importance of life skills essay

Importance of life skills

The World Health Organization defines life skills as the adaptive behavior that helps a person to deal the challenges, and demands of the daily life effectively. According to UNICEF, life skills is a change in behavior, or development of behavior to seek balance in three areas, as knowledge , skills, and attitude.

Practicing these skills help in developing sociability, tolerance, self-esteem, and competencies in yourself so that you can take the necessary action at the right time. Let us understand more about life skills.

Who needs to learn life skills?

Whether you are a child, or adult, life skills are beneficial for everyone. Every person who wants to excel in their career, and enhance the quality of life should learn these skills. It is different from bookish knowledge.

These are the practical skills that are useful in day to day life. The right time is to start it from the school age. It should be imparted to students along with their education. This way not just the student excels at academic levels, but also makes remarkable growth at personal levels.

It represents “reflective skills” that includes analyzing, and problem-solving skills, “personal skills” that includes interpersonal skills, and self-awareness skills.

What skills comes under life skills?

Life skills cover several areas that impacts the quality of life of a person. There is a close association between life quality, and acquisition of life skills. When a person becomes skillful in all these areas, then his independent functioning, life quality, and social competence also increases.

According to the World Health Organization, life skills are classified into following areas:

• Thinking Skills:
• Self-awareness,
• Problem solving,
• Critical thinking,
• Creative thinking, and
• Decision making

These skills are very important for a person to understand problems, identify solutions for them either or with the assistance of others. Once you arrive at the solution, you need to take the necessary action to effectively address them.

A person learns to develop critical thinking abilities. He thinks in an unusual and different manner about the issues, come up with new solutions, or ideas, and couple it with the ability to evaluate information judiciously and comprehend its significance.

Social Skills:

• Interpersonal relationships
• Effective Communication, and

In this section, a person learns skills to work with other people. He learns the ways to effectively communicate with others either verbally, or in writing or both. It makes a person becomes more aware of himself. He starts to become emphatic and see life from other’s point of view to deal with them in a better way.

Emotional Skills:

These are the skills that helps in dealing with the stress. By learning these skills, you will feel in charge of your emotions. It helps to learn how to practice self-control. These skills teach how to stand up for not just himself, but also for others, and remain calm even when faced with criticism, or provocation. Life skills teach people to take setbacks positively and take it as an opportunity to learn from them and not get disappointed.

How does life skills prove to be advantageous to a person?

These skills help a person live a fulfilling life. It makes a person feel confident and motivated. By learning these skills, you feel more positive, and happy and you radiate the same all around you. These skills can be acquired either by direct experience or through teaching and assisting them to deal with challenging situations in life.

Life skills are important for the overall well-being of the person. It teaches a person how to manage and live better quality of life. An individual learns to live life to fullest by conquering his inhibitions and fears, and realize their ambitions. He becomes better at making decisions in life.

Students when learn these skills, become more self-assured, effective communicators, and independent thinkers. Not just they become good listeners, and speakers but also develop a positive outlook.

Life skills teach you how to overcome your shortcomings that obstructs you from achieving your goals. It could be the fear of talking to the strangers, going to a new place, performing any activity for the first time, or anything else. By learning these skills, you start to accept yourself and live life with happiness.

Also read: Importance of work-life balance

As a part of life skills training, a student sees several motivational videos, and audios that teaches him how to overcome challenges in life. The real-life scenarios make a student feel motivated and more goal oriented. This enables the student to face every challenge in their life with courage. It teaches them to become more self-reliant, and independent.

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What is Life Skills Education & why it is Important?

The development of a child can be made possible by keeping all aspects of their personality in mind. This is the reason why Life Skill Education plays an important part in everyone’s life. In life skills education , the overall personality of a child is taken into consideration. It gives strength to handle any kind of situation and gives the courage to face struggle to achieve any target. By adding life skills for students to the school curriculum, better results can be achieved.

Here is the explanation of what is a life skill.

A life skill is used to describe basic skills acquired through learning or knowledge. Also, the daily routine can be said to be a life skill. Life skills also can include the ability of your emotions, finances, school performance, health, etc. If you are practicing life skills, so can improve a child’s esteem, social competence, and confidence. You are increasing the life skills in your life.

Now, the exact life skills meaning is when the group of psychosocial competencies and interpersonal skills that help people make decisions, build healthy, solve problems, communicate effectively, and think critically and creatively. Maybe life skills are directed towards personal actions or actions towards others.

 Hence, the representation of what is a life skill. And life skills meaning.

Table of Contents

What are Life Skills?

There are many definitions to understand what life skills are.

A person needs a set of social features and personal capabilities to interact with themselves and other people in and around their environment and make a decision that requires high ability, also to find solutions to various kinds of problems.

Moreover, the skills required to deal positively with any condition to get the desired outcome is called life skills. Life skills can be developed through encouragement to adapt to society and promote positivity in personal behaviors and adopt a positive perspective toward work.

What is Life Skill Education Meaning?

Life skills education is one such type of skill. Under this, the child develops the ability to discharge his life appropriately and to organize the activities related to life in a systematic manner. It is a type of education in which skills are developed to make the child efficient in such a way that he can make decisions in odd situations by his ability and intelligence.

At the same time, such miseries have to be developed in human life. So that he can become a skilled citizen.

Importance of Life Skills Education

If we want to live life successfully, then we need to understand the importance of life skills. And it is also very important to implement it in our life. If this happens then our life can move in a simple and right direction. Life skills make us competent to know how to make our life easy and simple, how to create a positive life, and how life can be spent in the right way. Therefore, life skills are very important in our life.

It polishes the ability to adapt to all kinds of circumstances and succeed in every aspect of society. Lack of life skills in the lives of new generations needs to be taken care of as it is important in life. Due to the absence of life skills, not only personal lives but professional lives and careers get affected.

By educating life skills, students can develop self-confidence in them. It makes them cooperative and communicative. It prepares them to take quick action in any unfavorable circumstances.

Types of Life Skills

There are two types of life skills that need to be taught to students. The first one is General Life Skills and the other is High-Level skills. And under these skills comes a variety of skills which are the following.

General skills

Confidence skills.

Decision-making skills.

