The Most “Important” Life Skills Anyone Could Have
Even though school can be a good place to learn specialized skills, most people did not learn many of life’s most important skills in a classroom.
Instead, great skills can be acquired from observing others like from the people that we admire, practicing what we have written down in our notes, making mistakes along the way, reflecting on how we can improve next time, and repeating the entire process until we can master those skills.
School does not end when we graduate from high school or college. Our education only begins when we graduate and the knowledge that we acquire after we have received our “degree” will determine our success and happiness greatly. Like Henry Ford said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
The more we learn, the more we realize that we do not really know much because it means that there are still a lot of things left for us to discover and learn from.
The following list of skill set below was compiled and sorted from a recent Quora thread in which users answered what they thought would be the most valuable life skills that a person should have.
Check out the responses! We would love to learn what you think!
1. Articulating what you think and feel
“It’s extremely important for a person to learn to put into words what he thinks. It makes a relationship last. It creates an impression on the person you’re talking to. It gives you a chance to explore what others think about your ideas.” —Quora user Abhishek Padmasale
2. “Stealing” from the greats
“If you want to be successful, you must learn to steal! Or, ‘model.’ Modeling is a process of going in and figuring out what the expert does. If you want to be successful in life, find someone who is great and attach to them at the hip. As Pablo Picasso said: ‘Good artists copy. Great artists steal.'” —Quora user Martin Armstrong
3. Self-discipline
“With self-discipline and perseverance you can acquire any skill. We all make resolutions throughout the year. The only thing stopping us from completing all these resolutions is ourselves. An inner voice within us stops us from waking up early in the morning or meeting new people. If we have proper self discipline we can suppress this voice and live a life that is defined by our own rules.” —Quora user Nikant Vohra
4. Knowing what you don’t know
“The only difference between the guy who achieves his own definition of success and the guy who doesn’t, is that one of them knew what questions to ask. One of them knew what needed to be improved upon. One of them decided to be honest about what it is they don’t know.”
—Quora user Nicolas Cole5. Charisma
“You can be broke, unintelligent, foolish, and physically unattractive and still be successful if you have the ability to make other people genuinely want to help you. Charismatic people are easy to recognize; they’re the ones you can’t help but like. They make other people feel good about themselves, are always present in the moment in your conversation, and have an uncanny ability to inspire trust.” —Quora user Michael Graham
6. The ability to accept and move on
“Accept that life can’t always be the way you want. Accept that everyone in the world can’t behave the way you want them to. Accept that you can’t keep everyone happy. Accept that worrying won’t do any good. Accept that your happiness lies in your hands.” —Quora user Shruti Chopade
7. Thinking differently
“Do something better than anyone else in the world, even if what you do best has a very tiny niche. Being able to do something that 100 million other people can do, while potentially important, is likely not nearly as valuable as having a skill that is unique.” —Quora user Auren Hoffman