One of the ‘secrets’ to success is being brilliant with volition. By that I mean knowing what it is that you do, and how it is that you do it, that makes your perfect customers and bosses love you. Making a conscious choice to show up as your most brilliant self.
When we think about learning and genius, we used to say there are four levels of competence:
- Unconscious incompetence is when you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t even know there’s something to learn. There’s actually a slightly worse version of this – when you think you’re good at something but really you’re not. It’s an effect called the Dunning-Kruger Effect – the Ted-Ed video in the link explains it well.
- Conscious incompetence is actually a better place to be. Because now you know what you don’t know, and you can go learn it. This is when what I call proto-geniuses really come into their own. Because you are willing to learn, and don’t over-estimate your abilities. You are on the road to becoming truly exceptional.
- Conscious competence is where you will end up next. You’ve learned enough to get good at your work. Right now you may need to think about what you’re doing, to be sure you get it right. And if you actively practice what you’ve learned, it will soon become second nature.
- Unconscious competence has you producing superb work without even thinking about it. You can almost do the work in your sleep, you’ve become so practiced at it. You’re no longer wondering whether you’re getting it right, now you don’t even have to remember how to get it right. This is a great place to be, because it’s when you get into that place of “flow”.
Flow and being brilliant with volition
You want your work to be something that you can do with ease, but you don’t want it to be too easy. If the work you do is easily within your abilities, that’s unlikely to produce a flow state in your work. In Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow” he talks about the balance between the demands of the task and the skills that you have to perform it. But there’s also a need for there to be a high enough level of challenge.
Without the challenge, apathy or complacency can quickly set in. And that’s definitely not a flow state. And it’s certainly not brilliance! What’s also needed is a willingness to examine your practice with a view to challenging yourself a bit more. To seek to find ways to improve even further.
That brings us to the next level of competence, the one where real mastery lies. Where you are being brilliant with volition, by conscious choice, not just naturally.
Level 5: Reflective Competence
Where real genius lies is in knowing that you still have lots to learn. And consciously seeking to identify what that is. To make sure you are being brilliant with volition, the place to start is by reflecting on why you are so good at what you do. After each piece of work that you’ve done with unconscious competence, take the time to look back at it.
What did you do that made it go so well? And especially what meant it delivered a great outcome for your employer or customer. Not just the obvious bits like applying techniques or skills well. Think about all the little subtleties that mean you do it better than others. Because those are where your genius resides, not in the technical stuff.
But also ask yourself what you could have improved. The best way to avoid falling foul of Dunning-Kruger is to challenge yourself to find ways to improve. Because that’s how you stay ahead of the game. I see so many people who were once the top person in their field. And they rest on their laurels, and suddenly what was their genius has become a bit ‘old hat’, with new ideas and approaches overtaking them from all sides.
Being brilliant with volition requires humility
As soon as you think you’ve got it all worked out, there’s one thing that’s certain: you haven’t!
You’ve just run out of imaginative ways to challenge yourself. Whatever your particular magic is, and whoever you love to use it on, you will only stay brilliant if you stay curious. Being in your genius means believing there’s still room for growth.
If you think you know all there is to know – about your subject, and about applying your genius for the good of your clients – then you are just one step away from that complacency that has seen erstwhile experts become also-rans.
What else is possible?
In Access Consciousness* there is a simple phrase that is often used to come up with creative solutions to problems: “What else is possible?” It can create quite magical results – like the time Daniela and I got upgraded from a noisy room with a view of the car-park to an idyllic top-floor sea-view room, even though we’d booked through a discount ticket agent and the hotel was supposedly full.
That was quite a few years ago, and it was my first experience of the potency of a such question. You can read the post about it here on my old site. These days I prefer to use the question in an even more expansive way. Instead of using it to solve a problem, I’ll ask it when there isn’t one. It reminds me that there is always something else that’s possible in terms of ways to delight your customer (internal & external). We just need to be willing to explore it.
So if you want to be even better at what you already have a genius for, my challenge to you is to make a conscious choice to seek out more and better ways to serve your ideal clients. To be brilliant with volition.
If this post has got you thinking, and you’d like to explore how you might access your brilliance with more volition, take a look at how to work with me
* Access Consciousness empowers people to help themselves. It is available to everyone, can be included in your everyday life, and can be applied without outside help. The tools and techniques of Access Consciousness focus on your knowledge about yourself and the world around you. It is essential in Access that nobody except you personally can know what truly works for you.
