5 Important Life Skills to Have

When one talks about skills, there are hard skills and of course, soft skills. Hard skills are skills required to do a specific job, this is what you receive education for and keep honing as your experience grows. On the contrary, soft skills are something that enables you to fit into any environment or situation. In organizations across countries, you will notice that they are more focused on understanding your soft skills, because your certificates would be proof enough of your hard skills, but interviewers will check your soft skills for the role; thinking about this, an experience comes to my mind - While living in Australia, I attended an interview for a part-time position at a call centre, and while they realized that I had the skills and expertise to do the job, what they wanted to know was whether I could get along with the other team members who were much older than me. They were concerned that I might not be on the same wavelength as them in terms of maturity, thought-process and communication, which was why the whole interview revolved around them testing me on these aspects.

UNICEF defines ‘Life Skills’ as a change/development/adaptation of behaviour in order to effectively deal with a situation or challenge, not only in your personal life, but also in your work life (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/prevention/life-and-social-skills.html). It is important to understand that the type of life skills required by each person can differ based on their environment, situation and time, however, there are some common ones for all. I have curated my top 5 life skills here based on my experience as well as perspective:

1. Communication: While reading and researching various articles, I realized this is a common life skill that everyone mentions, and I definitely agree. Communication is important to share your thoughts, feedback, and critical views as well as used to build relationships. Remember communication is not a one-way channel, listening is as important as speaking your thoughts. This way, you can understand what your counterpart wants or is relaying which would enable you to provide a more personalized response. Feedback literacy is also part of communication whereby you not only provide feedback, but also gather feedback as well as understand how to effectively use it. Presentation and oration skills also form part of this skill. One pointer is to keep an open mind when communicating with anyone; wait for a person to finish, understand what the person is saying and don’t make your own judgements without hearing the whole story. Many skills can be nurtured or trained oneself and communication is one of them.
2. Empathy: This is part of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) which essentially means that you think from another person’s perspective and react accordingly. This is very essential for conflict resolution and of course, assists in communication. For one to empathize, it is important for one to have a sense of his/her own emotions as well as manage them. Empathy makes people better managers and for one to improve, it's important to observe, be curious and learn more about a person.
3. Creative Thinking: Creative thinking which is also known as critical thinking or out-of-the-box thinking is important to find new solutions to problems, create new ideas or just process information in a new light or thought-process.
4. Relationship Building and Management: This skill is in a way becoming the cornerstone of any person’s or organization’s success in today’s world. Strong relationships are built through trust, hard work and delivering on the promise. You will notice that a person might buy a more expensive product because the customer service was much better; the buyer purchased the product because of the relationship created through the service provided. Recently, I experienced a fraudulent transaction on my credit card and upon further investigation, I realized that my card was used to purchase iTunes; so I ended up calling Apple Customer Service and after a short verification, they proceeded to refund the amount. I was absolutely surprised at the prompt as well as efficient service, and now have a renewed trust (and respect) for the brand. This is the consequence of the relationship that they built over a simple phone call. Never underestimate the power of a strong relationship!
5. Mind Management: The final skill on my list is mind management and while I have listed it last, this is probably the most important of the lot. Our mind (obviously brain) is a jungle of nerves and cells with a lot going on in that small organ, and hence, very easy for our mind to be distracted, think without listening, make judgements or simply block out external information. This is why one should train to concentrate on what you are doing, exercise your mind to stop making decisions/assumptions, before you hear the whole story (remember how someone finishes your sentence before you complete, and you realize that was not what you wanted to say), and of course, manage emotions (Note: Mind management helps to strengthen your empathy). Train your mind using breathing exercises or in general, Yoga would help. Also, remember to remove any distractions while doing something or when in a conversation for example keeping your phone away while speaking to someone.

From these skills, some may be for you, and some may not, but the important point is to continue enhancing your current skills as well as learning new ones. Always remember to be agile and adaptive to situations as well as be open to learning as these are key factors for a person to keep growing oneself in today’s ever-changing world. With the advent of technological adaptation such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence (the new buzz is obviously ChatGPT), life skills or social skills is something that is going to remain individual to humans, so continue honing them for the future!