Reflections on athletes’ mindfulness skills development: Fitts and Posner’s (1967) three stages of learning

Abstract

As athletes embark on a journey to develop their mindfulness practice, it is imperative that they have some sense of the possible major developmental stages to expect. In this article, I reflect on the stages of learning model by Fitts and Posner (1967), popularly adopted by coaches to facilitate motor skills acquisition, as a conceptualization that can be useful for making sense of developmental progression in mindfulness practice. The three stages are: cognitive stage, associative stage, and autonomous stage. These deliberations may offer athletes some guidance as they approach and develop their personal mindfulness practice.