Stress alleviation skills.

Adjustment skills in adversity.

Self-awareness skills.

The skill of negative tendency towards wrongdoing.

Positive behavior.

Critical Thinking.

Society’s skills towards each other.

High-level skills

The following skills are covered under High-Level Skills.

Excellent warmth and high mental level.

Way of thinking.

Mental and physical relaxation.

Goal Setting and Problem Solving.

Communication.

Social support.

Standard of living with health.

Aims of Development of Life Skills

Following are the objectives for the development of life skills.

The purpose of social development.

Development of experimental knowledge.

The purpose of the development of adjustment power.

The objective of develops life values.

The objective of mental development.

Of all-round development

Who Created the Basic Life Skills Curriculum?

The curriculum for life skills education in schools was created by UNICEF in close collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Azerbaijan to give youth new knowledge and a valuable chance to apply novel skills in a protected environment for the effective transition to adulthood.

What Are Basic Life Skills Education For?

Youthful generations foster perspectives and convictions positively so that they contribute to Azerbaijani society and make progress as they transition to adulthood and the work world.

Target Audience

The life skills lesson bundle is intended to apply to the youthful generation aged 10 to 24 years of age who come to Youth Houses aiming to create a healthy condition to support and promote the advancement of youth initiatives.

Anticipated result

Through life skills for students, youthful generations are outfitted with foundational skills essential for transitioning to useful adulthood; overseeing stress; learning to deal with difficult emotions; practicing positivism; improving confidence; feeling sympathy; learning to listen to others carefully; and learning to set personal limits.

Moreover, they learn to handle disputes well; find a balance between needs also, requests; impart confidently; put forth objectives; make decisions; solve problems; think basically and imaginatively; utilize chief functional skills; and learn to return from difficulty.

Imparting ‘Life Skills Education’ In the Classroom

Classroom discussions.

An activity provides amazing open doors for students to learn and work on turning to one another in solving problems. Empower students to develop their understanding of the topic and personalize their connection to it. Creates skills, in listening, decisiveness, and sympathy.

Brainstorming

It permits students to produce ideas rapidly and spontaneously. Assists students with using their imagination furthermore, thinking out of the container. Great discussion starter because the class can imaginatively create ideas. It is fundamental to assess the upsides and downsides of each idea or rank ideas according to certain standards.

Along with being a fun activity and involving the entire class, to be active and participative, it also gives a fantastic strategy for practicing skills; experiencing how one could handle a likely situation in real life; increasing sympathy for others and their point of view, and increasing insight into their feelings.

Groups are useful when the time is restricted as it boosts student input. Permits student interactions, and permits them to, know, one another better which in a way improves group building and cooperation.

Educational Games and Simulations

They advance fun, active learning, and rich discussion as members work hard to make their statements or procure points. They require the combined utilization of knowledge, perspectives, and skills and permit students to test out assumptions and capacities in a somewhat protected environment.

Analysis of Situation and Case Studies

It allows an opportunity, to examine, and investigate, challenges, and problems and securely test solutions; providing open doors for working together in groups, sharing ideas, and new learnings and giving insight furthermore, elevates sometimes us to see things differently.

Case studies resemble strong impetuses for thought and discussion. Engaging in this thinking system; students improve their own, decisive thinking, and decision-making skills. It also gives a chance to confront risks or any challenges and find ways of coping with them.

Progress of Basic Life Skills Curriculum for Youth

Because of effective testing through the two pilot Youth Houses – in Baku-Binagadi and Mingachevir, the UNICEF-created Basic Life Skills program was extended to one more Youth House supported by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, as well as three Career Places supported by the Youth Foundation.

In equal, negotiations are held with the Ministry of Education concerning the conceivable inclusion of the BLS program into the formal education curriculum.

DISCUSSION and CONCLUSION

An important and legitimate implementation of life skill education is a need of 60 minutes, for today’s society.

Imparting life skills education to the students can be useful as it specifically addresses the needs of children, and helps in motivating, and providing practical, mental, emotional, social and self-management skills for life changes.

Yadav P and Iqbal N (2009) showed positive aftereffects of imparting life skills education to students and bringing change in young adults’ mentality, thought and conduct by providing a supportive environment for them.

According to Errecart et al., (1991) and Caplan et al., (1992), life skills education ends up being a successful methodology in essential prevention education, as it is more interactive, utilizes a problem problem-solving approach and is exercise-based.

Hence, the teacher and the educated are both involved in learning and fun too.

All in all, life skills education has been viewed as a compelling psychosocial intervention strategy for promoting positive social, and psychological wellness of youths which plays a significant role in all perspectives like strengthening coping techniques and developing fearlessness and emotional intelligence, as well as enhancing decisive thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills as have been proven and factual in the aforementioned studies.

Thus, there is, significance and significance for life skills education to integrate into the standard school curriculum by a life skills trainer/teacher/guide to improve the psychological wellness of students, outfit them with better-adjusted skills to confront the challenges of changing life situations and enable them to turn out to be completely functioning contributors to the host society and the world overall.

In the illumination of the above discussion, it very well may be concluded, that, Life skill education has its significance and significance in by and large advancement of students. Our findings are in common with the findings of Botvin, et al., (1998), Nair. M.K.C, (2005) some more, suggesting life skill education programs as a decent supportive system for young people.

Future Implications

Although considerable progress has been made in the previous ten years and the current study too, life skills education is a powerful method of education, which upgrades social, emotional and thinking skills, and helps 21st-century youths accomplish their objectives.

It does so by strengthening their capacities to meet the needs and requests of the current society and find true success in life, but even more exact research is crucial for future researchers, academicians and professionals in the connected field to demonstrate hearty findings.

Essential Life Skills Everyone Should Learn

Developing life skills is important and every life skill has its importance to apply in life. Following are life skills:

Self-Awareness Skills

By developing the Self-awareness skill, one can be aware of his/her doings. They will be aware of their own performance and their behaviors which will make them competent to handle any situation. A person will get to know his feelings for things or towards other people. It also helps them to make sound decisions.

Empathy and Sympathy Skills

With Empathy, a person will be able to understand other people’s perceptions, feelings, and circumstances any person is in. It simply puts them in someone’s place to understand their actual emotions. It helps them to react accordingly.

