Life Skills

• Communication and interpersonal skills. Skills needed to get on and work with other
people, and particularly to transfer and receive messages either in writing or
verbally.

• Decision-making and problem-solving. This describes the skills required to

understand problems, find solutions to them, alone or with others, and then take
action to address them.

• Creative thinking and critical thinking. This describes the ability to think in different
and unusual ways about problems, and find new solutions, or generate new ideas,
coupled with the ability to assess information carefully and understand its relevance.

• Self-awareness and empathy, which are two key parts of emotional intelligence.
They describe understanding yourself and being able to feel for other people as if
their experiences were happening to you.

• Assertiveness and equanimity, or self-control. These describe the skills needed to

stand up for yourself and other people, and remain calm even in the face of
considerable provocation.
 Life Skills

• Resilience and ability to cope with problems, which describes the ability to recover
from setbacks, and treat them as opportunities to learn, or simply experiences.

• Study skills. These may include understanding how to organise yourself for study,
do research, and even write up a dissertation or thesis. These are not skills that
everyone will need, but writing skills are likely to be useful in a variety of careers
and jobs.

• Negotiation skills, and you will certainly need plenty of

• Patience

• Good temper
 Life Skills

• You'll need to work on your employability skills to get a

job, and will also need to think about how you apply for a
job, and how you might cope in an interview;
• When you have a job, you may need to develop leadership
skills, especially if you need to lead teams or groups;
• When you start a family, you'll need parenting skills. You
may also find that time management and organising
skills become much more important.
• The most important life skill is the ability and willingness
to learn
 Stress
How to identify stress?

•feelings of constant worry or anxiety

•feelings of being overwhelmed
•difficulty concentrating
•mood swings or changes in your mood
•irritability or having a short temper
•difficulty relaxing
•depression
•low self-esteem
•eating more or less than usual
•changes in your sleeping habits
•using alcohol, tobacco or illegal drugs to relax
•aches and pains, particularly muscle tension
•diarrhea and constipation
 Steps to take when feeling stressed
1. Realise when it is causing you a problem
•Try to make the connection between feeling tired or ill and the pressures you are faced with
•Look out for physical warnings such as tense muscles, over-tiredness, headaches or migraines
2. Identify the causes
•Try to identify the underlying causes
•Sort the possible reasons for your stress into three categories -
1) those with a practical solution 2) those that will get better given time and 3) those you can’t do anything
about
•Try to release the worry of those in the second and third groups and let them go
3. Review your lifestyle
•Could you be taking on too much?
•Are there things you are doing which could be handed over to someone else?
•Can you do things in a more leisurely way?
•To act on the answer to these questions, you may need to prioritise things you are trying to achieve and re-
organise your life
•This will help to release pressure that can come from trying to do everything at once
 Handling stress
1. Eat healthily
•You can protect your feelings of wellbeing by ensuring that your diet provides
adequate amounts of brain nutrients such as essential vitamins and minerals, as well as
water
2. Be aware of smoking and drinking alcohol
•Even though they may seem to reduce tension initially, this is misleading as they often
make problems worse
3. Exercise
•Try and integrate physical exercise into your lifestyle as it can be very effective in
relieving stress
4.Take time out
•Strike the balance between responsibility to others and responsibility to yourself, this
can really reduce stress levels
• Prioritise self-care
5. Be mindful
•It involves paying attention to our thoughts and feelings in a way that increases our ability to
manage difficult situations and make wise choices.
6. Get some restful sleep
•Make small changes to your lifestyle to help yourself get a restful sleep
7. Don’t be too hard on yourself
•Try to keep things in perspective.
•Remember that having a bad day is a universal human experience
•When your inner critic or an outer critic finds faults, try and find truth and exception to what is
being said
•If you stumble or feel you have failed, don’t beat yourself up
•Act as if you were your own best friend: be kind and supportive
•Take a few minutes each day to appreciate yourself
 Steps Toward a Career Decision

STEP 1: DISCOVERING YOURSELF

•What are my interests? Values? Skills? Personality preferences? Strengths?
•What are careers that interest me?
•What are college majors that I want to explore?

STEP 2: EXPLORING OPTIONS

•What information or individuals can help me to explore my college or career options?
•What classes or activities can help me to develop my strengths?
•How can I learn more about informational interviews, job shadowing, internships, service
learning, or student organizations to gain firsthand experience about a field?
 Steps Toward a Career Decision

STEP 3: MAKING A DECISION

•How much time and energy am I willing to invest to make a career decision?
•Who is part of my support system to help me evaluate the pros and cons?
•What are my top priorities to consider for this decision?

STEP 4: TAKING ACTION

•How can I strengthen my readiness for success in a college major?
•What is one goal that I have? How can I reach it? What action can I take now?
•Which one of my talents can I develop through classes or outside activities?

STEP 5: EVALUATING THE DECISION

•Is my decision a realistic option?
•Is there anything preventing me from achieving this goal?
•Who in my support system can assist me with achieving this goal?
 Addiction

Someone experiencing an addiction will:

•be unable stay away from the substance or stop the addictive behavior
•display a lack of self-control
•have an increased desire for the substance or behavior
•dismiss how their behavior may be causing problems
•lack an emotional response
Some behavior and emotional changes associated with addiction
include:
•unrealistic or poor assessment of the pros and cons associated with
using substances or behaviors
•blaming other factors or people for their problems
•increased levels of anxiety, depression, and sadness
•increased sensitivity and more severe reactions to stress
•trouble identifying feelings
•trouble telling the difference between feelings and the physical
sensations of one’s emotions
 Sex education

They cover a broad range of topics related to:

•Human Development (including reproduction, puberty, sexual
orientation, and gender identity)
•Relationships (including families, friendships, romantic relationships
and dating)
•Personal Skills (including communication, negotiation, and decision-
making)
•Sexual Behavior (including abstinence and sexuality throughout life)
•Sexual Health (including sexually transmitted diseases, contraception,
and pregnancy)
•Society and Culture (including gender roles, diversity, and sexuality in
the media)
 Managing relationships

• General relationship management advice

• What to do when things don’t go as expected in relationships

• Dealing with family and intimate relationships

• Dealing with business relationships

 Managing relationships

• Factors to keep in mind:

• Relationships take time to develop
• Relationships can change across time
• All relationships experience problems
• How problems and challenges are addressed help define relationships as either
healthy or unhealthy
• First step towards developing a positive relationship is your willingness to work at it
 Managing relationships

Tips to maintain a healthy relationship

• Effective communication
• Mutual respect, trust, honesty, support, fairness, equality, and safety
• Compromise
• Have separate identities
• Non-judgmental towards each other
• Affection, emotional expression
• Spend quality time together
• Openness and willingness to learn new relationship skills