Do you have these skills? Some things in life are required of you and there are certain things you just need to be able to do in order to enjoy and succeed in life in general.
They may be small things like manners or common sense, or they could be more serious and important things like knowing how to deal with someone who’s been injured.
Some skills, we should all have in order to experience a better social life and more rapport with the people you talk to. In this post I’ll explain some of the skills I think we’d all benefit from having. This isn’t typically things they teach in school (Although they certainly should.
Skills we should all have
By the way, stick around until the end of the article to learn the one skill we all need. There’s also some useful links for other important skills for you to have in 2019. The worlds changing, change with it or get left behind. Alright here’s the list:
1. Basic social skills
A basic command of social skills and people skills will help you enormously.
What we’re talking about here is the most simple way of talking and relating to people. The way you speak to people and what you say will enable you to develop relationships with them, at work, with your friends etc.
Communication is something that will be needed all throughout your life and almost every day you speak to at least one person, so it’s good to know how to talk to people. This is a skill that will help you in all areas of your life, whether it’s meeting new people on your travels or starting a business.
2. A talent or passion
It’s nice to have a skill or talent in something you enjoy doing, for example a musical instrument or a particular sport. This is because it’s not healthy to spend all available time working and eating/sleeping, it’s always good to have some sort of hobby or passion which you can spend time on when you’re not working.
Some examples of hobbies or talents are:
- Playing a musical instrument.
- Painting or drawing.
- Writing stories or poetry.
- Being creative in any other way.
- Playing Football or Hockey etc.
- Running
Whatever it is, it’s important to do something other than your work. If you’re lucky, your passion will become your work or vice versa. In fact there’s a few steps you can take to turn your passion INTO your work and income. I’d suggest checking out my article on how to become a digital nomad.
3. Common sense
Common sense is one of the most important skills to have in life, and yet many people do not utilize it.
Common sense refers to the basic intelligence and logic used to deal with basic every day situations. For example, not running out in the road, or not leaving a frying pan on the heat while you’re upstairs not watching it.
This basic sense and behaviour could solve a lot of peoples problems in life if they only used it. On a basic level it just involves thinking about what you’re doing at any one time, being more aware and not forgetting little details which could be important later.
4. The ability to feel what others are feeling (Empathy)
This relates quite well to people skills, the ability to feel what others are feeling and relate to them.
It means you can talk to someone about their problems, and by empathising with them you can get a sense of how they’re feeling by imagining how you would feel in their situation or remembering times where you’ve experienced something similar.
You can do this by paying attention to what they’re saying, reading their body language, and listen carefully. People like you to be able to relate to them and know what they’re going through, it will mean you can give more useful advice and the conversation can flow better because you know what they’re feeling and talking about, you’re on the same page.
5. The ability to control your dreams
The ability to control your dreams is known as Lucid Dreaming, and it’s a skill everyone should have as it allows you to do many things such as:
- Overcome your nightmares
- Control your dreams
- Do anything you can imagine, fly, Teleport etc
- Explore alien worlds
- Talk to your fears or your subconscious mind
Lucid Dreaming is a skill which actually can be learnt fairly quickly, for more information have a look at my other site about lucid dreaming where I share much more detailed tutorials and information about it.
6. Basic D.I.Y skills
This is one which will not only help you in life but also probably save you a lot of money!
Think of all the times you’ve experienced something break like a computer or a fridge etc, and you’ve had to call someone out to fix it for you, and then had to pay them for their services?
Well, wouldn’t it be better to learn the basics of D.I.Y or ‘Do it yourself’ so that when something breaks you might be able to fix it yourself instead of calling someone out and spending money? You don’t have to learn how to fix EVERYTHING but just knowing a little bit goes a long way.
I’d say as a minimum, try and learn how to paint a wall, put up a shelf and fix your toilet. These are things that you’ll probably need at least a few times in your life, probably a lot. It’s also useful because you don’t need to rely on calling someone out to fix these things.
7. A basic understanding of technology
Knowing how to use technology! This is the information and technology age, so you’ll get left behind if you don’t!
This is following on from the last one a little bit, but a basic understanding of technology will not only save you money because you’ll be able to fix things when they break, but you can also help others with your skill, and save yourself embarrassment of not knowing how something works.
It’s not hard, and in this day and age technology forms most of our lives, the internet and the world of technology is taking over slowly. It’s important to at least know the difference between Facebook and Twitter, or the proper name for the clicky thing you put your hand on to move the little arrow on the screen.
They’re actually teaching things like HTML coding in schools now, so that’s a step in the right direction but take it a bit further. Educate yourself on technology and how systems like that work. It goes a long way.
