Q.Describe how life skills can help meet life's challenges.

Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They can be learned and improved. Key life skills include assertiveness (communicating feelings and needs confidently), time management (spending time on what one values), rational thinking (replacing distorted, negative thoughts with realistic ones), improving relationships (listening, expressing and accepting others), self-care (staying healthy, fit and relaxed, with slow diaphragmatic breathing), and overcoming unhelpful habits like p …

What life skills are

Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. Our ability to cope depends on how well we are prepared to counterbalance everyday demands and keep equilibrium in our lives. Importantly, these life skills can be learned and even improved upon.

Key life skills

• Assertiveness: a behaviour or skill that helps us communicate clearly and confidently our feelings, needs, wants and thoughts. It is the ability to say no to a request, to state an opinion without being self-conscious, and to express emotions openly. Being assertive builds confidence and high self-esteem.
• Time management: the way we spend our time determines the quality of our life. Learning to plan time and delegate relieves pressure. The central principle is to spend time doing the things we value or that help us achieve our goals, being realistic and organising life to balance the two.
• Rational thinking: many stress-related problems occur because of distorted thinking. When stressed we have an inbuilt bias to attend to negative thoughts and images. Rational thinking involves challenging distorted thinking and irrational beliefs, driving out intrusive negative thoughts, and making positive statements.
• Improving relationships: the key to sound, lasting relationships is communication, which involves three skills, listening to what the other person is saying, expressing how you feel and think, and accepting the other person's opinions and feelings even when they differ. It also requires avoiding misplaced jealousy and sulking.
• Self-care: keeping ourselves healthy, fit and relaxed prepares us physically and emotionally to tackle everyday stresses. Since breathing reflects our state of mind, the most relaxed breathing is slow, stomach-centred breathing from the diaphragm. …