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We’ve all experienced it.
The feeling of being stuck learning something new and making no progress.
You try, you fail, and yet others seem to advance ahead of you effortlessly. I’ve been there and it sucks. But geniuses aren’t born, they’re made. And whether they realize it or not, they’ve mastered something about learning that most people don’t.
Take writing, for example. A common piece of advice you will hear from experienced writers, is to write garbage often in order to improve. But even writing garbage is a skill. Translating a vague thought into a coherent sentence, even an imperfect one, takes practice.
Learning is about turning chaos into order.
It’s about embracing imperfection, while finding clarity among the noise. And to do that, you need to understand how learning actually works.
Because learning isn’t a single step, it happens in phases. You don’t go from clueless to expert by doing the same thing a thousand times.
First, you gather raw data.
Then you organize it into information.
With practice, that information turns into knowledge.
And through experience, knowledge evolves into wisdom.
If you don’t recognize each point in your journey, you can get stuck, slowing your progress or preventing it entirely.
But once you learn how to shift gears, the road becomes clear.
Let’s explore each step in more detail.
1. Gathering Data
Learning a skill from scratch is like dumping a thousand puzzle pieces onto the floor with no picture to guide you.
You have scattered fragments of something, but no clear sense of how it fits together. Its raw, unstructured data: facts, numbers, and insights you’ve read, heard, or seen in action. But on their own, data points are meaningless.
It’s like knowing an app is made by writing code. If it’s for the iPhone, you’d use Swift, and probably need a Mac to build it. But that’s all you know.
You consume a lot, but understand little. You read case studies, listen to experts, or watch tutorials. But the concepts still feel foreign and disjointed.
It’s like trying to build something with borrowed knowledge: Knowing what to type, but not why it works.
Vibe coding, for example, is a growing trend that enables even beginners to build apps with AI just by describing what they want in natural language. It’s powerful, but it skips the fundamentals of programming. You’re copying results, not the thinking behind them. It works great at first, but eventually, you’ll hit roadblocks you can’t fix.
If you…
constantly consume content but struggle to apply it
attempt intermediate-level tasks without mastering the basics
rely heavily on AI or shortcuts, skipping the underlying concepts
Then you’re stuck at the very first stage of learning and you only move past it by turning that raw data into something usable.
2. Organizing Information
This is where chaos transforms into order.
The puzzle pieces start to fit together. Patterns emerge. You begin to see how things are connected.
Information is data that has been given meaning.
You revisit what you learned, but this time, you organize it. You take notes that actually make sense. You build systems around your learning.
It’s the moment you realize that knowing Swift and owning a MacBook isn’t the same as building an app from start to finish: fixing bugs, testing, and deploying it.
You’re no longer just aware of a few concepts, you’re starting to map how they relate to each other. You might start using tools like Notion to structure your thoughts and track your progress.
You’re not an expert yet, but you’re capable of solving your own basic problems.
For example, long before I became a cloud engineer, I worked on an IT help desk. Entry-level roles like this require little expertise. When a customer called with a problem, I didn’t need deep technical knowledge, just access to the right information. I had knowledge articles, troubleshooting guides, and my own notes to guide me.
But I was relying on information, not expertise.
I could identify problems and apply pre-defined solutions, but I didn’t always understand why they worked.
But over time, those organized notes and patterns stop being something you look up, they start becoming second nature. That’s when you shift from simply understanding something, to truly knowing it.
3. Building Your Knowledge
You begin to see the bigger picture.
You can interpret, apply, and solve problems.
Where information answers the what and how of doing something, knowledge answers the why and when, giving you the ability to make judgment calls and adapt to new situations.
If Information is data that has been given meaning, then knowledge is information that’s been internalized. You begin to understand the principles behind the information and how to use it effectively in different scenarios.
Sticking with the iPhone app example, you’d be able to build whatever type of app you wanted. You could look at other software and deconstruct it to understand how it might have been developed, and then even replicate it if you wanted to. Because you’re no longer restricted by gaps in your knowledge.
You still Google things occasionally, but now you understand the answers. You ask more specific questions. You can troubleshoot when something breaks. You’re not just following steps, you’re thinking through them and finding a solution.
4. Wisdom
This is the most elusive stage: The level of mastery that takes years, sometimes decades, to reach. When you see a true expert at work, they make it look effortless. But what you’re really witnessing is experience distilled into intuition.
People who are so deeply skilled that they don’t just follow best practices, they redefine them. Their decisions are instinctive, but that instinct was forged through years of trial, error, and refinement.
Experts know when to break the rules.
They have the ability to see what others cannot. They understand a situation beyond the surface level and have the discernment to recognize what is true and what isn’t.
If you’re struggling in your learning journey, in your career, in a new skill, or even in life — it’s rarely because of a lack of effort. More often, it’s because you haven’t developed the clarity to diagnose the real problem. And that clarity only comes from repetition, failure, and learning from those who’ve walked the path before you.
The truth is, the people who seem to speed past you aren’t always more talented. They’ve just reached a level of clarity, allowing them to know exactly where they are and what they need to work on next.
Someone with average intelligence but deep curiosity, and the discipline to show up every day, will outgrow someone ten times smarter who only shows up when they feel like it.
Stick with it long enough and genius becomes inevitable.