With sympathy, a person will be able to show appreciation and compassion towards other people and their emotional reactions.

Problem-Solving Skills

The life skill of problem-solving makes an individual trace a problem, suggest options to solutions, evaluate the solutions to pick the best solution, and then apply the solution to the problem within the time limit. It is one of the most important life skills to practice in life on an everyday basis.

Decision-Making Skills

Every now and then, an individual has to face times when they have to make a decision that can affect their life. With decision-making skills, a person develops the skill to make the right and appropriate decision and pass it on. Decision-making enables them to take decisions in any hard and fast situation.

Thinking Skills

Developing thinking skill is very important as it is the mental activity by which an individual can process information, use experiences, make relationships, finalize solutions to problems, pass on decisions, ask questions, and suggest new ideas.

Thinking skills are of four types:

Analytical Thinking Skills: It is a visual thinking skill that makes an individual competent to break complex problems into manageable components to solve them effectively.

Divergent Thinking Skills: With Divergent thinking skills, one can generate creative ideas after working on or exploring many possible solutions. It is spontaneous and free-flow thinking.

Creative Thinking Skills: Creative thinking skill helps a person to create something new. It also allows their brain to explore things and look at things in creative ways to suggest creative solutions. Creative thinking is infused with imagination, and it does not involve logical reasoning.

Critical Thinking Skills: Critical thinking skill is the opposite of creative thinking skill. It is the ability to make a difference between fake truth and real truth, judgment, and opinion. It prepares a person to think rationally and prepare to build trust in right and avoid wrong.

Communication skills

Without proper communication, you cannot express and make people understand your thinking and it can be made possible by developing communication skills. It helps them to convey to people in a very convincing and clear way. It develops confidence in people as well and good communication skills help them in the professional environment too.

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are basically interaction skills and social skills. This skill prepares an individual to communicate socially in person or in a group. These skills have traits such as self-confidence, critical thinking, communication skills, active listening, leadership, etc. To develop interpersonal skills, one needs to start their day with an optimistic approach towards the day.

Accepting Criticism Skill

Accepting criticism is not easy but by developing this particular skill, one will be able to be open to constructive criticism and improve themselves according to that criticism. An individual should keep their emotional side and accept the truth to work on it.

Students have to understand that not only studies will give them success, but they will also have to develop their skills.

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What Are Life Skills And How To Improve Them?

During job interviews, potential employers often ask “what are your strengths and weaknesses?”. While this question has the power to…

During job interviews, potential employers often ask “what are your strengths and weaknesses?”. While this question has the power to throw people off, it’s actually trying to gauge whether you’re aware of your abilities and competencies. Many even make the mistake of repeating the skills already highlighted on their resume, while they should be focusing on life skills and how they apply them in everyday life.

Life skills will help you participate in meaningful conversations, practice mindfulness and enhance personal growth. Such qualities are highly valued in a professional setting as they improve an organization’s culture. Wondering what are life skills? Let’s find out!

Meaning Of Life Skills

The need for life skills, the importances of life skills at work, the life skills list – 10 essential skills.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes life skills as the abilities and positive behaviors that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. In a constantly changing environment, i.e., a fast-paced world, life skills have become essential in overcoming the roadblocks of daily life. From managing things better to processing emotions and interacting with others, the need for life skills becomes necessary with time.

There are several underlying features that define life skills, which are

There’s an element of morality as life skills relate to what’s good or bad and right or wrong in society

It affects people on a personal level, especially when it comes to interaction and engagement with friends and family

They’re often controversial as people hold strong opinions about them

The Need For Life Skills

Psychosocial competence, also known as the ability to deal with challenges effectively, is a much-needed skill. Not only does it help you achieve your long-term goals but also improves your mental, physical and social well-being. When you’re able to effectively deal with stress and pressures in life, it minimizes behavior-related health issues. For example, in schools, students falling behind on their coursework can largely benefit from supportive learning environments.

Let’s look at the various ways in which different life skills help us cope with the increasing pace and changes of modern life. Here’s a list of reasons that stress the importance of life skills.

It helps you find creative ways of problem-solving and decision-making

It helps you identify the impact of your actions and take responsibility

It builds confidence in interpersonal communication and makes room for group collaboration and cooperation

It helps you analyze available choices or resources before making important decisions

It helps you develop empathy, a greater sense of self-awareness and appreciation for others

In a nutshell, life skills help you find your voice while you prepare for challenges and opportunities of personal as well as professional life.

The Importance Of Life Skills At Work

In addition to personal development, life skills prepare you for the professional world. You learn how to confidently tackle problems and step outside your comfort zone. You establish healthy work-life boundaries and start paying attention to people around you. Moreover, you continue to learn and grow every step of the way—making room for new skills and knowledge. Let’s look at the importance of life skills in the workplace.

You learn to work collaboratively with other people, which further helps you promote team (or collective) objectives

Not only do you find creative ways to solve problems but you make active efforts to put them into action

You learn to keep an open mind, encouraging new ideas and diverse perspectives

You learn how to stand up for yourself as well as for your team; you’re accountable for your own actions

You discover the ability to recover from setbacks and failures and view them as opportunities to continue learning

If you’re still not convinced about the need for these core skills, here are some life skills examples that’ll highlight their relevance in the workplace:

When you apply for a job, interviewers often want to tap into your skill set that goes beyond your resume. This is your chance to highlight life skills that also act as employability skills such as critical thinking and self-awareness. It even gives you a competitive edge over other applicants.

A majority of people are motivated by the opportunities that a job creates—climbing the corporate ladder. An effective way to seek out more opportunities to develop and practice leadership skills. Whether it’s leading an independent project or a team, you need these essential skills to guide and help you advance in your career.

A highly valuable trait in the workplace is the ability to navigate, manage and resolve conflicts. Any organization with diverse employees also invites diverse perspectives and there will be times when there’s a difference in opinions and viewpoints. Life skills help you look at the bigger picture and consider multiple perspectives. As a result, conflict management becomes easier.

