Life skills are the inevitable competencies needed for a professional. For the successful & fruitful functioning of profession as a dedication ,together with hard skills professionals must be mastered with life skills also.
Life skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitudes, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence quotients, among others, that enable people to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.The desirable qualities needed for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude.These are the skills that define your relationships with other people, or how you approach life and work.
UNICEF defines life skills as ” a behaviour change or behavior development approach designed to address a balance of three areas viz knowledge, attitude and skills.”Life skills are essentially those abilities that help to promote mental well being and competence in people as they face the realities of life.
Practicing life skills leads to self esteem, sociability and tolerance, to the ability take action and make a change and eventually develop a charismatic personality. Thus life skills or competencies are an essential factor that decides the success of a professional.
WHO identified ten core life skills and categorized them under three headings as follows
- Skills of knowing and living with oneself
- Skills of knowing and living with others
- Skills of making effective and good decisions.
Let's examine each component in detail
10 CORE LIFE SKILLS LISTED BY WHO
| Skills of knowing and living with oneself | Skills of knowing and living with others | Skills of making effective and good decisions. |
|---|---|---|
| Self awareness | Effective communication skill | Decision making skill |
| Coping with emotions | Negotiation skill | Critical thinking |
| Stress management. | Empathy | Problem solving |
| Interpersonal skills |
1.SKILL OF KNOWING AND LIVING WITH ONESELF
- Self awareness
Self-awareness is considered as a basic concept to life skills. It is considered universally as the “Mother of all skills” Self awareness includes our recognition of ourselves, of our character, of our strengths and weaknesses, desires and dislikes. Developing self-awareness can help us to recognise when we are stressed or feel under pressure. It is also often a prerequisite for effective communication and interpersonal relations, as well as for developing empathy for others.
Significance of Self Awareness
Self-awareness is directly related to both emotional intelligence and a clear understanding of “self”
- It helps to create achievable goals because you can identify your strengths, weaknesses, and what drives you when ‘goal-setting’.
- It allows you to guide yourself down the right path by choosing to pursue the opportunities that are the best fit for your skill-set, preferences and tendencies.
- It makes identifying situations and people that hit our triggers and anticipating our own reactions easier.
- It allows us to make positive behavioural changes that can lead to greater personal and interpersonal success building ‘Self-Awareness’.
- Research shows that self-awareness is directly related to both emotional intelligence and success.
- It allows you to guide yourself down the right path by choosing to pursue the opportunities that best fit your skillset, preferences and tendencies.
- It makes it easier to identify situations and people that hit our triggers and enables us to anticipate our own reactions.
- It allows us to make positive behavioral changes that can lead to greater personal and interpersonal success.
- Self-knowledge is also considered an important quality for a mental health professional.
- Coping with emotions
Coping with emotions means recognizing emotions within us and others and being aware of how emotions influence behavior. We should be able to respond to emotions appropriately. Intense emotions like anger or sadness can have negative effects on our health if we do not respond appropriately
Coping with emotions is the ability to express one’s emotions rationally taking the surrounding circumstances into consideration. Emotions such as fear, passion, anger, jealously etc. are subjective responses to a situation. This skill helps to recognizing the emotions and respond to them appropriately. Coping with emotions means to be able to recognize them as such and deal with them to make a positive decision themselves.
- Stress management
It is the ability to relieve one’s stress constructively without affecting one’s morale. Stress management is a wide spectrum of techniques controlling a person's level of stress, especially chronic stress, usually for the purpose of and for the motive of improving everyday functioning.
2. SKILL OF KNOWING AND LIVING WITH OTHERS
- Effective communication skill
The ability to communicate information accurately, clearly and as intended, is a vital life skill. Effective communication is the ability to convey the intended thoughts, ideas, feelings, expectations and plans meaningfully, politely and assertively to others.
People with strong communication skills can build relationships. Communication skills increases; the ability to speak, listen, question and write with clarity and conciseness.
- Ability to deliver idea clearly, effectively and with confidence
- Ability to practice active listening skill and respond
- Ability to discuss and arrive at conclusion
- Ability to communicate with persons from different cultural background
- Ability to expand one's own communicative skill
- Ability to use non-verbal skills fruitfully.
- Negotiation
Negotiation is a method by which people settle differences. It is a process by which compromise or agreement is reached while avoiding argument and dispute.
Negotiation can be defined as the ability of person to assert his position in an uncomfortable situation and be able to refuse what he deems wrong. This skill enables the individual to negotiate with him/her self that what he is doing is good or bad. Negotiation can also be understood more in terms of analyzing what one wants and how one aims at achieving it.
- Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. It is the ability to listen to another’s needs and understand the circumstances and expressing that understanding for the benefit of others. Empathy encourageS nurturing behavior towards people in need of care and assistance or tolerance.
- Interpersonal skills
Interpersonal skills are a specific type of social skills. Interpersonal competencies help us to interact, communicate, and collaborate with others effectively. Interpersonal skills permeate all areas of life and are equally important in both personal and professional interactions. It is the maintenance of friendly, healthy, purposeful and successful relationship with others. This skill helps an individual to relate in a positive way with fellow beings.
3. SKILL OF MAKING EFFECTIVE AND GOOD DECISIONS
- Decision Making
It helps us to deal constructively with decisions in personal as well as professional life. Decision making is the ability to utilize all available information to assess a situation, analyze the advantages and disadvantages and make an informed and personal choice. This skill helps the individual to find out alternative and constructive solution to several related problems.
- Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a skill to think critically, involving three things:
a. An attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one’s experience
b. Knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning
c. And some skills in applying those methods.
It is the ability to think through a situation properly, assessing the advantages and disadvantages so as to be able to make appropriate decisions concerning one’s course of action.
- Problem Solving
It is the ability to identify the problems correctly, understanding its sources and causes very constructively. This skill
also assists in choosing the best alternative from many to solve the problem. That is finding a feasible solution to a felt problem. The major steps involved in problem solving are
- Identify the real problem
- Explore the problem by keen analysis
- Set Goals : What are the objectives ?
- Look at Alternatives : How can we solve this , Brainstorm variety of ideas
- Selection of most appropriate hypothesis for solving problem. Which idea helps in solving ?
- Implement the idea into action
- Evaluate and reflect upon the solution.
Let me conclude,
It is true that life skills are the necessary abilities which help to promote mental well- being and competence in the individuals to confront the challenging realities of life. Together with the 10 core life skills listed by WHO, the skills like team spirit, self esteem, leadership, motivation, dedication, time & event management skills, tolerance etc. plays a vital role in polishing professional competency of an individual.
No comments:
Post a Comment