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.
The relevance of life skills is highly essential in our lives because in a rapid and constantly changing world, in terms of technology and information, possessing life skills is an indispensable part for meeting the life challenges of everyday life. Life Skills is an essential vehicle to equip young people to meet their life challenges and prepares them for the productive and creative participators in the society. Life skills enhances the individuals to have psycho-social and spiritual well-being and to adapt positive behavior which enables them to deal with the demands and challenges of everyday life. Developing life skills in the life of people will certainly focus on developing accurate knowledge, positive attitudes and creative skills among youth which will result in building up of a creative society.
Life skills help abilities for adaptive and positive behavior to gain various skills like social skills, thinking skills, and coping skills to solve psycho-social problems and fulfill educational, cultural, economic and political needs of an individual. Numerous researches have shown the positive effect of the life skills in reducing drug abuse, preventing violent behaviors, strengthening self-reliance, increasing skills to deal with pressure and stresses, establishing positive and effective social relationships.
Life skills means
- Life Skills for Psychological well-being
- Life Skills for healthy life styles
- Life Skills for enhancing study outcomes
- Life Skills for promoting social relationships
- Life Skills for emotional competence
- Life Skills for personality development
Life Skills for Psychological wellbeing
Possessing life skills is a strength for all to manage and control the psychological challenges of day to day life. Carol Ryff model of psychological well being comprises of six components.
- Self-acceptance : refers to the degree of positive attitudes we are having about ourselves, our past behaviors and the selections and choices that we have made in our life.
- Positive relations : This skill help one to relate in positive ways with the people one interact with. It denotes keeping good relation with family members and friends which is an important source for the social support and thus able to create and end relationships constructively.
- Autonomy : Individuals having high levels of autonomy are always independent, self-reliant, have high decision making capacity and do not need a strong need to conform, and never have anxiety regarding what others think about them.
- Environmental mastery : It denotes the degree to which we feel competent to face the demands of our situation.
- Purpose in life : The individuals having high sense of purpose view their life is full of meaning, they try to work to make a difference in the world, and feel connected to ideas or social movements larger than themselves.
- Sense of personal growth : The individuals with high levels of personal growth see themselves as changing in an optimistic direction, finding their own potentiality, becoming mature, growing their self-knowledge.
Life Skills for healthy life styles
In order to keep the mind and body free from illness and weakness, it is necessary to practice certain life skills. Development of certain life skills such as assertion, empathy, interpersonal relationships, self-awareness, decision making etc. are essential to build a balanced personality. These skills will develop positive attitudes to adopt and sustain healthy life styles.
Life Skills for enhancing study outcomes
The rapid advance of information and communication technology has created unprecedented opportunities and challenges in the field of education and in particular in the area of study skills among the learners. It is life skills which provides knowledge, skills, values and attitude to learners to enhance human capabilities to have lifelong learning, work in collaborative manner and enables them to live peacefully and cooperatively with others.
Life Skills for promoting social relationships
Life skills enables a person to develop ability to make social choices that will strengthen their interpersonal relationships and facilitate success in their learning. Through this they will be able to have conflict management skills, effective communication skills, social problem solving ability and increased acceptance and tolerance
Life Skills for emotional competence
Individuals’ ability to recognize emotions with in them and others, being aware of how emotions influence behavior and being able to respond to emotions appropriately etc. is totally depended on the degree to which one acquires life skills.
Life Skills for personality development
Personality development is the purpose of all educational endeavors. Life skills smoothen and sharpen the cardinal and central traits of each person. Life skills are the best means to increase self-efficacy with in a person which strengthen to develop positive personality in an individual.
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.
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