4 Valuable Life Skills That Everyone Should Master

Personal development and continued learning are something that is hugely important to me (and how I ended up here, at Wealthy Affiliate).

If you took a look at any one of my bookshelves, you'd immediately notice that the vast majority of titles I own belong to one of the many self-improvement genres.

Whether they're books on improving self-confidence, boosting happiness, learning great communication skills, various religious and spiritual texts, or something to do with marketing and business development, there's something for everyone.

There is a common set of lessons to be learned from these books, no matter the specific topic. I believe it all boils down to four essential things.

1. Learn to listen to yourself.

What we do well for ourselves we can do well for others. How can we expect to show up for others in our lives if we don't first learn to show up for ourselves?

Self-doubt and negative thinking are incredibly damaging yet dominate most people's waking (and sometimes sleeping) hours. Both destroy our chance of success.

I'm not saying it's easy - far from it in my experience. But it is essential that we "flip the script" and catch these thoughts when they arise.

Thoughts create feelings. Feelings create behaviour.

This is a basic principle of REBT - Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy. If you've never heard of it, I highly recommend you check out Positive Psychology which explains it clearly and has great free resources.

2. Learn internal validation.

You're doing ok! Remind yourself of this when you need to.

Slow down, take things one step at a time, and be gentle with yourself.

In my career, I really struggle with what's known as "imposter syndrome". I often doubt that I'm making any positive impact on the business that employs me.

Why? Because I tell myself that everything I do, I've taught myself from online courses and reading blogs and books and not from formal education. Therefore, I see others in the same line of work as me who have studied degrees specifically relating to this area and I assume they "must be so much better than me".

Recently, the company hired a "Growth Manager" who has given me the push I needed to see how much I have achieved. They constantly thank me for things I've done and point out that many companies in our industry have entire teams dedicated to each aspect of digital marketing - and I've achieved a lot by myself.

Me being me, I thought "gee, that's nice of them to say that", but it wasn't until I sat down and looked at factors like increases in organic traffic that I started to believe it.

It can be easy to list things we aren't good at, but I challenge you to take a look at what you are good at. Do a personal SWOT analysis. Draw up a matrix of your personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Again, there are heaps of online resources for helping with this. One of the better guides I've read comes from CICCC; here's an example of questions they recommend asking:

3. Learn to ask great questions.

There are too many good books and other resources on this topic to list so, do a quick Google search and you'll be sure to discover something that suits you.

The skill of asking great questions improves every aspect of your life; relationships, careers, emotional intelligence, you name it.

If we learn to ask the right questions, we'll get the right answers. Take the time to think about what you're asking and why you want to know the answer. Make your questions clear to understand and open-ended when suitable.

They say the only bad question is the one unasked.

This skill brings me back to Wealthy Affiliate again - if you're going through a class or training and you don't understand something, ask. There are so many people here with knowledge on a plethora of topics who are more than willing to help you.

4. Learn that which you don't know!

I saved my favourite for last. For me, one of my most important personal values is continuous learning.

We are fortunate to live in an age where the vast majority of us have access to everything we could ever desire to learn about. Pick any topic you can think of and I'm sure you'll find blogs, videos, courses, podcasts, books, and more just waiting for you to glean information from them.

Set goals for things you want to learn and take action on it. Don't know how to use HTML and CSS but want to? Take a beginners course. Don't know how to eat with chopsticks? Watch a YouTube video.

I hope you've enjoyed my musings today. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and, of course, your recommendations for books!
I'll leave you with this thought from Matt Lavars:

Change your thinking and you'll change your world. You're only one thought away from changing your life.