Conscious competence, running and cultural differences

I ran 14 k yesterday.  Mindfully. 

I’m training for a half marathon, which is approaching way too quickly.  Two weeks ago I ran in the City to Surf, a Sydney event with over 85,000 competitors running and walking 14k to Bondi Beach.  In that event I developed back pain and last week visited a physiotherapist for advice.  She showed me how tight the muscles were around my ribs and how immobile I held my upper body while running.  In addition to some nifty stretches and a good massage she encouraged me to move my arms more freely and rotate through my upper body while running.

And so to yesterday’s mindful running with each step and arm movement something I was consciously observing.  It feels weird to try to change something you’ve been doing for years.  Something that has become natural and second nature.   It’s even strange just being consciously aware of it and noticing what you are doing as a mindful observer.

With all things we have learnt to do and have been doing for some time we are usually unconsciously competent – we are good at it without needing to think about it.   But I wasn’t actually good at it. My learned running style was creating an injury and I needed to relearn.  So as I ran I was aware of what I was doing wrong.  I was conscious of my incompetence.  At times I would get into the stride of running as the physio had described and I was conscious of doing it well – conscious competence.  But often that didn’t last especially as I became tired and my mindfulness dropped and I returned to my injury producing style, running in a way that was unconsciously incompetent.

It’s a bit like that when we are operating in another culture.  Our unconscious style is “right” for our own culture but often doesn’t work effectively in another culture.  Initially we may be completely unaware of how ineffective we are – we are unconsciously incompetent, perhaps unaware that our direct communications style is coming across as rude or unsophisticated, or if we are used to an indirect style we may think we have communicated a negative response but the other party didn’t hear it.

Then as we become aware we have the uncomfortable sensation of conscious incompetence, aware when we are doing the wrong thing but not yet able to naturally and easily change our most natural way of operating.  And then we move on to the stage I was at yesterday - operating consciously, thinking carefully about our words, our gestures, the possible implications and interpretations and watching and observing, consciously competent and aware of what is working and what isn’t.

It’s not as easy or as comfortable operating in this way –but at least we know what the problem is.  At least we know what we need to do and can work or train through the difficulties until the new ways of doing things become easy –and we again become unconsciously incompetent.

Until it’s time to return “home” to our own culture again…..