Life-Skills and Mentoring
Basic Health, Wellness, and Safety • Overcoming homesickness • Developing a healthy lifestyle • Receiving basic health care • Staying Safe and Avoiding Risky Behaviors • Cleaning the house • Understanding insurance • Basic Kitchen Skills and Safety
• Making Friends • Basic Dating Etiquette • Roommate Relationships • Workplace Diversity and Inclusion • Professional Etiquette by college department • Social Skills and Development
Getting to Know BYUI Resources • Seeking Help or Resolving a Problem • Understanding Contracts and Apartment Leases • Paying Taxes • Getting to Know BYUI Resources
• Obtaining Vehicle Registration, License Plates, and Parking Permits • Obtaining and Maintaining Bank Accounts • Registering to Vote • Using the United States Postal Service
Out in the real world – getting to and from college • Travel safety • Keeping personal belongings secure in a crowd
Financial Planning for Married Students • Planning meals for two • FAFSA as a newly married couple • Insurance • Paying bills jointly • Medical expenses • Planning for the cost of a kid • Being social as a married couple • Creating your own family traditions • Applying for a Green Card
• Time management • Decision making • Keeping a good attitude • Building self-esteem • Assertiveness skills • Setting objectives and devising a strategy to attain them • Teamwork – maximizing it • Entrepreneurial skills
Identifying Important Life Skills
A comprehensive list of life skills does not exist.
Depending on your life circumstances, culture, beliefs, age, and geographic region, some talents may be more or less relevant to you. The World Health Organization, on the other hand, recognized six critical categories of life skills in 1999:
• Interpersonal and communication abilities This basically encompasses the abilities required to get along with and collaborate with others, notably the ability to send and receive written and vocal signals.
• Problem-solving and decision-making This term refers to the abilities necessary to comprehend issues, identify answers to them (alone or with others), and then act on them.
• Both creative and critical thinking. This is the capacity to think about issues in fresh and unique ways and come up with new answers or ideas, as well as the ability to examine information carefully and grasp its importance.
• Self-awareness and empathy, are two essential components of emotional intelligence. They talk about knowing yourself and being able to empathize with others as if their experiences were your own.
• Self-control, assertiveness, and serenity These are the abilities required to defend oneself and others while remaining cool in the face of significant provocation.
• Resilience and problem-solving skills, which refers to the capacity to bounce back from failures and see them as learning chances or simply experiences.
It’s also true that particular life skills will be more or less useful at various points in your life. For instance:
• You’ll need study skills in a school or at university. Understanding how to organize oneself for study, do research, and even write a dissertation or thesis are examples of these skills. Although not everyone will need these abilities, they are likely to be valuable in a number of occupations and jobs.
• When purchasing a home, you may need to utilize bargaining skills, as well as a lot of patience and a good temper. If you have children, these talents are likely to rank high on your list of “important life skills.”
• When you have a career, you may need to build leadership skills, particularly if you need to manage teams or organizations;
• When you establish a family, you will require parenting skills. You may also discover that your time management and organization abilities become more vital. We get a better awareness of the world around us and the tools we need to live a more productive and satisfying life, discovering solutions to deal with the obstacles that life inevitably throws at us, through acquiring new skills.
Learning is usually associated with formal schooling, but it can and should be a lifelong activity that increases our knowledge of the world and our quality of life.
Personal Qualities
Personal skills are the life skills we need to keep our bodies and minds healthy.
Many of the qualities listed by the World Health Organization, such as resilience, self-control, and self-awareness, are among them. They include abilities such as recognizing, managing and coping with emotions. On our website Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI), you may learn more about your personality type, and our article Keeping Your Mind Healthy is also worth reading.
Anger management and stress management are equally important life skills. Learning about anger and stress, recognizing what triggers them (in ourselves and others), what the symptoms are, and how to regulate or manage them may improve the quality of our lives significantly. Our sections on Stress and Managing Stress include further information on how to deal with stress. A section on Anger and Anger Management is also included.
Low self-esteem and confidence affect many individuals, causing stress and preventing them from attaining their full potential. Improving Self-Esteem and Building Confidence is two sections that provide practical solutions to these problems.
A section on Caring for Your Body is also available on our personal skills website, which includes further information on the significance of food, diet, and nutrition, as well as why and how you should exercise to stay healthy.
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal and communication skills are the second most essential aspect of life skills. These are the abilities that allow us to connect with others and are hence a vital component of what makes us human.
Communication skills, like decision-making and problem-solving, are often considered subsets of interpersonal skills, although both are significant enough to study separately.
Because this is such a broad topic, you may want to take our Interpersonal Skills Self-Assessment Test to see how well you listen and interact with others.
Communication and interpersonal skills include a wide variety of abilities, including:
• Good listening skills, as well as strategies like explanation and reflection, may assist avoid misunderstandings.
• Verbal and nonverbal communication, which includes how to utilize your voice and pick the proper words, as well as voice tone, body language, and how you dress.
• There are various impediments to good communication in every communication circumstance, yet they may assist create rapport. This may lead to miscommunication and even conflict.
Literacy includes reading and writing abilities.
Most individuals interact in writing at least part of the time—through letters, emails, reports, text messages, social media feeds, and a variety of other means.
Writing clearly and simply is a highly effective approach to communicating, whether one-on-one or with a big group. We provide articles to assist you to enhance your written communication and acquiring or refreshing your understanding of some of the most basic writing standards.
Our Writing Skills area has a wealth of information and tips to help you improve your writing.
Skills in Numeracy
Many individuals have difficulty with arithmetic and numeracy. Developing or updating your numeracy abilities, on the other hand, might provide a significant boost in your life. Improved numeracy abilities may help you become more employable, have a better grasp of the world around you, save time and money, and even improve your mental health.
We don’t all need to be brilliant mathematicians, and we definitely don’t all need to be rocket scientists, but a fundamental grasp of numeracy, arithmetic, and mathematics can open numerous possibilities.
For simple, real-world examples of fundamental numeracy, see our Numeracy Skills area. There’s a lot there regarding certain math topics that might be difficult. Budgeting, understanding interest, and loans and savings are all topics covered in this part, and all of them may save you money in the short and long run.
Personal growth and lifelong learning
Looking over this list, it’s easy to see why a desire to learn might be the most crucial life skill of all!
There are many crucial life skills to learn, but it’s also important to recognize that you’ve been building them from birth. Continuing to learn and improve is only one aspect of the process.