The Life Skills List – 10 Essential Skills

Although life skills are related to personal development and well-being, it’s useful to reflect on our environment and personal relationships. It leads to sociability, tolerance and increased self-esteem . We learn to say no without being aggressive and make compromises for positive solutions.

Here’s a comprehensive life skills list you should consider to make active changes that lead to self-improvement.

Self-Awareness

If you’re able to appreciate and differentiate between your strengths and weaknesses, you’re a self-aware individual. It helps you make choices, take actions and make decisions that are consistent with your abilities. Examples of self-awareness are:

The ability to understand what you can or can’t do

Recognizing your own talents and being aware of your skill set

The ability to differentiate between the weak and strong aspects of your abilities or behavior

Self-Esteem

It refers to the way you feel about yourself and what others think of you. People with healthy self-esteem trust themselves and their abilities. They aren’t afraid of what others think about them. Examples of healthy and positive self-esteem are:

Developing a positive self-image or perception

Respecting yourself and your choices or decisions

Not being influenced by what others think of you

Interpersonal Relationships

Humans are social beings by nature and friendly relationships boost social and mental well-being. Interpersonal skills refer to the ability to positively engage with others and coexist amicably. Interpersonal relationships include a host of interrelated skills, such as:

The ability to spark up conversations in unfamiliar or new settings (e.g., business conferences)

The ability to make others feel comfortable in your presence (e.g., a job interview where you build rapport)

The ability to manage conflict and resolve issues (e.g., respectfully disagreeing with your manager and offering a different solution)

Assertiveness

It isn’t easy to put your foot down, without hurting somebody’s feelings. Assertiveness teaches you how to maintain a delicate balance by helping you express yourself freely without hurting someone’s feelings. In the workplace, it’s especially difficult to establish boundaries and saying no to people. By being assertive , you can communicate your needs and expectations in a respectful manner.

Effective Communication

One of the most crucial life skills, effective communication, includes verbal and non-verbal communication. It goes beyond a simple exchange of words or gestures and involves the ability to express yourself clearly. Examples of effective communication are:

Delivering ideas skillfully and persuading others of those ideas

Using appropriate tone, language and non-verbal cues when presenting information or interacting with someone

Paying attention to your emotions as well as others and making others feel comfortable in your presence

Critical Thinking

It refers to the ability to think critically i.e., separating facts from opinions. This enhances the ways in which we articulate and express our thoughts and ideas. The flexibility and fluency in the thought process make room for creative and innovative thinking. Critical thinking includes multiple abilities such as:

Identifying and planning for risks in advance

Differentiating between opinions and facts

Challenging personal biases and looking at situations from an objective perspective

Decision-Making

The ability to use available information to assess a situation and make an informed choice is known as decision-making . It helps develop problem-solving skills and is a highly valuable trait in the workplace. Examples of decision-making skills are:

Not being influenced by external factors when deciding something

Being certain about your needs, expectations and end goals

Being able to separate your emotions and engaging in rational thinking

Time Management

Time management helps you stay on track, organize your activities and work well under pressure. It further reduces stress and allows you to set goals successfully. To stay organized and on top of your priorities, you must manage your time smartly. Time management skills have several advantages, such as:

Knowing how to spend your time productively and staying organized

Setting priorities and saying no to things that aren’t urgent

Feeling less stressed and having the energy to accomplish things successfully

Negotiation

People often view negotiation as a zero-sum game, while in reality, it involves a win-win situation. The ability to compromise or settle in an argument that benefits everyone is the cornerstone of successful negotiation. It’s an important interpersonal skill that helps resolve conflicts and solves problems.

High emotional intelligence and empathy allow you to accept others who may be very different from you. You show compassion, support and respond to situations appropriately. Empathy improves the quality of social relationships, encouraging trust and respect between you and others.

Being aware of life skills isn’t enough. You need to find ways to actively implement them for successful careers and relationships. Harappa Education’s Leading Self course will help you embark on your journey of discovering your true potential. You’ll learn how to overcome roadblocks and step outside your comfort zone. The Ladder of Learning framework will help you learn everything about competence and skills. You’ll embrace opportunities for growth and learning and pursue the best version of yourself!

Explore Harappa Diaries to learn more about topics related to the LEAD Habit such as  What are Employability Skills , How to Develop  Self-Awareness ,  Why is  Self Motivation  important  and Guide to  Personal SWOT Analysis  to become the best version of yourself.

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Why are life skills important?

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From the benefits it brings to the individual to the positive effect it has on employability and wider society, learn all about the importance of having life skills. 

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The importance of life skills

In a constantly changing environment, having life skills is an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life. The dramatic changes in global economies over the past five years have been matched with the transformation in technology and these are all impacting on education, the workplace and our home life. To cope with the increasing pace and change of modern life, students need new life skills such as the ability to deal with stress and frustration. Today’s students will have many new jobs over the course of their lives, with associated pressures and the need for flexibility. 

Benefits for the individual

In everyday life, the development of life skills helps students to: 

• Find new ways of thinking and problem solving
• Recognise the impact of their actions and teaches them to take responsibility for what they do rather than blame others
• Build confidence both in spoken skills and for group collaboration and cooperation
• Analyse options, make decisions and understand why they make certain choices outside the classroom
• Develop a greater sense of self-awareness and appreciation for others

Benefits for employment

While students work hard to get good grades, many still struggle to gain employment. According to research employers are looking not just for academic success but key employability skills including:

• The ability to self-manage, solve problems and understand the business environment 
• Working well as part of a team
• Time and people management  
• Agility and adaptability to different roles and flexible working environments
• The potential to lead by influence

Benefits for society

The more we develop life skills individually, the more these affect and benefit the world in which we live: 

• Recognising cultural awareness and citizenship makes international cooperation easier
• Respecting diversity allows creativity and imagination to flourish developing a more tolerant society 
• Developing negotiation skills, the ability to network and empathise can help to build resolutions rather than resentments

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Importance of Life Skills Education -10 Essential Life Skills Everyone Should Learn

Life skills are defined as a set of  psychosocial competence  and personal skills that help people make careful big decisions, communicate effectively with others, develop coping skills with surrounding circumstances, and manage oneself which leads to progress and success.  Necessary life skills vary by a person's age and by culture and society. 

