INTRODUCTION TO LIFE

SKILLS

All chapters condensed.

(8-11)
Girma G.

2021/22
INTRODUCTION
 Life skills are tools at our hands that help us
prevent, improve, and manage mind and
behavior for effective psychological
functioning.
 Try to think of the following fundamental
questions about yourself.
 Who am I?
 Whom am I going to be?
 Am I working to achieve my life goals?
 Is my life channeled to my destination or I am
just living instinctively?
8. NATURE AND DEFINITION OF LIFE SKILLS
 Life skills are “abilities for adaptive and positive
behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively
with the demands and challenges of everyday life”
(WHO).
 ..“behavior change or behavior development
approach designed to address a balance of three
areas:
 Knowledge, attitude and skills” (UNICEF).
 abilities that help to promote mental well-being and
competence in young people as they face the
realities of life
8.1. COMPONENTS OF LIFE SKILLS
The following list of human cognitions, emotions and
behaviors are components of life skills.
 Critical thinking
 Self- confidence
 Self-awareness
 Self- esteem
 Decision making
 Interpersonal relationship skills
 Reflective communication
 Peer resistance
 Knowing rights and duties
 Problem solving
Group the following skills into thinking, working, social and
learning skills. Discuss the grouping in class.

 Decision  ICT  Cooperation  Citizenship

making  Agility and  People  Social
 Self- adaptability Management responsibility
knowledge  Receiving and  Time  Cultural
 Critical giving management awareness
thinking feedback  Negotiating  Social
 Accessing and  Handling  Leading by development
analyzing criticism influence  Respecting
information  Innovation/ diversity
exploration  Networking
8.2. GOALS OF LIFE SKILLS
 The goal of knowing and applying life skills is to
lead a smooth and successful life at home, work
place and in social relationship.
 Development of life skills is, therefore, a lifelong
process.
9. INTRA-PERSONAL SKILLS
i) Self-Concept: The cognitive self
 the self is a reflexive phenomenon that develops in
social interaction
 The "self-concept," is a product of this reflexive
activity.
 It is the concept the individual has of
himself/herself as a physical, social, and spiritual or
moral being.
 e.g. I’m tall, I’ve a dark hair, I’m a Muslim/Christian,
I’m a reserved person etc.
ii) Self- Awareness
 the extent to which we are
currently fixing our attention on
our own self-concept.
 it is self- recognition- being
conscious of one’s own feelings,
behavior, thoughts, personality
and characters at a given time.
 It is a solid predictor of good
What is this success in life; a self-aware
person knows when an
chimp doing?
opportunity is a good fit for them
and how to make an appropriate
enterprise work well
iii) Self-esteem: The Feeling Self
 is our positive or negative attitude toward
ourselves.
 is a person's overall sense of self-worth or personal
value.
 It is the way someone assesses his/her self concept
and feels about the self.
 High self esteem includes accepting oneself, admitting
one’s strengths and short coming and taking responsibility
for one’s actions.
iv) Self-confidence
 To be self-confident is to trust in oneself, and, in
particular, in one‘s ability or aptitude to engage
successfully or at least adequately with the world.
 Just as self-confidence leads to successful
experience, successful experience leads to self-
confidence.
V) Self Control
 is refraining from actions we like and instead
performing actions we prefer not to do as a means
of achieving a long-term goal.
 e.g. quitting smoking, going on a diet, studying more
effectively, etc.
 researchers have suggested that the act of
controlling oneself is taxing and makes exercising
subsequent self-control more difficult .
vi) Anger Management
 Anger is a state of emotion where a person is
irritated by block of interests, loss of possession or
threats to personality.
 Everyone gets angry at times.
 Reactions to anger maybe:
 walking away, use a harsh tone of voice, yelling, arguing,
or starting a fight.
 If you learn to manage, or control your anger, you
can redirect these surges of anger energy to reach
your goal.
 When anger is not controlled, conflict becomes
worse.
Techniques of Managing Anger
 Recognize anger as a signal of vulnerability - you
feel devalued in some way.
 When angry, think or do something that will make
you feel more valuable.
 Do not trust your judgment when angry.
 Try to see the complexity of the issue.
 Strive to understand other people's perspectives.
 Know your physical and mental resources.
 Anger is more likely to occur when tired, hungry, sick,
confused, anxious, preoccupied, distracted, or
overwhelmed.
vii) Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Managing
Emotion
 Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to
identify and manage one‘s own emotions, as well
as the emotions of others.
 ..includes at least three skills:
 emotional awareness, or the ability to identify and name
one‘s own emotions
 the ability to harness those emotions and apply them to
tasks like thinking and problem solving
 and the ability to manage emotions, which includes both
regulating one‘s own emotions when necessary and
helping others to do the same.
Benefits
 Helps you be productive and successful at what you
do, and enables you help others to become more
productive and successful too.
 Helps to reduce stress.
 It links strongly with concepts of love and
spirituality.
 Domains of EI
 personal (self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-
motivation) and
 social (social awareness and social skills)
competences
viii) Stress and Coping With Stress
 Stress is a very common condition.
 ..refers to two things: the psychological perception
of pressure/threat, and the body's response to it.
 involves multiple systems from metabolism to
muscles and memory.
 prolonged or repeated stress, can have harmful
physical and psychological consequences:
 e.g. heart disease, diabetes, anxiety, and depression.
Sources of Stress
 ..three major categories of stressors:
 1.Catastrophes - Catastrophes are unpredictable
and large scale life threatening events, such as war
and natural disasters.
 2. Significant Life Changes - the death of a loved
one, loss of a job, leaving home, marriage, divorce,
etc. Life transitions and insecurities are often
keenly felt during young adulthood.
 3. Daily life hassles – are little everyday events
that bother us.
 e.g. annoyances like rush hour traffic, infuriating
housemates, long lines at the store, too many things to do,
e-mail spam, and obnoxious cell phone talkers..
 Coping With Stress
 There are two strategies: problem focused and
emotion-focused.
 Problem focused – used when we feel a sense of
control over a situation and think we can change
the circumstances or change ourselves.
 e.g. if our impatience leads to fight our friend, we may
go directly to that friend to work things out.
 Emotion-focused – used when we cannot handle
the problem or believe that we cannot change a
situation.
 e.g. If you lose your beloved one, you may cope by
listening to spiritual songs to reduce the emotional
burden.
Cont..
 Emotion focused strategy can be non-adaptive as it
only temporarily clears the mind. A problem-
focused strategy treats the actual cause; more
effectively reduce stress and promote long - term
health and satisfaction.
ix) Resilience
 ..the process of adapting well in the face of
adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant
sources of stress.
 It means "bouncing back" from difficult
experiences.
 getting through pain and disappointment without
letting them crush your spirit.
 Resilience strategies:
 positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate
emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form
of helpful feedback.
x) Critical and Creative Thinking
 ..is regarded as intellectually engaged, skillful, and
responsible thinking that facilitates good judgment.
 it requires the application of assumptions, knowledge,
competence, and the ability to challenge one's own
thinking.
 requires the use of self-correction and monitoring to judge
the rationality of thinking as well as reflexivity.
 It is making a purposeful, self-regulatory judgment.

