The term ‘Life Skills’ refers to the skills you need to make the most out of life.

Life skills are usually associated with managing and living a better quality of life. They help us to accomplish our ambitions and live to our full potential.

Any skill that is useful in your life can be considered a life skill. Tying your shoe laces, swimming, driving a car and using a computer are, for most people, useful life skills.

However...

Perhaps the most important life skill is the ability and willingness to learn.

By learning new skills we increase our understanding of the world around us and equip ourselves with the tools we need to live a more productive and fulfilling life, finding ways to cope with the challenges that life, inevitably, throws at us.

Life skills are not always taught directly but often learned indirectly through experience and practice.

Essential Life Skills

There is no definitive list of life skills. Certain skills may be more or less relevant to you depending on your life circumstances, your culture, beliefs, age, geographic location, etc.

Different life skills will be more or less relevant at different times your life, for example:

• When at school or university, you'll need study skills
• When buying a house, negotiation skills may be needed
• You'll need to work on your employability skills to get a job
• When you have a job, leadership and presentation skills may be useful, along with a whole host of other skills.
• When you start a family, time management and organising skills are likely to become important.
• There will be times throughout your life when you'll need conflict resolution, stress-management and problem solving skills too.