What are the key practical skills that allow someone to live a happy, healthy, prosperous and free life?

Its  not only attitudes and behaviours that are important, but also key skills.  You might have the right thoughts, but without certain life skills it is difficult to be effective as an individual.

Read on to find out more about these critical skills and how you can gain them.

Mental skills - these are the basic thinking skills that let you understand the world around you

• Clear thinking skills – ability to identify the parts of a problem, evaluate the connections between them and develop a coherent conclusion that aligns with reality
• Street savvy – you can see through liars and conmen by seeing their manipulative behaviour
• Literacy – able to read and comprehend text, and able to clearly express ideas in writing
• Numeracy – able to understand calculations, including simple algebra, basic operations and percentages
• Self awareness – ability to independently review your own actions and thoughts and compare them to a desired behaviour
• Risk management – you can take on a measured risk without exposing yourself to ruin, or conversely avoiding potentially profitable risk/reward situations

Wealth skills - these help you build prosperity and make the most of your money and investments

• Financial literacy – understanding of financial calculations including simple and compound interest, and percentage returns
• Investment – grasp of investment concepts including markets (money, commodities, property, stocks) and using brokers
• Business – general business savvy, including understanding financial feasibility, operating a business, customer service, marketing and accounting concepts

Professional or trade skills – experience and education used to earn a living in a line of work.  The better you are at your chosen field, the more job opportunities you have and you also can potentially earn a higher income and enjoy more satisfying work.

Practical skills – you can do a trade skill (such as basic carpentry, gardening, vehicle repair or similar) and produce a reasonable quality job.  This is in addition to the skills you use to earn a living.  These skills let you do basic work around the house without having to call someone in each time (especially in an emergency)

Management skills - management skills are essential for efficient management of personal business

• Computer – able to use a computer and office suite and create documents and conduct research using the Internet
• Time management – able to prioritise activities to ensure that tasks are completed on time and within the available time.
• Planning – you can plan a project with multiple tasks and execute the plan.

Personal care skills - these skills help you take good care of yourself and others.  We are all only as good as our bodies and it is hard to be sick and effective.

• First aid – able to render basic first aid to oneself or another person, or care for yourself or someone else with a minor illness
• Health awareness – understanding of the human body, hygiene and exercise, and taking care of your own health
• Self defence – you have a basic understanding of an attacker’s mode of operating and can protect yourself against an attack

Household skills – the day to day skills of managing your house underpin your success in other areas.

• Household management – you can organise a household including paying bills on time, ensuring that your home is kept clean and that food and supplies are available and kept fresh
• Food preparation – you can prepare a simple meal

Without most of these key skills, it is difficult to live a satisfactory and independent or self actualized life.

The best thing is that most people have many of the key skills, and the remainder are readily developed through practise, trying new things out, reading widely and cultivating your own mind and self awareness.

I look forward to your comments and feedback, or you can contact me directly and “off-line” through the contact page.

Tags: freedom, independence, Self-actualization, subversive

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Daily subversive tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.