LIFE SKILLS

LIFE SKILLS

“Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour, that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life”.

-                      World Health Organisation

Life skills refer to a multiplicity of psycho-social and interpersonal competencies. Life skills can help people make informed decisions, communicate effectively, develop coping and management skills that can help them lead a healthy and productive life. Some of the life skills are seIf-directed, while others are directed towards others, or both self-directed and others directed. In other words, life skills are skills that equip people to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. Life skills are viewed as crucial for everyone to cope with a rapidly changing world. They are skills that can lead us to success and accomplishments both in our professional as well as rate life.

Practicing life skills leads to qualities such as self-esteem, sociability and tolerance, to action competencies to take action and generate change, and to capabilities to have the freedom to decide what to do and who to be. Life skills are thus distinctly different from physical or perceptual motor skills, such as practical or health skills, as well as from livelihood skills, such as crafts, money management and entrepreneurial skills .

Described in this way, skills that can be said to be life skills are innumerable, and the nature and definition of life skills are likely to differ across cultures and settings. However, analysis of the life skills field suggests that there is a core set of skills that are at the heart of skills-based initiatives for the promotion of the health and well-being of children and adolescents. These are listed below:

• Decision making

• Problem solving

• Creative thinking

 • Critical thinking

 • Effective communication

• Interpersonal relationship skills

• Self-awareness

• Empathy

 • Coping with emotions

 • Coping with stress