8. Basic cooking skills
Everyone eats most days. Cooking is something we will all have to do at some stage, but many don’t ever really learn how to cook and they just sustain themselves on ready meals and frozen foods which are just placed in the oven and taken out ready to eat half an hour later.
This isn’t really cooking, and will in the long term be unhealthy, as the body cries out for fresh healthy foods to help it grow stronger.
Learn basic food preparation and cooking ideas, such as how to make Pancakes, or how to scramble eggs. To get started, have a look at my list of 5 foods to improve your energy.
9. An average level of fitness
There are many unfit and unhealthy people in the world. That’s just a sad fact of life, but the thing is, it’s all a matter of choice. Unless you’re disabled or otherwise physically impaired, right now you could make the choice to improve your health.
There is always something you can do, and no-one is ‘too late’ to become healthy. Why not start doing some pressups every morning, or even get a cheap pullup bar like this one and start doing pullups.
Get Stronger! for more on getting stronger and health in general, I would strongly advise you to have a look at a guy called Elliot Hulse, he knows what he’s talking about. But in general, just try and be as healthy as you can, eat plant based if possible, and exercise most days.
10. Essential Survival skills
Life is uncertain. There are times where you will be challenged and forced to do things you don’t like doing, in order to survive.
Maybe you’ll be lucky and go through life in a safe and secure manner, but it’s unlikely. You will always experience some sort of danger in life, and it’s important to know basic things which could one day save your life..
Things like knowing how to apply a tourniquet in the event of cutting or injuring a limb, or how to hunt animals for food in the wild. These may be extreme examples, but you should at least have a basic understanding of survival skills.
11. Simple Memory skills and techniques
What is life if you can’t remember your experiences?
Of course, most people can remember most things that happen to them, but it’s always good to improve your memory so that if needed you can memorize a phone number or a sequence of words etc.
There are ways to make your memory stronger, probably the easiest to learn and most efficient being the linking method for memory. It’s an interesting technique for remembering long lists of words with very little efffort.
The one skill we all need
Mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone will fall down, and in many cases they will stay down. Why?
Because they don’t know how to pick themselves up again. Learning this skill is probably the most important skill of all, because if you can’t get up when you fall, how are you going to deal with failures and hardships in life?
Know how to get up when you fall down
The way to deal with failure is as follows.
‘See what is’
Whenever you make a mistake, or fall down, or do something wrong which you feel bad about, remember that you’re human. Remind yourself that everyone really does make mistakes as well, all the time. No one is perfect and it’s good to remind yourself of this sometimes.
So when you make a mistake, look at yourself, and just ‘see what is’. See what is happening, don’t judge it or try to analyze it in detail, just first see it for what it is. Look at what you are presented with by life and be at peace with what is going on. Then when you see what is going on objectively and without opinion or feeling, you will know how to act.
What if I don’t know how to get back up?
Everyone does, deep down.
If you slow things down and see what is going on, you know how to deal with it. Let’s say you lose your job. Now most people would be furious, depressed and they wouldn’t know what to do, but remember, if you’ve lost your job for example, you can’t change that now.
The reason behind it could be one of many things, the company not making enough money, or maybe you weren’t doing a good enough job so just move on. You’re not going to feel any better by sitting and feeling sorry for yourself, so move on and find something else. You know this is how to act, but when you’re in the moment, it’s hard to slow things down and see that.
You start thinking a thousand different things like why you got fired or how you’re going to afford the bills, but doing so wastes time. You know deep down that eventually you’re going to need to find another job, (or another way to make money like passive income) so why wait? Just accept what’s happened, pick yourself up and move on.
Losing your job is just an example, the same thing applies to any mistake you make and any time that you fall down. Just step back, see what is happening in your life, and you will know what to do about it.
I know this was a slightly longer post compared with some of my others, but I felt this was needed as there are several skills which we should all have in life. There are many more skills we should all have, and I’m sure you’ll find out for yourself which skills are most helpful!
Other skills we might need
I’d like to share a few other articles I wrote, about other skills I feel are essential. These are things I think everyone should know how to do:
- Going vegan: Or at least plant based. This is the best and healthiest diet you could eat, and that’s been proven numerous times but beyond that, you’ll feel incredible
- Learn to meditate: Being able to shut your mind off and go back into your BODY is a hugely important skill which will help you take control of your life
- Learn how to make more money: Money doesn’t buy happiness, but LACK of money CAN cause unhappiness. Learn how to make more money so you can focus on doing the things you actually want to do
- Learn how to follow your heart: Most people don’t do this and they wake up one day when they’re 60 and realise they’ve wasted their life by doing what they were told. Follow your heart, trust me