Life skills education is an invaluable asset that can help young students overcome the challenges of everyday life, so schools must provide their students with practical lessons in everyday life. Let's take a look at the top 10 essential life skills everyone should learn. 

Importance of Life Skills Education in Preparing for a Better Future

What are life skills, importance of life skills education, 10 essential life skills everyone should learn, 1. self-awareness skills, 2. empathy and sympathy skills, 3. problem-solving skills, 4. decision-making skills, 5. thinking skills, 6. communication skills, 7. interpersonal relationship skills, 8. accepting criticism: a life skill, 9. time management skills, 10. stress management skills, contact form.

The Importance of Life Skills-Based Education & Why Schools Should Teach Life Skills

In an ever-growing technology and data driven world, much of the focus in education has understandably taken a shift toward STEM-based (science, technology, engineering, and math) initiatives that will prepare students for the coursework and careers of the future . But life skills—how well equipped students are to make good decisions and solve problems in their academic and professional careers as well as their personal lives—should also play a critical role in a well-rounded and comprehensive education.

What Is Life Skills-Based Education?

Think of life skills as the building blocks or framework that allow students to apply the knowledge they acquire in school to real world problems and situations. Also referred to as “ soft skills ” in a professional context, the ability to think abstractly and approach problems from multiple angles to find practical solutions, and the skill to communicate clearly and effectively are just as important as technical knowledge in a particular field or academic subject.

According to Macmillan Education , “In a constantly changing environment, having life skills is an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life. The dramatic changes in global economies over the past five years have been matched with the transformation in technology and these are all impacting on education, the workplace, and our home life.”

But life skills go well beyond choosing a major in college or impressing a potential employer in the future. Life skills provide children with important tools for development, such as independent thinking, how to socialize and make new friends, and how to take action in situations where their parents or teachers may not be around to help or intervene ( dealing with a bully or personal insecurities and fears, for example.) Unlike motor skills and basic intelligence, executive function and decision-making skills are not innate but learned .

Examples of life skills include :

• Self reflection
• Critical thinking
• Problem solving
• Interpersonal skills

The Benefits of Teaching Life Skills at a Young Age

Building life skills is essentially an exercise in helping children develop sound judgment and good habits for long-term stability, wellness, and success.

How to Promote Life Skills for Young Students

Parents can take an active role in teaching life-skills at home with projects that provide real world examples and lessons in decision making and problem solving. They can be as simple as assigning household chores and budgeting exercises through an allowance, to caring for a pet or volunteering in the community.

Fun and simple-to-organize activities, like game nights (or afternoons) with family and friends with an educational focus that also encourage working in teams, can help to build social and interpersonal skills.

Everyday Survival Skills

In addition to brushing their own teeth and learning how to tie their shoes and get dressed, young children should know what to do in common situations as well as emergencies , such as:

• How to get to and from home and school
• Who to call in an emergency (memorize phone numbers)
• How to safely cross the street
• What to do if they are bullied or witness bullying
• How to safely use kitchen appliances and prepare basic meals
• How to do the laundry

The Importance of Books and Reading

The benefits of reading to young children and fostering a reading habit early in a child’s life are hard to overstate. From building and strengthening vocabulary and language skills to aiding with creative thinking, reading is one of the easiest and best activities available to teach children a range of new skills. Some of the many benefits of reading include:

• Builds self-regulation (also known as executive function)
• Teaches empathy
• Improves concentration
• Exposes children to diversity and differing perspectives and situations than their own

The acquisition of problem-solving and reasoning abilities is a fluid and ongoing process, and working with children early in their development to lay the framework with examples that they can understand and apply on their own is a good place to start.

If you would like your child’s education to include more life skills, consider enrolling them in a public school at home via online learning . As your child’s Learning Coach you can ensure a well-rounded education that you can supplement with plenty of real world skills!

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Importance of Life Skills in Education

• Updated on  
• Jan 4, 2024

Importance of Life Skills in Education : What exactly are life skills, and why are they important in education? If you are wondering about this, we have got the answer! Education is intended to improve the quality of life, not just your chances of getting a job. In this blog, we will discuss the essential life skills every person should have and even those recommended by the World Health Organisation. 

This Blog Includes:

What are life skills , improves self awareness and mental health, promotes effective decision-making, building healthy relationships, what is life skill education, general skills, other important skills, high-level skills.

Life skills education refers to the fundamental abilities that assist adolescents in developing the skills required to deal with life’s realities. Life skills enable people to learn new things, gain control over their behaviour, and make informed decisions. 

Life skills can be defined in a variety of ways, one of which is as follows: 

To interact with oneself and other people in and around one’s environment and to make a decision that requires high ability, one needs a certain set of social traits and personal qualities. One also needs these qualities to solve different kinds of problems. Additionally, life skills are the abilities needed to approach any situation positively in order to achieve the desired result. Adapting to society, promoting positivity in one’s own behaviour, and adopting a positive outlook on work are all ways to develop life skills.

The World Health Organisation has suggested a list of life skills. They are as follows:

• Self-awareness
• Thinking outside the box
• Thinking critically
• Resolving issues
• Making a decision
• Managing Stress Managing Emotions
• A good interpersonal relationship
• Communication that works

Also Read: Learning Skills For Students & Working Professionals

The list of these skills makes it clear that they are global in scope and include both intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. These skills are frequently divided into three major categories:

• Thinking skills include the capacity to come up with original ideas or to consider various solutions to a problem.
• Social Skills include understanding how to establish solid bonds with people, communicate clearly, and engage in fruitful social interactions.
• Emotional skills include knowing who you are, controlling your emotions, and feeling at ease in your own skin.

Why Teaching Life Skills in School Is Critical?

There are a lot of reasons as to why teaching life skills in school is critical. Some of the reason are mentioned below:-

Learning life skills help a student understand their true identity, who they are, and what they want from life. It makes them self-aware. They also become aware of the struggles of people around them.

Now that they become self-aware, the are better equipped to handle what they are going through and understand when they need help. This directly has an impact on students’ mental health. It improves quite a bit.

