Some Essential Life Skills

If you haven’t mastered some of the most essential life skills already, it may be time to take a different approach. Whether you’re looking to listen better or negotiate for a raise, here are some of the most surprising ways you can master essential life skills.

Listening – it’s a surprisingly simple yet underused concept. If you want to listen better, keep your mouth shut. As Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel once said, “The word listen contains the same letters as the word Silent.” Not only does thinking about what you’re going to say next take your attention away from the speaker, but hijacking the conversation shows that you think you have something more important to say.

Conserving Willpower – the Greatest Human strength, “we all have a finite amount of willpower in a given day. The key to conserving it is to limit the number of decisions you have to make.

Time Management – The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything. If you don’t prioritize your time over others, you’ll find your productivity will suffer and resentment will mount.

Honesty – If you don’t have anything nice to say, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it. HHPP to remember, Radical candor is humble, helpful, and immediate, in person and it doesn’t personalize.

Creative Thinking - The best way to come up with your next big idea may be to simply stop trying. During a 2011 study, researchers found study participants to be more creative at times when they were relaxed or unfocused.

Public Speaking – Most people think that trying to calm down is the best way to cope with public speaking anxiety, but research suggests that this doesn’t work. A better strategy is to stop trying to relax and instead reframe your jitters as excitement.

Negotiating – Recent research suggests that it’s better to emphasize what you’re giving the other person as opposed to what they’re losing in any negotiation.

Reading More – Assuming that most books are average, not great, then there are really only one or two major ideas to get out of them, which can take you less than three hours to ascertain if you skim. Start by reading the table of contents to understand the ideas dispersed within the book, make notations on the pages you want to revisit, read more deeply for 30 minutes on your second visit, and if the book is worth another read, take an hour or two to read the best parts again.

Learning a new Language – A growing body of research suggests that the best way to remember something forever is to practice remembering it. Rather than reading a new word over and over, read it once and practice recalling it several times.

Stress Management – Rather than letting stress hurt productivity and focus, the idea behind resilience is using stress to your advantage as energy to help you perform in high-pressure environments like investment banking.

Making Friends – It’s hard to make new friends as an adult, but joining a choir could help. Recent research suggests that singing can be a great icebreaker among large groups of strangers and can facilitate friendships down the line.

Asking for Help – A recent study suggests that asking for advice makes you look more, not less capable. Author Tim Ferriss says that the biggest mistake is asking conventionally successful people for help. Instead, he suggests consulting those who’ve gone from zero to expert in about six months.