13 Universal Skills You Need to Succeed at Anything

 

1. Communication Skills

A good communication does more than just talking. It allows the sender to deliver whatever information he/she wants to pass along to the receiver without being misunderstood. It is crucial in your personal life in order to let the others to understand your need and want. Good and effective communication is also important in establishing a good relationship, minimizing misunderstanding and preventing unnecessary arguments, as well as resolving conflict. [learn_more caption=”3 Key Things About Communication”]
1. Communication is always a two-way process. Many people are good at delivering messages but they neglected their role as a good listener which render the communication ineffective. Understand what the other person is trying to tell you is important as well because it is a feedback. A father yelling at his son “You just have to do as what I say because I’m your father!” is an example of communication failure, where the communication is obviously one way in this case and the feedback given is not being appreciated. Always remember that continuously repeating your message disregarding the feedback not only makes the communication pointless but also might cost you respect.

2. Nonverbal communication is as important as the verbal communication. Your facial expression, tone of voice, gestures , body position and all your little movement has a message with it. A good communicator should know how to take advantage of nonverbal communication skills to clarify and broadcast the the exact meanings of his message.

3. Communication is all about respect. When you put powers into a conversation, it is no longer a communication process but a command. A lot of people do not understand this, thus they don’t know why they cannot establish a good relationship with others. On the other hand, one must also remember that everyone has the right to voice out their own opinions. Listening is an important action to pay respect to the one who are giving feedback to you. You can always choose to listen and disagree, but not disagree and then do not listen.[/learn_more]

 

2. Persuasion Skills

Although we may not realize it, but most of us do a certain amount of persuading each day. The art of persuasion plays a big role in your life, especially in your personal relationship and your career aspirations. This art is so critical because it allows you to earn powerful allies to fight along with you in your career, helps you to smash down more obstacles than you can do it alone. This subsequently allows you to go further and to achieve more in your life.

 

3. Time Management Skills

Why people who share same qualification, experience and skills in the same working field in the beginning can have different achievement in their life? I believe the answer lies in time management. Everyone has only 24 hours a day, thus only the one who knows how to invest it efficiently will be able to achieve more than the others. Time management is not all about keeping your schedule full and allow you to stay busy. Instead of that, a good time management is all about identifying your highest value daily activities and make them a priority. Simplify your working schedule and you will see yourself then having more time and achieving greater results at the same time. [learn_more caption=”3 Key Things About Time Management:”]
1. Plan your schedule weekly or monthly, instead of daily. Plan your time 1 week or 1 month ahead not only allows you to get yourself prepared earlier for some important task but also allows you to identify your free time slots. In case if there’s an emergency or unpredicted event, you will be able to rearrange your schedule easily by using the available time slots.

2. Always develop schedules with specific milestones if there’s a big project. This will help you to estimate your time properly and also ensure that the project will be completed on time. In case if you cannot keep up with the milestone you have set, you would have known about it earlier and are able to arrange more time for the project.

3. Prioritizing critical tasks first and then arrange the time for the other task in a logical order. Set your priorities and time systematically. Give time to the important and urgent task first, followed by important and and not urgent tasks, and then only put in all those unimportant tasks.[/learn_more]

 

4. Problem Solving Skills

Problem solving skills which involve decision making can make a huge difference in your life and your career. Mastering basic problem solving skills will allow you to identify the root cause of your problem clearly and also to choose the best solution among the available options. The problem you face each day can be different in terms of its complexity. However, regardless of the size or the complexity of the problem, every problem which affects the quality of your life must be solved as soon as possible.

 

5. Selling Skills

A lot of people reject and hate selling, and look down on sales people because the image of a salesman is often linked to people who are pushy, deceitful and always interrupt you to offer something you do not want or need. Stereotype and the reinforcement from the media makes us think that to become a salesman is to become a professional liar. Thus, subconsciously, people always linked selling to negative emotions and look at salesmen as if they are bad shameless persons. The fact is all of this is not true. If you have ever recommended some good movies or products to your friends even without asking them for money, you are already selling. If one were to hold his negative thoughts about selling, then he will probably find out that he cannot attract money or opportunity to him. Everyone in this world gives away value in forms of products or services in exchange for money. How well you sell the value of you offer will indirectly affect how much money you will be able to get in return. Even if you are just an employee and you do not sell a single product or services directly to the company client, you still need to learn selling in order to sell yourself, your opinions and your brilliant ideas daily, isn’t it? Put aside the stereotype and learn how to sell can reward you in many ways apart from financial terms.

 

6. Learning Skills

Mahatma Ghandi once said “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you will live forever”. I can’t agree more with him than learning is a lifelong journey. Education should not and must not not stop even after the day you graduated. The more you learn, the more powerful you will be because after all, knowledge is power. Our world demand and pay higher for specialized knowledge and skills, thus having more knowledge in a particular field will definitely benefit you in the long term. To be able to learn more things in a faster and thorough manner, you will definitely need to hone your learning skills. Having good learning skills allows you to grasp the key ideas and understand things faster. It makes learning an efficient process. You can learn more in 3 days than the others can learn in weeks. This helps to fast track your success. Remember, to hone your learning skills, you must always start from identifying your learning styles first.

