, and then to break them up vertically. In doing this, I can see and consider them as individual and independent expressions: each offering its own train of thought which adds to a greater understanding and appreciation of their collective meaning. Take the title of this chapter for instance:

Identifying – this word brings other words to mind, such as finding, recognising, knowing, understanding, legitimising.

structuring – my mind turns to planning, drawing up specifications, introducing form and substance, building, and to the benefits of a logical sequence.

and – indicates progress upon the first two words.

working with – my mind describes this progress as pushing and pulling, shaping, extending, testing, refining and improving, preparing for use and application, being able to stand back and appreciate process, progress and outcomes.

my own belief system – and here I find the focus of this group of words, which is a belief system that I have created through a life:

• filled with experience, observation, conversation and introspection – and 75 years of personal, local and global events and influences;
• spent questioning a range of feelings that can travel from confidence through uncertainty to confusion and back again; and
• influenced consciously and subconsciously by the personal, local and global experiences of my parents and their respective forebears.

As I consider these words separately, I have a greater understanding of them than would be possible by just reading them horizontally.

Watching the effect and impact of my own belief system on myself and others is like holding a mirror up to my spiritual journey – being able to observe not only the effect and impact on my own life and experience, but also on the effect and impact on the lives and experiences of those with whom I come into contact.
Not all relationships or experiences in one’s life are peaceful, supportive or without challenge. There is wisdom in the statement that it’s not the things that happen in our lives that are important – it’s how we each respond to them that is important.

The title of this Chapter states the obvious – that each of us needs to have a belief system, to know and understand it, and to be sufficiently confident to be able to use it as a tool in shaping our relationships and experiences.

Therefore… ? This is the important point I’ve wanted to make since the start – and have spent five chapters, and taken over 18 months, to arrive at this point.

The structure I’ve chosen to illustrate the wisdom from identifying, structuring and working with one’s own belief system is one that trainers and educators will be familiar with:

• Unconscious incompetence
• Conscious incompetence
• Conscious competence
• Unconscious competence

I don’t know where this structure originated, but I’ve used it frequently in the context of training, consulting, relating, observing, knowing and understanding.

I usually introduce it this way:

Having been a driver now for more than 40 years, I find it interesting and useful to reflect on these four stages in relation to my driving. The first and second stages were simply a means of getting to the highly important third and fourth stages of:

• Conscious competence – relating closely to deliberate practice (introduced in Chapter 4, and expanded in Chapter 5), and
• Unconscious competence – relating closely to the confidence one gains through deliberate practice, until something suddenly or unexpectedly happens that returns me to conscious competence

However – and here’s the truth – we never return to the level of conscious competence that we had achieved prior to a spell in unconscious competence: we always return to a level of increased maturity, ie with more knowledge, understanding and intelligence than previously.

The predictable experience from this point is to ‘tap-dance’ between conscious and unconscious competence – all the time growing and evolving into wisdom.

And so it is with our own belief system. At some stage in our experience, we will become aware that there is such a state of mind as a belief system (moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence), we will then structure and begin to work with it, (moving to conscious competence). Then, over time and with sufficient and deliberate practice, we will achieve or acquire unconscious competence.

Then – we will graduate to the ‘tap-dance’ that enables us to grow and evolve into spiritual wisdom! This is the fluid movement between conscious and unconscious competence – a movement that is best likened to ascending a spiral staircase. Each time we return to conscious competence, we will be able to recognise, understand and accept our growth since were last were there! If we didn’t return to conscious competence, we wouldn’t know or understand our growth in wisdom.

The starting point to this amazing experience is to know that it is possible to have your own belief system – and then, to discover and explore it.

In chapter 7, we’ll turn to the art and science of risk management – and discover that it is as relevant in spiritual journeying as in physical journeying.