Everyday in our lives, we come across situations where effective decision making is essential. Learning life skills helps us in effective decision making. It makes our much more confident and in taking well informed decisions which can potentially be life changing

One of the life skills is effective communication. And by learning that, students are able to speak clearly and much more assertively while still maintaining respect for other people’s opinions. What’s more is that the even learn good listening skills and are able to provide appropriate responses to them.

Learning life skills will also teach students to show empathy and give them a clear distinction between listening and hearing.This will help them avoid overreacting, misinterpretation, and miscommunication. Hence, they will be able to build a much more healthy relation with their family and friends along with building healthy workplace connections and even in the society as well.

One of these skill types is life skills education. Through this, the kid learns how to live his life to the fullest and how to plan his daily activities in a methodical way. It is a style of education where the child is given the tools to become effective so that he can make decisions based on his intelligence and ability in challenging circumstances.

Must Read: Importance of Soft Skills for Career Growth

Common Life Skills For Everyone

Developing life skills is important, and each life skill has a specific application in life. Life skills include the following:

• Decision-making abilities: Everyone encounters situations from time to time where they must make choices that could have a significant impact on their lives. A person can learn how to make the right decision and then impart it to others by developing decision-making skills. They can make decisions in any situation that calls for a quick, firm decision.
• Self-awareness skills- Developing the Self-awareness skill allows one to be aware of his or her actions. They will be aware of their own performance and behaviours, allowing them to deal with any situation. A person will discover his or her feelings for things or for other people. It also helps them make sound decisions.
• Communication – You cannot express and make others understand your thoughts without effective communication, which can be achieved by honing your communication skills. It enables them to make their points clearly and convincingly to the audience. It also helps people gain confidence, and having effective communication skills is beneficial in a professional setting.
• The skill of having a negative tendency towards wrongdoing.
• Positive behaviour.
• Critical thinking.
• Society’s skills towards each other.

The following skills are covered under High-Level Skills.

• Social support.
• Standard of living in good health.
• Excellent warmth and high mental level.
• Way of thinking.
• Mental and physical relaxation
• Goal Setting and Problem Solving

Life skills instruct us on how to live a happy, positive life and how to manage our time effectively. Life skills are therefore crucial in our daily lives. It sharpens the capacity for situational adaptation and societal success in all spheres.

Related Reads:

1) What are 10 life skills?

Ten life skills are;-

• Critical thinking
• Decision Making
• Inter-personal relationship skills
• Problem solving
• Effective communication skills
• Creative thinking
• Self-awareness building skills
• Coping with stress
• Coping with emotions

2) What are the 4 C’s of life skills?

The 4 Cs of life skills are mentioned below:

• Communications
• Collaboration
• Creative Thinking

3) What are types of life skills?

The different types of life skills are mentioned below:-

 That’s all about Life Skills! If you have any questions related to universities, careers, or courses to study abroad, let Leverage Edu be your helping hand.

Shagun Bhardwaj

Shagun has 2+ years of experience in SEO, Creative Copy Writing and Social Media content and has written content on ed-tech, finance, lifestyle, architecture and other niches. Professionally trained in journalism, All her works are infused with a passion for writing!!

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Essay on the concept and importance of life skill education

The term Life Skill Education, is being widely used nowadays but it is often used interchangeably with livelihood skills. But the two are different. Livelihoods skills as the name suggests, are skills, related to generate income to fulfill one’s household/individual economic goals.

These skills basically involve vocational skills, business management skills etc, where as life skills encompasses all the dimensions of human life, be it economical, social or psychological.

World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1993 defined life skills as, “the abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with demands and challenges of everyday life.

UNICEF defines life skills as, “a behaviour change or behaviour development approach designed to address a balance of three areas: knowledge, attitude and skills.”

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Therefore, life skills are a large group of psycho-social and interpersonal skills, which can help people, to make informed decisions, communicate effectively and develop coping and self management skills that may help an individual to lead a healthy and productive life.

Importance of Life Skill Education:

1. Life skills help adolescents to transit successfully from childhood to adulthood by healthy development of social and emotional skills.

2. It helps in the development of social competence and problem solving skills, which in turn help adolescents to form their own identity.

3. It helps to weigh pros and cons of the situation, hence, act as a mediator to problem behaviour.

4. It promotes positive social, norms that an impact the adolescent health services, schools and family.

5. It helps adolescents to differentiate between hearing and listening and thus, ensuring less development misconceptions or miscommunications regarding issues such as drugs, alcoholism etc.

6. It delays the onset of the abuse of tobacco, alcohol etc.

7. It promotes the development of positive self-esteem and teaches anger control.

Related Articles:

• Free essay on the concept of life skill education
• Useful notes on the skill of confidentiality, self awareness, and motivation of life skill education
• Role of life skill education in the context of HIV/ AIDS and adolescent education
• Role of life skill education in the context of HIV/ AIDS and sexual health education

Essay on Soft Skills

Students are often asked to write an essay on Soft Skills in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Soft Skills

Introduction.

Soft skills are non-technical abilities that relate to how we interact with others. They are important for personal growth, career advancement, and overall success.

Types of Soft Skills

Key soft skills include communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and adaptability. Good communication helps in expressing thoughts clearly. Teamwork promotes collaboration. Problem-solving allows us to find solutions, while adaptability helps us cope with change.

Importance of Soft Skills

Soft skills are crucial as they enhance our relationships and job performance. They foster a positive work environment and improve productivity.

In conclusion, developing soft skills is essential for personal and professional success. They complement our technical skills and open up opportunities.

250 Words Essay on Soft Skills

Soft skills are the intangible and non-technical abilities that an individual possesses, which help them to interact harmoniously with others. These skills are often associated with one’s emotional intelligence and include attributes such as teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and adaptability.

The Importance of Soft Skills

In the modern workforce, technical skills are no longer sufficient to ensure success. Employers are increasingly looking for individuals who not only excel in their field but also possess the soft skills necessary to function effectively in a team and adapt to various situations. The ability to communicate effectively, for instance, can help to prevent misunderstandings, foster a positive working environment, and facilitate the sharing of ideas.

Soft Skills in Education

The importance of soft skills extends beyond the workplace and into the realm of education. In a collaborative learning environment, soft skills such as teamwork and communication are crucial for group projects and discussions. Moreover, skills like time management and adaptability can greatly enhance a student’s ability to balance academic responsibilities with personal commitments.