7. Writing Skills

Writing is the primary basis of judgement being made on our learning in college, our performance in the workplace and our intellect in the community. Writing helps you to refine your ideas, put your thoughts down on paper for later reflection, and also allow you to evaluate the adequacy of your argument. Improving your writing skills will eventually improve your flexibility and maturity as you open up your mind to different visions and start to explore more about yourself. Mastering writing skills are crucial, so that the message you would like to convey is well deciphered by your target audience without any unnecessary misunderstanding.

 

8. Leadership Skills

Being a leader means you have to set a correct direction, create an inspiring vision and motivates everyone who follow you to achieve the same objective. Leadership is dynamic and vibrant, thus it is not easy to master. However, not easy to master does not mean it is unachievable. Through hard work and practices, anyone can be a great leader. To master the leadership skills, one must start by understanding the different leadership styles. From Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela, to Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and Steve Jobs, we can see that there are various ways to lead people. It is easier for you to learn and develop your own approach of leadership by learning from the great leaders mentioned above. Read their autobiography is one good way to learn their leadership styles and impact.

 

9. Networking Skills

We have all heard that it’s often not what you know but who you know. Undeniable, networking skill is very important no matter you are still a student, in business yourself, or in the workplace because we often need help in our life to cope with different problems which we are not familiar with. Of course, you must also help the people in your network to achieve their goals too in the same way just like how the network has benefited you. Remember, successful networking must be reciprocal.

 

10. Critical Thinking Skills

One’s ability to think in a critical manner allows him to reduce the influences of advertisement, to distinguish facts and opinions, and also to neutralize a weak argument with poor or unsupported evidence. Critical thinking requires one to employ logical reasoning and empirical evidence before they arrive at the conclusion. Critical thinking is so important especially in the process of analysis because it can help you to avoid personal biases, your intuitions, as well as your preconceptions which is usually formed in your early stage of life. Thinking in a logical manner can subsequently help you to take the right or most suitable decision when you are confronted with new challenges in life.

 

11. Research Skills

You can’t learn everything under the sun. Instead of learning everything, try focusing only on the specific area which interest you the most. At times when you need to learn new things, Google can always help you to sort out all the relevant information in the shortest time possible. The only problem you might have is you need to filter and to take only the information you require to avoid information overload.

 

12. Money Management Skills

After attending The Millionaire Mind Intensive, a T. Harv Eker signature program, I have come to learn that rich people are wealthier than the others mainly because they know how to manage their money. It is important to know how much wealth do you have right now, and start managing your personal finance today. Once you start managing your money, you will then start to think how to accumulate more wealth to live the kind of life you desired. Always invest in your financial knowledge first, then only put your money into any kind of investment.

 

13. Stress Management Skills

Stress leads to poor health, and poor health leads to poor working performance, poor socialization. In a nutshell, hardworking is good, but you must never get overloaded by work until you neglected your health. Always pay attention at your stress level, and remember to take a short break and to rejuvenate your life. One free simple way to rejuvenate your life is to bring yourself closer to the mother nature. Enjoy the sunset and sunrise or a walk in the garden not only is a good way to release stress, it can also help you come to realize that there so many beautiful little things you shouldn’t miss in life.

 

What Else?

I must have missed some  important skills right here. In your opinion, what are the other skills I should add to this list?

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[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]http://inspirationboost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ds-profile-pic3.png[/author_image] [author_info]Darren Chow writes at www.InspirationBoost.com. He truly believes that positivity is contagious, so does your smile. Thus, he founded Inspiration Boost with a core vision: to spread inspiration to as many people as possible. [/author_info] [/author]

6 thoughts on “13 Universal Skills You Need to Succeed at Anything”

  1. This is helpful information for me. I am happy to find your distinguished way of writing the post. I will be happy to see you writing on “13 Universal Skills You Need to Succeed at Anything”. Now you make it easy for me to understand and implement the concept. Thank you for the post. Really this is a great effort.

  2. I’m glad it does help you.
    Let me know if you think I have missed some important skills which I should add into the list above.

    Thanks =)

  3. A lot of what you mention here have to do with Interpersonal Skills (also known as People Skills or Soft Skills). These are not only relevant in our work life, but in every area of our lives because they have to do with how we relate with others.
    Succeeding in society mean you have to succeed with the right people skills.

  4. Yes, totally agree that People skills are crucial. Many big goals in our life simply cannot be achieved alone. Guidance, advice, suggestion, and help from the others allows us to achieve more than when we are alone.
    Having these People skills in our pocket will definitely enrich our lives.

  5. Really,these skills are to be mastered by anyone who needs to be in the highest altitude in their life.There are also some skills which are required in this modern fast moving world which is make ourself more stronger.They are ability to cope up with emotions and empathy.These skills are to be mastered to cope with this fast and furious world

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