From Clueless to Capable: Finding Your Way Through the 4 Stages of Competence

There’s a phase of flying where everything feels… fine.

Even when it probably isn’t! ⚡️

The checks flow, the weather behaves, and nothing really surprises you. You go home thinking, yeah, that was alright. No stress. No drama. No reason to overthink it.

The problem is that this is often the phase where threats have the easiest time to ruin your day.

Because that kind of comfort doesn’t always come from experience. Sometimes it comes from not yet seeing where the sharp edges are.

Then reality taps you on the shoulder.

You start noticing gaps. Feeling less sure. Wondering how everyone else seems so calm while you’re suddenly working much harder for the same result.

If flying ever felt more complex just as you thought you were getting better, you’re not alone.

There’s a pattern to this. And the uncomfortable part is that you don’t go through it once. You repeat it every time you start a:

🔸New type
🔸New operation
🔸New role

There are 4 stages, and how competent you think you are throughout them feels a bit like this:

But this is perceived competence, not actual competence, we’ll show the “actual” graph further down ⤵️

So what are the traps hidden in the four stages of competence, and how do you move through them in the most efficient way?

1️⃣ Unconsciously Incompetent

This is the stage that rarely feels like a problem.

In fact, it often feels pretty good.

You know the flows, the calls sound right, and most flights go more or less as expected. When something unusual pops up, there’s usually someone else around to catch it. From the inside, this doesn’t feel like incompetence at all.

It feels like confidence.

The risk here isn’t arrogance or laziness. It’s simply not seeing what you don’t yet understand. Threats are still abstract. Margins feel generous, and consequences feel far away.

Procedures work, but often without you fully appreciating why they’re there. And because nothing has gone wrong yet, it’s easy to assume things are going well.

This stage offers very little feedback. If the flight ends safely, it’s tempting to treat that as proof that your decisions were sound, even when they were just untested.

You usually only recognise this phase later, once your picture of the job has grown.

🔸 How to move to the next phase?

You can’t force your way out of this stage.

You move on by paying attention. Ask why things are done a certain way. Listen closely to debriefs. Notice what almost caught you out.

Curiosity, not confidence, is what carries you forward.

2️⃣ Consciously Incompetent

This is the stage that starts to hurt a little, and where I feel like to spend most of my time 😅

Nothing about the job has suddenly changed here, but your experience of it has.

You start noticing gaps where before there were none. Situations feel busier. Decisions take longer. Things you once did on autopilot now demand attention.

It can feel like you’ve gone backwards.

But you haven’t!

What’s really happened is that your picture of the job has expanded. You’re starting to see the complexity that was always there, but previously invisible.

Threats feel closer now. Margins feel thinner. You realise how much judgement sits between “legal” and “safe”.

This stage is uncomfortable because awareness grows faster than skill. You know enough to spot problems, but not always enough to feel confident dealing with them. It’s also where comparison creeps in, everyone else seems calmer, quicker, more capable.

Many people try to escape this phase as fast as possible.

That’s a mistake, because this is where real learning starts!

🔸 How to move to the next phase?

Don’t rush this phase.

Slow things down. Narrate your thinking. Ask questions early, not after the fact. Treat uncertainty as useful information, not weakness.

Skill catches up with awareness through repetition, reflection, and time, not shortcuts.

3️⃣ Consciously Competent

This is the stage where things start working again, but definitely not effortlessly.

You can handle the job now. You see problems earlier, make better decisions, and recover more smoothly when things don’t go to plan.

But none of it is automatic yet. Every flight takes conscious thought. Every decision costs a lot of energy.

It’s a reassuring phase, but also a tiring one.

You’re doing the right things, just very deliberately. You brief more carefully, verbalise your plans, and stay a step ahead where you can. The workload is manageable, but you feel it by the end of the day.

This stage builds quiet confidence. Not the loud kind that comes from not knowing, but the calmer kind that comes from understanding what could go wrong, and staying ahead of it.

The risk here is subtle. Because things are improving, it’s tempting to relax too early or assume you’ve “got it now”.

You do it, just not automatically (yet).

🔸 How to move to the next phase?

Keep doing the basics well.

Repetition helps a lot here, but reflection is a massive boost. Notice what no longer needs conscious effort, and what still does.

I personally keep a journal to write down what decisions were horrendous, and what worked really well. Both are important!

Unconscious competence arrives quietly, once you’ve practiced judgement enough so it becomes more naturally.

4️⃣ Unconsciously Competent

This is the goal most of us have: actually being unconsciously competent.

At this stage, things often feel natural. You’re no longer thinking about the basics, because they’re simply there.

Your scan is wider, your timing better, and your decision-making is calmer. You have loads of spare capacity again, and you know how to use it.

So to show the correct graph this time:

But this stage isn’t about being relaxed or switched off. It’s having enough experience that good judgement happens naturally, in the background, without needing constant effort.

The threat here is that familiarity can slowly replace curiosity. Comfort can begin to look a lot like complacency.

The difference is awareness! 👀

Unconscious competence isn’t the absence of thought, it’s the result of years of thinking that no longer needs to be deliberate.

We don’t publish all our Notes from the Cockpit (like this one) publicly, some are shared only by email. Get the next one sent straight to your inbox ⤵️

The pilots who stay safe here are the ones who keep noticing small changes, asking quiet questions, and resisting the idea that they’ve “arrived”.

Because sooner or later, something new will reset this cycle again. Whether we want to or not!

💭 Conclusion

Most of us don’t go through these stages just once.

We keep coming back to them with every new type, new operation, or new role, or even a simple SOP change.

The trick isn’t trying to skip the early stages, but recognising where you are and giving yourself some time there.

Feeling unsure doesn’t mean you’re doing a bad job. Quite often it means you’re on track of becoming a more competent version of yourself!