In conclusion, soft skills are an essential part of an individual’s personal and professional development. They enable effective communication, foster teamwork, and promote adaptability in changing circumstances. By nurturing these skills, individuals can enhance their employability and academic success, while also improving their personal relationships and overall quality of life. As such, soft skills are not just ‘nice-to-have’ but are a ‘must-have’ in today’s world.

500 Words Essay on Soft Skills

Introduction to soft skills.

Soft skills, often undervalued in comparison to hard, technical skills, are a set of interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities that enable individuals to interact effectively and harmoniously with others. These skills, which include communication, leadership, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence, are critical in all areas of life, from personal relationships to professional environments.

In today’s rapidly evolving job market, where technical skills can become obsolete overnight, soft skills have become increasingly important. They are transferable across job roles and industries, making them valuable assets for individuals seeking career growth and stability. Moreover, soft skills are crucial in fostering a positive work environment, enhancing productivity, and promoting effective teamwork.

Key Soft Skills

Communication.

Effective communication is the cornerstone of soft skills. It encompasses not only speaking clearly and persuasively but also listening actively and empathetically. Good communicators can express their thoughts and ideas succinctly, understand others’ perspectives, and manage disagreements constructively.

Leadership is another vital soft skill, involving the ability to motivate, inspire, and guide others towards a common goal. Effective leaders are also adept at decision-making, problem-solving, and conflict resolution, and they demonstrate integrity and reliability.

Problem-Solving

Problem-solving skills enable individuals to identify issues, generate potential solutions, evaluate these options, and implement effective strategies. This skill is crucial in navigating the complexities and uncertainties of both personal and professional life.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence involves the ability to understand, manage, and respond to one’s own emotions and those of others. High emotional intelligence is associated with empathy, self-awareness, and effective interpersonal relationships.

Developing Soft Skills

Developing soft skills requires conscious effort, practice, and self-reflection. Engaging in diverse experiences, seeking feedback, and participating in personal development activities, such as workshops or online courses, can help enhance these skills. Furthermore, cultivating a growth mindset, which embraces challenges and views failures as opportunities for learning, can also foster the development of soft skills.

Conclusion: The Power of Soft Skills

In conclusion, soft skills are essential for personal and professional success in the 21st century. They enable individuals to adapt to changes, work effectively with others, and navigate the complexities of modern life. As the world continues to evolve, the importance of soft skills will only increase, highlighting the need for ongoing personal and professional development in these areas.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Listening Skills
• Essay on Interview Skills
• Essay on Interpersonal Skills

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Communication Skills in Human Life Essay

Introduction.

Communication has always been an essential element of every aspect of human life. Very much depends on the person’s ability to communicate with others and to apply efficient communicative skills to achieve their goals. In general, it is possible to state that the ability to communicate constructively shapes the major part of the individual’s success in his or her personal life, at work and in other spheres. There are many jobs that involve constant communication with clients, provision of some consultative or advisory services, which is almost solely built on the principles of communication and interaction with people. Business affairs are as well impossible to be accomplished without making business agreements, holding negotiations and instructing the personnel on the goals to pursue. There is a great multitude of examples of the need of communication skills in daily life, so it goes without saying that business operations require well-developed communication abilities and demand their application on a daily basis. It is enough to mention the ever-growing globalization of the world and business together with it, so interpersonal and cross-cultural communication acquires key importance in the contemporary world. It is for this reason that one needs to pay close attention to the issue of communication skills in the process of learning business communication and related topics.

Communication Skills and Strategies

Communication, no matter how simple and familiar it may seem, appears to be a complicated and multi-dimensional concept that needs thorough consideration and hard work in the process of acquiring the basic skills necessary for success. It does not correspond to a casual notion of talking as the communication process – it is much deeper in its goals and strategies to accomplish these goals. With the purpose of understanding the phenomenon of communication itself and communication skills in particular it is necessary to pay attention to the following concepts and terminology that will enhance the reader’s understanding of the issue: conscious and unconscious competence, reflective learning, motivation, motor skills and social skills. As for conscious and unconscious competence, Ellis (2003) believes that “it implies knowledge of the what (for instance, the core professional concepts) and knowledge of the how (the ways in which we put these concepts into practice)” (p. 2). It may be applied at both levels, as the definition suggests. Reflective learning is an essential element of the process of acquiring communicative skills – it implies not only fulfilling a certain set of tasks bur reflecting on the results and trying to introduce change or improvement (Ellis, 2003, p. 3). Motivation goes without saying – it is the innate wish of the person to act in an innovative way that makes him or her make steps forward in personal development. Motor skills, in the opinion of Hargie (1997), are organized and coordinated, learnt actions serial in nature supposing the person’s making some physical actions, i.e. they are formed at the biological and subconscious level to be applied in life (p. 9). Social skills differ in nature and involve interpersonal actions, interaction with other people (Hargie, 1997, p. 9-10).

Motor skills are not the subject of the present paper because they refer to daily actions, routine and mechanic activities of people they may not even realize. Social skills, on the contrary, have to be thoroughly thought over and trained, as a result forming a communicative personality being able to achieve his or her communication goal and succeed in communication. These skills are multiple; however, the present work will focus only on four of them: listening, negotiation, explaining and self-disclosure. Listening is one of the most important skills of a good communicator because it has been proved to be a treasure too few people possess. In the process of a constructive communicative act it is important not only to clearly express one’s own thoughts and intentions but to give an opportunity to the communication partner to voice his or her opinion. Listening has been always neglected in the process of business communication as there have hardly been any doubts in the employees’ abilities to listen to others speak. However, the recently discovered notion that deserves separate attention and appears to be substantially different from the issue of hearing is active listening. As Ellis (2003) notes, “successful listening (as opposed to the more passive hearing) is to do with actively processing the incoming information and doing some work – hence the term active” (p. 17). No doubt active listening represents a challenge for a person willing to undertake it because it involves much extra work being done – first of all, the process of active listening, according to Ellis (2003), involves overcoming a three-stage task of recognizing the gap in understanding, locating it and trying to overcome it (p. 17). There is a set of barriers to active listening as well that prevent the listener to follow the guidelines of active listening and diminish the degree of mutual understanding, e.g. attention span, familiarity with material, negative or stereotyped attitudes to the matter or to the interlocutor, environmental considerations and physical inconvenience (Ellis, 2003, p. 18-19).

