Plan Your Exit
I am certain that you have heard, in one form or the other, the saying “you need a plan B”, and while that stands true; I certainly encourage you to always have not only a plan B, but also B1, B2 then C, C1, C2…
Dear reader, today, I also encourage you to Plan Your Exit.
But what exit am I talking about and where should you exit from?
Let’s find out.
If you are an avid follower of mine and have read my blogs, then you would certainly know that I, not only encourage you to pivot but also coach and mentor you to build goals and set plans to achieve them and so it stands to reason that the exit I am referring to, is linked to the principle of change and growth.
But, this time, there is a small caveat. In this blog specifically, I want YOU to plan your exit from a specific mindset.
I want you to plan your exit from the stage of conscious competence* or as Gay Hendricks calls it: the zone of excellence and in order to understand the principle and for you to better plan your exit here are the 4 level of competence that equal the 4 zones of life that Gay speaks to and how they relate to your learning, growth and stagnation cycles.
You’re Unconsciously Incompetent: this is the zone where, you don’t know that you don’t know. In life stages, it’s called the zone of incompetence where you focus time and energy on learning then doing -at least I hope for your saying that you learn then execute. This stage is where all of your life experiences happen. This is often where you would find yourself asking “why me?” The answer is because you don’t know that you don’t know and things happen to you because you have to learn and figure out the answer. That’s how you build expertise and experience. This stage is crucial and is a necessary evil for all growth to occur
You’re Consciously Incompetent: when you get here, you’re either in a great mindset or stressed AF! because here you realize that you know that you don’t know. You have awareness of what needs to be done and you are also aware that you are not yet proficient at the job. This zone is called the zone of competence because, if you value growth and success then you take the reigns and you execute. You work, you try, you fail, you analyze, fix and re-try. It’s a great place, especially if you enjoy the learning process and the victory that comes with realizing that you have achieved small milestones. The draw back of this stage is that it’s time consuming and that’s where a lot of people waste their time and consequently lives, because they get sucked into the day to day and it becomes the norm. If your stuck in this zone, results eventually will become mediocre and so will you… enter zone 3
You become Consciously Competent: you have done well for yourself and you moved from stage 2 of the learning curve to the stage where you know that you know! In Gay Hendrick’s words this is the zone of excellence. Aaah! such a lovely ring to it. The zone of excellence… where life is good; you have achieved a strong standing, prominent status, you do well for yourself, you earn a good living. You are employed, you get paid a good salary and you present strong results, you may be even solicited from recruiters and head hunters that want to poach you for other companies. What a lovely place to be, just cruising and if you find yourself in this zone, enjoy it a little but then PLAN YOUR EXIT FROM THIS ZONE. This is what I call the danger zone because this is where complacency sets in. While you are enjoying the comfort of your zone, others are hard at play and soon will overtake you so get out and move to the final stage where
You’re Unconsciously Competent: The ultimate stage of learning where you do and it works! This becomes the zone of genius. When you reach this zone, you would find that people/clients call upon you for your expertise to solve problems that are easy for you but difficult for most. In this beautiful zone, you spend your time on things that really matter, like family, kids, hobbies, traveling and most importantly creating. I say creating because, if you have been aware enough to reach this zone then you know that there is no real end, but rather the beauty is within the process and so you are equipped with all the expertise from zone 3 but you want to grow and so you start building new skills and competencies, perhaps innovate on the ways you use those said skills and competencies and you are ready to restart the 4 stages - with one major difference; when you go back to zone 1, you would be conscious that you are unconsciously incompetent!
Plan your exit, the sooner you begin, the greater the accomplishments stemming from your genius zone will be!
And if you are not sure which zone you’re currently in or how to plan your exit… Here’s Good News: You Can Make It, Get in Touch and we can work together to plan your exit.
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Written by Tarek Azmi.
Founder of Here’s Good News, a training and development company dedicated to your personal and professional growth, offering learning modules, coaching sessions and personal training with this blog and the podcast to motivate and drive you to TAKE ACTION!
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Notes:
Based on the work of Management Trainer Martin M. Broadwell’s model “the four levels of teaching” - 1969
Paul R. Curtis and Philip W. Wallen, “The Dynamics of Life Skills Coaching” - 1973
Gay Hendricks, “The Big Leap” -2009
Image credit to Thomas Le, @thomasble, unsplash.com