How to Turn Knowledge into a Process of Building Skills
Thinking that “knowledge is power” is a mistake. Knowledge is the potential for power, but it’s not power. Knowledge only leads to power when you use knowledge to build skills. Moreover, the only way to do that is to use the knowledge you gain to develop methods to practice the skills you need to apply that knowledge.
This means knowing more than just what to do. You must also know how to start as a beginner and progressively improve to the level of an expert. Then you must do it to see if it actually works. There are five steps in this process.
1. Clarify Your Mindset
As you research, read books, watch videos, and listen to podcast a variety of thoughts flow through your mind as you acquire new knowledge. Thoughts like:
- I can do that. / I can’t do that.
- That sounds complicated. / That sounds simple.
- I don’t have the skills to do that. / I have the skills to do that.
- I don’t have enough money to get started. / I have the money, but I don’t want to risk it on something that might not work.
This is just a sample of some of the thoughts you may have, but both you and I know that both the negative and positive thoughts are limitless. However, at this step you want to ignore most of these thoughts. Maybe if a few of those thoughts keep coming up, jot them down in a notebook and revisit them in the planning stage. But right now, assume that your success is inevitable. All you must do is have the right mindset and execute.
The right mindset is a:
- Process and not an outcome mindset
- Growth and not a fixed mindset
- Building strengths and not a fixing weaknesses mindset
- Tasks and not an ego mindset
2. Begin with The End in Mind
Step two comes from the classic Stephen Covey book you’ve probably either already read or heard of a thousand times…The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The second of the seven habits Covey describes is Begin with the End in Mind. Covey States
‘Begin with the end in mind’ is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.
Another way to put this is to know your purpose. Why are you acquiring all this knowledge? What specifically do you want to achieve by spending so much time researching, reading books, watching videos, and listening to podcast? Who do you want to help and what’s driving your motivation?
At this step you must remember your purpose is not the same thing as your goal. A purpose is bigger than you. It’s not just a passion and it’s not just a goal either. Purpose is the combination of passion and the desire to achieve a goal with an impact bigger than self. Moreover, unlike a goal you can only have one purpose at a time.
To conclude, this step is all about self-motivation. If your purpose at the end does not provide you with the self-motivation to begin and keep going, don’t go any further until it does.
3. Create a Plan for a Progression
Once you are ready to begin with the end in mind, it’s time to work backwards from the end and then reverse engineer a plan that will get you to that end using a progression. A progression is the process of starting where you are currently, and then gradually layering on new abilities to progress towards where you want to be.
This requires a four-step process:
- Use the knowledge you have acquired to break down the skills required for progress into 3 or 4 essentials. An essential is a skill that is absolutely necessary or extremely important to the process of making progress.
- Identify the meta skills you need for each of the essential skills. Meta skills are the skills you need to build a skill.
- Organize each of the meta-skills in the logical order of progression. This means you must be able to do the first meta skill before you can do the second meta skill, and so on and so forth. For example, the order for the meta skills of a handstand push-up are a) A normal push-up, b) a pike push-up, c) a pike push-up with feet on a box, d) a wall supported isometric handstand, e) a wall supported handstand push-up, f) then finally a handstand push-up.
- Execute a plan of mastering each meta skill. The plan at a minimum should include a daily practice schedule in the logical progression order and target dates for the progression advancement milestones.
4. Identify How You Will Hold Yourself Accountable
Who will hold you accountable to turning your knowledge into skills? If you have done the research, read the books, watched the videos, and listened to podcast about a subject and still have not taken action, you must develop a plan for accountability.
Formally appointing someone to the job of holding you accountable is the single biggest step you can take towards turning knowledge into skills. The fact is an accountability partner is a game changer. Sometimes all you need to take action is for someone to give you a slight nudge. Other times when the challenge is greater you need a kick in the ass. Either way, a formally appointed accountability partner is the best way to get that extra motivation you need.
5. Track, Analyze, and Adjust Your Process
Don’t trust the process, verify the process. You may have done everything right to this point and your process still may be slightly off. The historic rule of thumb for air navigation is that being just 1 degree off will send you 1 mile off course for every 60 miles you travel. So, the longer you are off course, the further a 1-degree mistake will get you from your goal destination. This same thinking applies when executing a plan.
Therefore, it’s so important to track, analyze, and adjust. You must be able to answer simple questions like:
- How do I know the process is working?
- Is the process working fast or slow, and is that the intent?
- Am on schedule with the process based on the time of year and the deadlines I need to meet?
- Is there something I can do to make the process work better for me?
To answer these questions, you need expertise. This is where a coach or mentor could really help. What’s more, coaches and mentors love helping those who help themselves first. If you get this far, you have proved that you’re willing to help yourself. As a result, finding a coach or mentor to help you track, analyze, and adjust your process will not be a problem.