With the way adolescents think of making money and having fun these days, developing their life skills is probably the last on their mind.
Learning life skills doesn’t just build independence, It helps adolescents to understand their self and to assess their skills, abilities and areas of development. Your ability to work on these skills has a direct impact on how you feel about yourself, your emotional balance, your physical health and your independence.
Let’s take a look at a list of the basic life skills you should know for a successful life:
- Goals setting
- Values
- Decision making
- Building self esteem
- Negotiation skills
- Assertive communication
- Refusal skills
- Time management
1) GOAL SETTING
Goal-setting is the process of taking active steps to achieving your desired result. Maybe your dream is to become a pianist or Medical Doctor. Each one of these dreams involves setting attainable goals. Things don’t just happen by chance, you should plan where you want to be so you don’t end up in where you are not supposed to be!
For you to set attainable goals, your goals must be SMART.
- S-Specific
Your goals should be straight forward and must emphasize what you want to happen in your life this will help you to clearly define what you are going to do.
Ask yourself:
What are my plans?
Why is this important to do at this time?
How am I going to do it? - M-Measurable
If you can’t measure your goals, you
can’t manage it. Ensure you have a concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach targets and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goals. - A-Attainable
When you identify goals that are most
important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. Make sure your goals are within your ability to achieve. Goals you set which are too out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing. A goal needs to stretch you slightly so you feel you can do it and it will need a real commitment from you. The feeling of success which this brings helps you to remain motivated. - R-Realistic
This means ‘doable’. Ensure your goals are within reach, and relevant to your life purpose. Having too difficult goals, set the stage for failure; too low sends the message that you are not very capable. Set the bar high enough for a satisfying achievement and devise a plan or a way of getting there, this makes the
set goal realistic. - T-Timely
Set a time frame for your goal.This will give you a clear target to work towards. If you don’t set a time, achieving the goal will look vague.
Goal and goal setting are very useful for anyone who wants to become successful in life. Remember the adage which says that a person, who fails to plan, plans to fail.
2) VALUES
Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. They are deeply held beliefs that guide your behaviors and decisions. They reside deeply within the subconscious and tightly integrated into the fabric of everyday living.They determine your priorities and are the measures you use to tell if your life is turning out the way you want it to.
(Read the previous post here link on how to identify your values and ways to build them)
3) DECISION MAKING
Every man is a product of the decisions they made yesterday. How you lived your life yesterday determines how your future/tomorrow will be. To secure a good future, good decisions have to be made today putting into consideration the purpose of your existence, goals
and values.Your dreams will determine your goals,which will automatically determine the decisions you make.You
need to think carefully before taking decisions.
Steps to making great decisions:
- List the choices
- Think about the pros and cons
- Assess the likelihood of the consequences actually happening
- Compare the consequences and their importance
- Decide and act
- Evaluate the consequences of the decision made.
4) BUILDING SELF-ESTEEM/SELF WORTH
To have self-esteem means you are capable, confident and value yourself.
It also means that you see yourself in a positive way and accepting who you are. It’s possible to set your goals and tick all the boxes yet be unhappy, you need to build your self-worth because self-esteem isn’t just about hitting targets, it is about YOU, how you view yourself in line with what you do.
A healthy sense of self-esteem not only helps us achieve our goals but also recognise our strengths and learn from our mistakes
Tips for building your self worth:
- Have a dream
- Develop yourself
- Comport yourself in a manner of respect
- Cease from comparing yourself to another.
The remaining four skills are fully explained in this book link. It is specially made for you. There are detailed and practical steps that are properly outlined in this book.
Click on the link below to get your copy.