Growth rarely happens when people stay only with what they already know how to do well. It happens when they reach the edge of their current skills, the point where existing capability is stretched, challenged, and ready to develop further.
In Creative Solutions (2017), Dr. L. Michael Hall described this as the place where motivation, inspiration, interest, and engagement become most activated:
“The place where your motivation, inspiration, interest, and engagement are optimally activated is at the edge of your skills. In the flow zone your skills are stretched so they can rise up to meet a challenge. Consequently, there you are fully engaged and fully present.” (Hall, 2017, p. 198)
The important idea is this: the edge of a skill is not the end of potential. It is often the beginning of the next stage of development.
But recognising that edge is only useful if a person knows what to do with it.
A practical way to approach skill development is through four steps:
Identify the Edge → Understand the Gap → Practise Deliberately → Seek Feedback and Stretch Again.
Step 1: Identify the Edge of the Skill
The first step is to identify where current capability begins to break down.
For many people, the edge appears when a task becomes uncomfortable, inconsistent, or difficult to perform at the desired standard.
A coach, for example, may be able to ask good questions but struggle to challenge a client effectively. A trainer may understand the subject well but find it difficult to engage an audience. A leader may be comfortable giving instructions but less confident facilitating difficult conversations.
The edge becomes clearer when a person asks:
- What can be done confidently and consistently?
- What still requires a great deal of effort?
- Where does performance become inconsistent?
- What can more skilled practitioners do that this person cannot yet do?
- What skill, if improved, would make the greatest difference?
The answers begin to reveal the growing edge.
Instead of seeing this gap as evidence of inadequacy, it can be viewed as useful information.
It shows where development should happen next.
Step 2: Understand What Is Holding the Skill Back
Once the edge has been identified, the next question is: Is the limitation coming from meaning, performance, or both?
This distinction is important within Neuro-Semantics.
The Genius State describes the synergistic relationship between meaning and performance. People do not simply perform skills mechanically. Their actions are influenced by the meanings they attach to those actions, their understanding, beliefs, values, expectations, frames, and sense of importance.
Sometimes a person does not need more practice first. They need a better understanding of what they are doing.
For example, someone may need to:
- deepen their knowledge of the skill;
- understand the context more clearly;
- recognise why the skill matters;
- change an unhelpful belief about their own capability;
- expand the meaning they attach to the activity.
At other times, the person understands the skill perfectly well but has simply not practised it enough. This is why effective development requires examining both sides:
Meaning: What does the person understand, believe, value, and frame about the skill?
Performance: How effectively can the person translate those meanings into behaviour?
When meaning and performance work together, engagement increases and the conditions for breakthrough become much stronger.
Step 3: Turn the Gap into Deliberate Practice
Once the development gap is clear, improvement needs to become specific.
Simply saying, “I need to become a better coach,” “I need to communicate better,” or “I need to improve my leadership” is too broad. Instead, the person should identify the exact behaviour that needs development.
For example:
Instead of “I need to become a better trainer,” the focus might become:
“I need to improve how I ask questions that encourage participants to think rather than simply giving them the answer.”
Instead of “I need to improve my coaching,” the focus might be:
“I need to become more comfortable challenging a client’s frame while maintaining rapport.”
That creates something that can actually be practised.
Deliberate practice may involve:
- repeating one specific skill until it becomes more natural;
- breaking a larger capability into smaller sub-skills;
- practising with peers;
- joining a practice group;
- recording coaching or training sessions;
- reviewing the recording afterwards;
- studying skilled practitioners;
- focusing intensively on one weak area before moving to another.
This is where the edge becomes valuable.
Instead of trying to improve everything, the person works on the next small capability beyond their current level.
Step 4: Use Feedback to Discover What Cannot Be Seen Alone
One of the biggest challenges in skill development is that people cannot always accurately evaluate their own performance.
They may believe they are doing something well when others experience it differently. They may also underestimate abilities that have already become strengths.
Feedback provides an external mirror.
Within the Meta-Coaching community, for example, practitioners can work with other Meta-Coaches who observe their performance against benchmark criteria. This allows them to discover more clearly what they can already do and what still needs development.
The same principle applies beyond coaching.
A person developing a professional skill can ask a trusted colleague, mentor, trainer, or peer:
- What am I doing well?
- Where do you see me becoming less effective?
- What is one thing I could improve that would significantly strengthen my performance?
High performers actively seek this kind of information. They do not avoid discovering what they cannot yet do. They want to know. Because what they cannot yet do becomes the next development opportunity.
Step 5: Stretch the Skill Again
Skill development is not a one-time exercise. Once one edge has been developed, another appears. What was once difficult becomes familiar. What once required concentration becomes automatic. The person’s capability expands, and a new edge emerges. This is the dynamic process of unleashing potential.
Development therefore becomes a continuous cycle:
1. Identify the edge.
Recognise where current capability reaches its limit.
2. Understand the gap.
Determine whether development is needed in meaning, understanding, performance, or practice.
3. Choose one skill to strengthen.
Make the development goal specific and observable.
4. Practise deliberately.
Focus on the behaviour repeatedly rather than simply gaining more information.
5. Seek feedback.
Use others to reveal strengths and blind spots.
6. Stretch again.
Once the skill improves, find the next edge.
The Edge-of-Skills Challenge
Readers can put this idea into practice by choosing one skill they want to improve over the next few weeks.
It may be related to coaching, training, leadership, communication, parenting, business, or any other important area. Then complete these five statements:
- The skill I want to improve is:
- What I can already do well is:
- The point where I begin to struggle is:
- The one behaviour I need to practise more is:
- The person I can ask for feedback is:
This simple exercise turns an abstract desire for improvement into a clear development direction.
Do Not Hide the Edge, Use It
People sometimes try to protect themselves from discovering the limits of their abilities. Yet the edge of a skill does not need to be embarrassing. It can be one of the most useful places to be. It reveals where greater understanding is needed. It identifies what should be practised next. It provides direction for learning and creates the possibility of renewed engagement and passion.
For Dr. Hall, the edge of his skills represents the next place for improvement, development, and unleashing. It provides direction for study, practice, and the possibility of becoming more capable. The same principle can be applied by anyone committed to development.
So perhaps the most useful question is not: “How good am I at this?”
But rather: “Where is the edge of my skill, and what will I do next to move beyond it?”
Because the edge is not where development stops. It is where the next breakthrough begins.
Curated by Danielle Tan.
Reference:
- [Certified_Meta-Coach] 2026 Morpheus #33 AT THE EDGE OF YOUR SKILLS by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. Executive Director, ISNS.
