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I am sure all of you make hundreds of decisions, solve problems, cope with stressful situations in your day to day life. We have all become familiar with the term soft skills by now, and also probably attended several training programs arranged for, by our organisation, educational institute or even attended a few on our own. What we also know is that, these are not innate talents, but skills that can be learned, enhanced and developed. These soft skills, also known as life skills, are a must to have a personal, professional and socially productive life. In this blog post I have mentioned 10 most used soft skills or life skills, with tips on how to utilise them, to navigate through the daily challenges of life. Here, this famous and apt quote comes to mind,
"The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences." - Eleanor Roosevelt.
Therefore, we as progressive, and innovative beings kept questioning, if these life skills, that most people take for granted, can actually be learned. And as mentioned above, the answer to that question is an emphatic YES!
So, lets look at some important skills identified through Delphi method by the WHO.
Here are 10 Quick tips about life skills:
1. Decision making: The tip for making balanced decisions, is to understand the complete process of decision making. A quick way to accomplish this, is to first identify, what kind of outcome, you want to achieve out of the decision. Here, your beliefs play a major role. So, first you would need to select a particular course of action or belief from a number of possibilities, and then evaluate each decision according to your beliefs and consequences, and then select the best.
2. Problem solving: We face a number of problems throughout the course of the day, that require immediate or long term solutions. A few most popular techniques used are, brainstorming, root cause analysis and trial and error. There are however, 2 types of problems well defined and ill defined problems. Problems that have clear goal, solution paths and expected solutions are well defined problems, whereas those that don't fulfill those 3 criteria are termed ill defined problems. After understanding which one your problem is, you can set a goal and then apply the 3 criteria mentioned to find a solution to the problem.
An example of a lateral thinking question: 2 people A and B, are sitting opposite each other. They looked at the matter, written on the paper which is on the table. One said "it is right" and the other said "it is wrong" how is it possible?
The matter written on the paper is X=IX+I
Answer: A sees it as X=IX+I (he says "it is right"), where as for B is looks like I+XI=X(so he says "it is wrong")
4. Critical thinking/ perspicacity: We encounter many circumstances in life where we need to evaluate if something is right or wrong. It may not always be a moral decision, but also in cases of thinking if a particular product or service is profitable or not for a business venture. Even in our day to day activities, we need to use critical thinking. For eg: If a friend or family is being rude to you and snapping at every suggestion you make, at finding a solution, you would need critical thinking skills to understand where your friend is coming from, and not react emotionally. We can do this,by objective analysis of facts to form judgement, this is critical thinking. Taking critical thinking a little further we come to a concept called Perspicacity, this is what provides a deeper insight into the judgement.
5. Effective Communication: In order to communicate verbally or using words, we first need to know a language in which we want to communicate. Once we have a reasonable level of knowledge of the language, we can then enhance our method of communicating our thoughts and feelings. This act of conveying a message from one to another, with the objective of getting the desired response is called Effective Communication. Some of the basic ways in which we communicate are visual, auditory and tactile or touch.
6. Interpersonal skills: As a popular saying goes, "No man is an island" - John Donne-1624, so we need to interact with people all the time. We build friendships, commit to marriages, take on the responsibility of parenting, hope to empower employees and employers these are all examples of interpersonal relationships. These strong deep close associations between 2 people, in various settings like business, love or duty require interpersonal skills, so as to be positive, beneficial and long lasting.
7. Self Awareness: The greatest challenge, we face as human beings is self awareness. It is easier for us to guess what a friend may be thinking or why he/she is feeling upset, but very difficult for us to understand our own feelings and responses. As we would all agree, most of life''s major decisions are based on self awareness. Who are our friends? Who will we marry or date? What career will we choose? Where do we want to live? etc... If you go through life without being aware of yourselves, then you will inevitably be making wrong choices, and follow the crowd instead of being true to your calling in in life. An effective way to look at your likes, dislikes, belief systems, and to be able to understand yourself in relation to the environment and other individuals, can be done by a method called Introspection, which simply means to look within yourself for answers.
8. Assertiveness: It is not uncommon to be confused about how to respond in a situation where you feel you are being unfairly dealt with. For eg: You have a sick child/spouse or a family member at home and need to reach home on time if not a little early that day, however your boss insists that you stay late and complete a report or attend a meeting which is not really important, you will have to be assertive and let your boss know that you have other commitments after office hours, as well. This requires a mature response, where in you don't allow people walk over you nor do you step on someone else's toes, while trying to state your view or needs. So, this art of being self assured and confident without being aggressive is called assertiveness. This is an essential skill required almost every day and every minute of your life, in personal and professional situations.
9. Emotional Intelligence: As made very popular by Dr. Daniel Goleman in 1995(after which there have been many more books to date), EQ (emotional intelligence) is as important as IQ in life. The ability to understand and observe, what you feel, what another person is feeling, from their frame of reference, and your response to a particular situation, is how you can practice emotional intelligence. In certain extreme situations, where people are faced with tragedies or traumas, emotional intelligence, if practiced regularly can help prevent various psychological and psychiatric problems as well. So, it is a very valuable skill to acquire.
10. Coping Skills: We need coping skills today more than at any other time in history. We have so many things, coming at us as such a rapid pace, that there is hardly enough time, to process and understand what these messages are trying to convey. Since we are not consciously aware of information being presented, very often these go into the subconscious mind. This is why we are stressed out and worried all the time, sometimes not even sure why. This makes coping skills a very essential skill to deal with the overwhelming emotions and situations. Therefore this, conscious effort to reduce stress starts its development from childhood through adulthood by observing others and by trial and error.
I do hope these 10 quick tips about life skills will help you live a more meaningful and fulfilled life. You can also check out these 2 Must Read books on life skills, which I have recommended as follow up read to this article.
That's all for now. Till we meet in my next post, bye and take care!
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