People are always learning, not a day goes by when we go to bed without learning something new. These learnings allow that, the next time we have the opportunity to put what we have learned into practice, we can do it without difficulty or, at least, with less difficulty than the first time.
Through this learning, different skills are developed throughout our lives, which are improved with experience. However, we often don’t know what it’s really like to have a skill.
what are the skills of a person
As we find it defined, ability refers to the ability, talent or aptitude that people have to perform a task effectively. It can be said that when we say that someone is skillful, we mean the ability they have to achieve success in the task they are doing thanks to their ability.
Skills can be considered both innate from Learning , as some of them are only acquired by trial and error.
A distinction of skills can be made into three large groups:
- Cognitive skills: all of which are involved in mental processes, namely memory, logic, and the use of formal languages as in the case of mathematics. This article collects 20 cognitive skills.
- Social skills: dealing with other people and relevant communication with them are involved in this. Here you will find the types of social skills.
- physical skills: within these are those that require body coordination.
Are skills equal to abilities, aptitudes, or talents?
According to the RAE, we define capacity as a circumstance or set of conditions, qualities or aptitudes , especially intellectual ones, that allow the development of something, the fulfillment of a function or the performance of a position.
In turn, the aptitude such as Innate ability Acquire certain types of knowledge and function correctly in a subject from childhood. It can be said that they are all the conditions that a “base” person has to meet specific objectives.
After analyzing the four definitions individually, it can be said that we are not talking about the same thing.However, all the concepts are related to each other. In other words, to develop a skill it is necessary for the person to innately present a certain aptitude for it.
If a person is capable of performing an action, he has the necessary ability to do it, but if he is not capable, but if he has the potential to learn to do it, we speak of ability.
The term talent is the one that is more separated from the others when it comes to being defined, since it is about doing something in a special way without previous experience, study or training, while ability would be the ability to perform said action through of an apprenticeship. experience.
List of skills and examples of a person
Here is a list of skills that people can develop throughout their lives. I want to highlight the top 10 that are, according to the WHO, those that all people should develop.
- Self-knowledge: the ability to be aware of ourselves and know what our strengths and weaknesses are, as well as to recognize our own feelings. In the following article you will find How to achieve self-knowledge.
- EmpathyKnowing how to put yourself in the shoes of others is absolutely necessary so that we can make appropriate decisions that do not affect the rest of the people around us. Here you can read How to practice empathy in my life.
- Assertive communication: refers to the ability of a person to adequately express their opinion, defending their point of view, but always respecting the opinion of others. Even if you don’t agree with that. Learn techniques to develop assertive communication.
- Interpersonal relationships: being able to create and maintain relationships with those around us. It not only refers to relationships with close people, but also to work, everyday relationships, etc.
- Decision-making: Being able to make decisions based on reasoning and experience will help you take your time and make decisions that you later regret. Here you will find a method to solve problems autonomously and responsibly.
- Managing problems and conflicts: It is very important not to block yourself when a problem occurs. Therefore, being able to handle these situations by making the best possible decisions will allow the person not to get into a stressful situation. In the following article, you can see How to Assertively Resolve a Conflict.
- Creative thinking: this skill offers us a way to face situations with a new perspective, so that we can contribute new ideas and solutions.
- critical thinking: ability to assess things and situations through objective assessment and analysis, that is, without being carried away by opinions.
- manage emotions: being able to understand your own emotions and learn to manage them is a skill that is in continuous learning, but that allows an improvement in interpersonal relationships. Learn about these 12 emotional control techniques.
- Management of tensions and stress: being able to control stressful situations and not allow them to affect our effectiveness in carrying out a task.
- Flexibility and Adaptation: all areas of society are in constant change (technology, science, …), so being able to learn and adapt flexibly to new changes will allow us to face new challenges with confidence.
- Resolution capacity: life is full of problems, therefore, being able to create batteries of proposals to solve them will help us in our performance.
- Ability to work in a team: we have to socialize and interact with other people on a daily basis, especially in the workplace. Therefore, having this ability will help us to do an efficient and satisfying job.
- Motivation and confidence: to achieve a goal it is necessary to visualize it and believe in yourself with confidence and conviction. These thoughts will allow us to increase our motivation and therefore we will try harder to achieve it.
- Knowing how to work under pressureGetting used to dealing with stress and pressure helps a person with this ability to cope in the best possible way. Always keeping calm.
- Proactivity: taking the initiative and anticipating events that may occur will help the person to function more safely, without the uncertainty of not knowing what is going to happen.
- and Communication: being able to express oneself is a fundamental skill to be able to interact in any area of our life.
- ProfessionalismDeveloping good work habits will allow us to organize ourselves and efficiently carry out the tasks assigned to us.
- Attention: It is a practically unconscious ability, because even though we escape, our senses continue to pay attention to our surroundings.
- Memory: There are people who are surprised by the high memory capacity, however, we all have this developed capacity, because each learning we do is stored in our memory.
- Reasoning: we have the ability to draw conclusions from the reality around us and as a result of this act accordingly.
- Possibility of joining: this is considered the basis of any learning, since without the action-consequence association, we would not be able to understand the causal events that surround us.
- Strength: some more and others less, but we all have the ability to exert muscular tension to overcome a resistance that is presented to us. In the following article you will find How to have willpower and tips to increase it.
- Endurance: This ability refers to both physical and social skills. It is about the ability of a person to maintain an effort over a long period of time.
- Activelistening Listening is very different from listening, so being able to pay attention to other people and listen to what they say is very important for our social development.
- Patience: as they say in my field, it is the mother of science. Patience is a skill that helps you stay relaxed and avoid continual stressful situations. In the following article you will find How to have more patience.
- Metacognition: refers to the ability to evaluate based on cognition itself, that is, having the ability to analyze the information that we lack to optimize and improve our abilities.
- Inhibition: it is about being able to ignore those stimuli that surround us that are irrelevant and that can interfere with the development of a task.
- Accelerate: within physical abilities we refer to the ability to perform one or more movements in the shortest time possible. But in cognitive skills, we refer to the ability to respond or think in the shortest time possible.
- Manipulation of people: being able to understand the personality of the people around you and adapt your interaction with them to their needs.
This article is for information only, at Psychology-Online we are not competent to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to see a psychologist to take care of your particular case.