 Critical thinking skills includes decision-making/problem

solving skills and information gathering skills.
xi) Creative Thinking
 The ability to connect the seemingly unconnected and blend
existing knowledge into new insight about some element of
how the world works.
 Producing but not reproducing old patterns in new situations,
generating new and better solutions to problems, and making
something original.
 Critical thinking is seen as analytic, whereas creative
thinking, is seen as imaginative, constructive, and
generative.
Critical thinking Creative thinking
Analytic Generative
Convergent Divergent
Vertical Lateral
Probability Possibility
Judgement Suspended judgement
Hypothesis testing Hypothesis forming
Objective Subjective
Answer An answer
Closed Open ended
Linear Associative
Reasoning Speculating
Logic Intuition
xii) Problem Solving
 Problem solving is a process in which we perceive
and resolve a gap between a present situation and a
desired goal, with the path to the goal blocked by
known or unknown obstacles.
 There are two classes of problems: those that are
considered well defined and others that are
considered ill defined.
Cont..
 Well-defined problems: those whose goals, path
to solution, and obstacles to solution are clear
based on the information given.
 e.g. calculating a simple simultaneous equation.
 Ill -defined problems: characterized by lack of a
clear path to solution.
 often lack a clear problem statement.
 e.g. finding a nice life partner is an ill-defined
problem.
 Steps in Problem Solving

