3 Essential Skills to Succeed in Life

In the previous post, we gave you a broad idea of what life skills are and how scarce they have become. I don’t know how you felt after reading about the tragic state of our youth, but I was really shocked when I first researched the subject.

So, maybe you’ve established that you and/or your children need life skills but may be wondering which life skills are actually important? Here are three essential skills to considder.

1. Self-awareness and Emotional Intelligence

Self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of your own character and feelings. You need to be self-aware in order to be able to understand yourself and to have healthy self-esteem. As you can deduce from this definition, self-awareness is also important when it comes to emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is when you can recognise what you are feeling in any given situation, being able to figure out why you are feeling the way that you are, expressing those emotions in a healthy way and then also taking control of those emotions. Imagine a world where everyone let their emotions run wild, never questioning them and never pulling in their reins. It would be total and utter chaos! And yet, in some ways, that’s how many people go through life. This, of course, is very unhealthy for your own psychological well-being and for your relationships as well.

2. Communication and Handling Conflict

We as humans are social beings. You’ve probably heard the saying that “no man is an island”. Well, it’s true! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), we need to have interaction and form healthy bonds with others to live happy and fulfilled lives. And what’s one of the most important things in any relationship, no matter if it’s between a parent and child or between two friends? Communication! Communication is key if you want to have healthy relationships. You need to be able to effectively communicate what you are thinking and feeling (emotional intelligence comes into play here) towards someone else through the use of words and body language.

Another important part of communication, which many of us want to avoid as far as possible, is handling conflict. Whether we like it or not, conflict situations will arise in almost every healthy relationship we have in our lives and we need to be able to handle these tricky situations. Of course, it’s preferable that we do this in a way that won’t burn each and every metaphorical relationship bridge that we’ve built.

3. Time Management and Productivity

Some of you will land amazing jobs from the get-go, but that’s not necessarily what life has in store for everyone. Currently, in South Africa, 33.6% of adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are unemployed. What this means is that more and more young people need to put their entrepreneurial skills to work by creating their own opportunities when the job market starts to look bleak. There are so many advantages to working for yourself, like determining your own hours and being in control of how much you can earn. But, it also takes a lot of self-discipline to work for yourself. When doing this you need to be able to manage your time and be productive more than ever.

Maybe you are one of the lucky few who lands that dream job. Great! But how are you going to keep it and move up the ladder? One thing is for sure, you won’t be able to do it without effectively using your time and having something of substance to show at the end of each day. When you work for someone else, you’re on their time and they expect results. There isn’t a single field that I can think of where this skill won’t be needed.

I hope this article provided some clarity and helped you pinpoint some skills you can still develop or improve on. If there is anything on this list that you would like to know more about, you can find more info here or book for one of life skills courses!

Article by
Katia Theron