These 5 life skills are essential because they not only help deal with life problems more effectively but also provide tools to successfully achieve your goals. So, let’s see how to develop, improve, and use them in the real world backed by what science has to say about it.
Don’t miss the fifth one, it makes every skill more powerful.
How to Quickly develop 5 essential life skills
1. Resilience (for stress management, adaptability, and flexibility)
Whether it’s a work problem or a personal challenge, resilience gives us the tools to handle them in a way that they have the least possible effect on our goals, motivation, and general sense of satisfaction in life. It’s a core life skill because it helps manage stress and uncertainties better by empowering us to respond, react, and adapt in a productive way.
The science behind it –
Studies have found that the anterior mid-cingulate cortex is directly connected to tenacity and willpower and that it gets activated better when we have to overcome some resistance. This simply means that when you do what you really don’t want to do, or resist something that you really want to you are exercising resilience, training that part of the brain to stay in control which is responsible for creative thinking and problem-solving. That’s how we make better decisions and stay in control.
How to do it –
And the best part is that resisting simple things can work better than doing tough things we have gotten used to. Like, if you stop yourself from eating that cookie or even wait till you finish whatever you are doing before eating it. That would help activate the anterior mid-cingulate cortex and exercise resilience more than managing something tough. Like, dealing with a nagging boss that has become an everyday task for you. The key is to do a little bit more or a little bit less than what feels normal so that you experience some resistance.
2. Problem-solving
From fixing the broken cabinet door to navigating difficult conversations, we use problem-solving skills in so many ways every day. Our ability to develop solutions or find creative workarounds to problems not only helps us navigate the complexities in life but also get what we truly want… successfully achieve goals. Problem-solving is one of the essential life skills because it makes us more confident in our ability to handle whatever comes our way.
The science behind this essential life skill –
From the evolutionary psychology point of view, problem-solving is hardwired in our brain for survival, think creatively to meet basic needs. Problem-solving makes us more adaptable to change.
And according to cognitive science, it makes us more confident. When developing solutions we need to consider different perspectives. And this not only means we are adding to our knowledge base but also tweaking to what works better, refining our abilities. This reinforces those neural pathways making us more confident about handling problems in the future too.
How to do it –
To make this work faster, create your own structured approach, a framework, that works for you. Like,
Step 1 – stop worrying to think more productively. And a quick way to do this is asking ‘Are the things I am worrying about most likely to happen or are they the worst-case scenario?’
Step 2- get specific. What exactly do you want solved because it’s tough to find solutions for vague things like, “This is not working”. But remember to focus on the things you do want instead of what you don’t want.
Step 3 – Find what needs to be done next. And it’s good to remember that those goals and action plans have a better chance of getting completed which have a timeframe set for them.
3. Decision-making is an essential life skill
Now, while problem-solving is about being creative, and generating new ideas and solutions to the roadblocks and problems in life, decision-making is about choosing which one of these would work best for us. And making better decisions faster is one of the most essential life skills because what seems to be the best option at first isn’t always the best one to choose.
The science behind it –
The option that instinctively feels right could be a heuristic trap.
While heuristics can reduce the burden of decision-making and free up limited cognitive resources, they can also be costly when they lead individuals to miss critical information or act on unjust biases.
The brain quickly finds a past situation that seems similar and suggests what worked in that situation. But the problem is that it can ignore potentially important stuff to find similarity. This means, what worked before won’t necessarily work for what we want done right now.
How to do it –
What saves time and energy, is to do an opportunity cost analysis. When we choose to go down one way, it means it is coming at the cost of all the other options we are giving up. And so, the given-up possibilities are the cost of that opportunity. So, find which option leaves you with the least regret. It will help quickly check whether the option ties in with your priorities or not.
4. Responsibility (for better relationships and self-management)
This is one of the essential life skills because knowing we can make things happen instead of feeling like things keep happening to us, not only
- improves our relationships because being accountable for our actions makes us come across as reliable, dependable, and trustworthy
- but it also motivates us to set and achieve goals influencing what happens more in our life.
The science behind it –
Setting and pursuing goals taps into our psychological need for autonomy and our belief in our ability to succeed. Plus, when we skill up to achieve those goals or find ways to overcome problems along the way, it boosts neuroplasticity in the brain.
How to do it –
A quick and easy way to do this is to simply reframe the situation highlighting what your influence can be on it. Like, “I worked so hard but my proposal got rejected because they didn’t tell me about all the dos and don’ts”. Instead of that, try, “Next time, I will make sure to double check all the dos and don’ts.” When we highlight our influence on any situation, it adds to self-efficacy… our belief in our ability to achieve goals.
5. Booster to make these essential life skills more powerful
This life skill helps us use those tools effectively, which empowers us to make the best of any situation. Watch the video up top to learn how to make this your default way of approaching anything in life.
I hope you found this useful.