 1. Recognize or identify the problem.

 2. Define and represent the problem mentally.
 3. Develop a solution strategy alternatives and
select the best one.
 4. Organize knowledge about the problem and
avail the necessary resources.
 5. Allocate mental and physical resources for
solving the problem.
 6. Monitor his or her progress toward the
goal.
 7. Evaluate the solution for accuracy.
xiii) Decision-making
 is a selection process where one of two or more
possible solutions is chosen to reach a desired goal.
 The steps in both problem solving and decision-
making are quite similar.
 hence, the terms are sometimes used
interchangeably.
10. ACADEMIC SKILLS
 i) Time Management
 Time is a communal non-renewable resource for all
human beings but abused by many individuals.
 Time management is the ability to plan and control
how someone spends the hours in a day to
accomplish his or her goals effectively.
 Budgeting time between the domains of life: work, home,
social life, and hobbies.
 setting aside non-essential tasks that can waste time,
monitoring where the time actually goes.
 you need to spread your workload over sessions of
time to be effective.
Time Management Strategies
 Its success depends on your personality, ability to self-
motivate and level of self-discipline.
 1. Know how you spend time
 2. Set priorities
 3. Use a planning tool
 4. Get organized
 5. Schedule your time appropriately
 6. Delegate – get help from others
 7. Stop procrastinating
 8. Manage external time wasters
 9. Avoid multi-tasking
 10. Stay healthy
ii) Note-taking
 A) Getting Organized
 have the necessary materials such as notebooks and
pen before going to class.
 Moreover, in order to develop good notes, you
have to prepare yourself and select the best
approach to take notes during class.
 B) Create a framework of reference
 also do this prior to class.
 This strategy provides familiarity with terms, ideas
and concepts discussed in lecture and leads to an
active role in your own learning.
 Therefore;
 Determine the lecture topic and review past readings
and notes.
 Complete readings assigned to lecture topics and
preview any other auxiliary materials
 Prepare questions you may have from the readings
 C) During Class: Take the notes
 Develop your own method of note taking
depending on the type of class and personal
learning style.
 Strategies:
 Date your notes
 Keep the objective/theme of the class in mind
 Record notes in your own words
 Make your notes brief and focus on the pain points
 If you fall behind, stop.
• Make a mark in your notebook, listen for a few minutes
until you feel caught up, then begin taking notes again.
D) Review the notes
 Immediately after class, remain in the classroom or
find a quiet space close by and review notes.
 Helps solidify your understanding and connect new
concepts with previous concepts,
 Connect with another member of the class and
create an interactive discussion about the lecture.
 Visit your professor during office hours with
questions.
 Be specific, state what you understand and ask if you
missed any important concepts.
 iii) Study Skills
 Strategies for Effective Study
The following method of study help students
read faster and comprehend better,
 SQ3R Method – a popular method
 ( Survey – Question – Read -- Recite– Review)

a) Survey:
Get overall picture of what you are going to
study
It involves going over the material at glance
b) Question:
 Before you begin reading a section, turn the
heading into a question.
 For example, if the heading is ‘Malaria’, one of
your questions would be "What causes malaria?"
c) Read:
 Read the text under the heading with the purpose
of getting the answer to your question.
Cont..
d) Recite
This step requires that you recite without looking
the material
Attempt to answer all questions you raised before
reading.
e) Review
 Then review the main points in your notes,
making sure you understand them.
 Make a summary of what you have studied to
consolidate understanding
Cont..
 Tips for active reading.
 Underlining and highlighting
 Note key words
 Pre-reading Question (before reading the whole
book)
 Make your own Summaries
 Question based on the reading
iv) Goal Setting
 It is the process of imagining, planning and
implementing the big picture of one‘s
destination.
 gives someone direction and motivation
 It is like drawing map
 The goal should be specific, measurable,
action oriented, realistic and time-bound
(SMART).
 Hellriegel, Slocum, Woodman and Martens (1992;
1987) found the following to be the most important
purposes of goal setting:
 Guide and direct behavior
 Provide clarity
 Provide challenges and standards
 Reflect on what the goal setters consider
important
 Help to improve performance.
 Increase the motivation to achieve
 Help increase pride and satisfaction in
achievements
 Improve self-confidence
 Help to decrease negative attitude
v) Career Development Skill
 Career is how individuals live their lives across
different contexts and settings, including education,
work, family and leisure time.
 It is a continuous lifelong process of developmental
experiences
 Plan the age at which you complete your university
education, join work, marry, have children and
build personal home.
Cont..
Directions: Arrange the following life goals into an order
you are thinking and planning to achieve in your life.
What materials, time, money, energy, knowledge, skills
and help are required to achieve each?
 _______Going to college
 _______Finding a job
 _______Finishing high school
 _______Having a car
 _______Living in a clean, safe area/home
 _______Have marriage
 _______Having friends
 _______Having family
11. SOCIAL SKILLS
 skills related to dealing with others termed as "social skills“