The second strategy that should be mastered by the communicator in order to conduct communication activities successfully is negotiation. There is no need in explaining how important the process of negotiations is for any business organization – it goes without saying that it is the profitability and at times the very existence of an organization that depends on the result of negotiations with business partners. Thus, it is crucial to pay adequate attention to the way communication skills have to be developed to facilitate the negotiation skills of an individual. Negotiation is a comprehensive activity that demands a wide set of skills from the negotiator to be successful and accomplish the stipulated task. It involves active listening that has already been analyzed, assertiveness in actions and messages and skillful questioning (Ellis, 2003, p. 57). It is essential not to forget that negotiation first of all implies exercising certain influence on people with whom negotiation is conducted, which also depends on the ability to express one’s opinion and judgment in a specific way. Besides, as emphasized by Ellis (2003), negotiation is also a creative process including such elements as finding the balance between parties, finding the approach to the specific partners in the negotiation, conducting problem-solving activities and engaging partners in long-term relations (p. 58). For these reasons all efforts of the negotiator as well as his or her negotiation skills have to be focused on these major goals.

The third communication strategy implying the multi-aspect application of communication skills is explaining. Hargie (1997) speculates much over the topic of the importance of explaining in the process of communication and arrives at the conclusion that this skill has been widely neglected and underestimated recently (p. 183). The reasons he sees for this are first of all the unwillingness of people to accept the authority of other people mixing it with the imposition of someone’s opinion and limiting their personality, and secondly the way explaining is perceived and taken for granted as an indispensable part of communication (Hargie, 1997, p. 183). However, in the same section Hargie (1997) underlines the importance of explaining as a necessary link between such aspects of human cognition as understanding, language, logic, rhetoric, critical theory and culture (p. 183). As one can see from the following list, explaining appears to be a much deeper concept than anyone would have suggested. This is what causes particular attention to explaining in the recent business communication literature and research – its importance is being gradually recognized and should be not underestimated in the conditions of the contemporary business process. There are the following types of explanation detected by Hargie (1997): interpretive, descriptive and reason-giving (p. 185). Interpretative explaining gives the broad answer to the question ‘What?’ and defines concepts, events and processes in such a way so that the person to who they are explained would obtain detailed understanding thereof and would be able to apply them in further activities. Descriptive explaining gives the answer to the question ‘How?’ thus explaining the manner in which things are done. People who have acquired descriptive knowledge of certain things are likely to be able to produce some actions or some things in future, knowing the procedure and the peculiarities. Finally, reason-giving explaining should be focused on the justification of certain actions, events or notions – it gives the answer to the question ‘Why?’ and explains to people what this or that thing, process or event are necessary.

The last communication strategy to be dealt with in the present work is self-disclosure. As admitted by McKay, Davis and Fanning (2009), self-disclosure is a key component of human communication. It is present in every communicative process and is unavoidable:

“Self-disclosure makes relationships existing and builds intimacy. It clarifies and enlivens. Without self-disclosure, you are isolated in your private experience” (McKay et al., 2009, p. 24).

Despite its seeming unavoidability the issues that should worry a person in the process of communicating with others is the extent to which they should disclose themselves for this act to be appropriate and effective (McKay et al., 2009, p. 25). There is a huge number of situations, partners and circumstances that demand different patterns of behavior and cause problems or lead to success.

The authors distinguish four types of self-disclosure among which a communicator should choose according to the situation, the individual profile of character and behavioral peculiarities etc. They are: open self (known to self, known to others), blind self (discoverable by others, known to others), hidden self (known to self, kept from others) and unknown self (unknown to self, unknown to others) (McKay, 2009, p. 25). Judging from the situation and the pursued goals the individual may choose from these alternatives and define the measure for self-disclosure for him- or herself.

Communication is a key element of human interactions, which acquires specific importance in the context of conducting business affairs. Communication skills are multiple in nature and application, so they have to be paid particular attention to in all business processes and should correspond to the particularly stipulated business goals. There are several communication strategies that involve implementation of different communication skills and their proper combinations, thus the aspect of establishing efficient business communication with the application of communications skills should become the central focus of every organization’s daily functioning.

Communication skills are learnt skills and they can be acquired be means of efficient training schedule established in an organization. The importance of communication skills in the business process is a matter of agile interest nowadays, so they should be never underestimated or neglected in the business process both by employers and the staff of every company.

Ellis, R 2003, Communication skills: stepladders to success for the professional, Intellect Books.

Hargie, O 1997, The handbook of communication skills, 2 nd edn, Routledge.

McKay, M, Davis, M, & Fanning, P 2009, Messages: The Communication Skills Book, 3 rd edn, New Harbinger Publications.

• explanation of the role of communication in human life
• specific aspects of business communication
• competence;
• reflective learning;
• motivation;
• motor skills;
• social skills.
• the role of listening in communication;
• active listening;
• elements and stages of active listening;
• obstacles for active listening.
• the importance of negotiation in business communication;
• specific skills negotiation requires from the communicator;
• activities involved in negotiation.
• underestimated role of explaining;
• the importance of explaining in the human cognition;
• types of explaining.
• self-disclosure as an unavoidable element of human communication;
• types of self-disclosure;
• the way to choose the measure of self-disclosure.
• the importance of communication skills in the overall business process;
• the necessity to educate and train the personnel paying adequate attention to the growing importance of communication skills.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, November 7). Communication Skills in Human Life. https://ivypanda.com/essays/communication-skills-in-human-life/

"Communication Skills in Human Life." IvyPanda , 7 Nov. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/communication-skills-in-human-life/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Communication Skills in Human Life'. 7 November.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Communication Skills in Human Life." November 7, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/communication-skills-in-human-life/.

1. IvyPanda . "Communication Skills in Human Life." November 7, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/communication-skills-in-human-life/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Communication Skills in Human Life." November 7, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/communication-skills-in-human-life/.

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