i) Interpersonal Communication Skills

 It is the process by which two or more people exchange
information, feelings, and meaning through verbal and
non-verbal messages.

Generally, communication process includes: speaker,

message, receiver, feedback, noise, etc.
 EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
SKILL INCLUDES
 Maintaining eye contact, Listening attentively,
 Being patient, Word selection,
 Assertiveness, Speak audibly,
 Respect the listener, Avoid criticism,
 Right self-esteem, Speak the truth,
 Ask for something not clear,
 using body language etc.
 Ability to receive message and give feedback,
 Avoid the barriers of communication,
 Proper utilization of sign language,
II) PEER PRESSURE

 It is the influence to go along with the beliefs and actions of

one‘s peers.
 It is also an overt or indirect pressure to do something you're
not sure about.
 Peer pressure may be positive or negative.

Activity:
ask students to cite examples of positive and negative peer
pressure.
 STRATEGIES TO HANDLE
NEGATIVE PEER PRESSURE
 Avoid people or situations that don't feel right and becomes
uncomfortable.

 Practice to say “NO” when you can't avoid or delay a pressure-

filled situation.

 Check and delay your decision. Ask, "How am I feeling about

this?" "Does this seem right to me?" "What are the pros and cons?“

 Recognize unhealthy dynamics:

 Such as do others force, trick, or threaten you to do things you don't want to
do ; or mock, belittle, shame, or criticize you for your choice?
CONT.

 Spend time with people who respect your decisions and won't put
unfair pressure on you to conform.

 Remember that you can't (and don't have to) please everyone or be
liked by everyone.

 Ask for advice or support from a parent or other trusted family

member, a clergy person, a mentor, or a counselor if you need it.
III) ASSERTIVENESS

 Assertiveness is a communication style that we directly and honestly

express our feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and opinions in an open manner
that does not violate the rights of others.

 Assertiveness is about having confidence in yourself, a positive attitude

about yourself and towards others,
 ASSERTIVE BEHAVIOR
INCLUDES:
 Being open in expressing wishes, thoughts and feelings and encouraging
others to do likewise.
 Listening to the views of others and responding appropriately, whether in
agreement with those views or not.
 Accepting responsibilities and being able to delegate to others.
 Regularly expressing appreciation of others for what they have done or are
doing.
 Being able to admit to mistakes and apologies.
 Maintaining self-control.
 Behaving as an equal to others.
IV) CONFLICT AND CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
 Conflict is defined as perceived or actual incompatibility of goals or
values between two or more parties in a relationship, combined with
attempts to control each other and antagonistic feelings toward each
other.

 Conflict is also misunderstanding or miscommunication created

between two or more people.
 SOURCES OF CONFLICT
 Economic conflict - involves competing motives to attain scarce resources.
 Behavior and emotions of each party are directed toward maximizing its gain.

 Value conflict - involves incompatibility in ways of life, ideologies – the

preferences, principles and practices that people believe in.

 Power conflict - occurs when each party wishes to maintain or maximize

the amount of influence that it exerts in the relationship and the social
setting.
METHODS OF CONFLICT
RESOLUTION
 Win-lose approach – situations result when only one side
perceives the outcome as positive.
Thus, win-lose outcomes are less likely to be accepted
voluntarily.
 Lose-lose strategy- all parties end up being worse off. In such
situations, all parties understand that losses are unavoidable and
that they will be evenly distributed.
Thus, it is considered to be fair than win-lose outcomes.
 Win-win approach - is a conscious and systematic attempt to
maximize the goals of both parties through collaborative
problem solving.
Thus, it focuses on the needs and constraints of both parties
than emphasizing strategies designed to conquer.
THE END