Life Skills that enhance Life

Hi Everyone

Seems to me there are two types of life skills and both are valuable in our future success.

The first set of life skills are defined by Ellen Galinsky, based on the ideas of the French psychologist Jean Piaget, who is generally recognized as the father of developmental psychology charting how children grow mentally from babies through being toddlers to school.

These skills are Focus and Self-Control, Perspective Taking, Communicating,Making Connections, Critical Thinking,Taking on Challenges and finally Self-Directed, Engaged Learning.

These are all skills that we should learn as children to help us succeed in life. So, for example we should learn focus and self-control so that we can concentrate on what we are doing and not be distracted.

Unfortunately we are now in an age where this self control and focus is diminishing in many cases and you can see this with that device we all carry now - the mobile phone. Have you noticed how so many people are distracted by their phones during conversation and at meal-time for example. And this now covers all ages and intelligence levels. Go to a restaurant and watch the diners. Usually conversation has died and it's not unusual for everyone at a table to be texting, reading messages or talking on their phones. And this of course not only demonstrates the lack of focus and self control but shows a lack of common good manners to the others they are dining with.

Likewise YouTube clam that most people will switch from any video they are watching after about a minute, and anything longer than 3 minutes had better be absolutely riveting to retain any interest. 

So by learning how to focus and how to have self-control, and then being able to put this into practice can put you head and shoulders above the rest. But this not only works for whatever we are doing at the moment but also achieving what we want in the future. For how can you succeed if you have a goal but can't focus long enough to take the steps necessary to achieve it?

The last skill in this list is self-directed self-learning skills that will enable us to undertake work, to carry out practical jobs in our social environment and to be increase our interlect through creative skills, all of which we can learn. And in general get a direction to our future.

So it is recognised that we live in an ever changing world where there is no job for life, where our social lives are continually evolving. And this has changed dramatically just in the last 30 years or so. When I left school everyone said get a job in a bank, as a teacher, in local government and you've got a job for life with a good pension. And many of my peers did just that. And now they've retired with their pension and, in many cases their lives continue to be a regular routine that hasn't changed through the years. I read that over 85% of the population are unhappy at work so for many its been a lifetime of over 80,000 hours of unhappiness or at the very least boredom and unfulfillment. Many have taken up hobbies that have become absorbing and filled the void from being unhappy at work but not all.

Now we live in a different world. A world with more opportunities, A world where you can achieve anything that is physically possible. I'm not saying that you can do anything. It's highly unlikely you'll become a premier league footballer if you have a physical disability that prevents this: its unlikely you'll be able to fly without wings. But there is nothing to stop you becoming a millionaire, a university professor, a top artist or writer. You just need the life skills to achieve this. focus and self control to start with and the knowledge to carry out your ambition. If you want to be an artist then you need to learn to draw and paint. Looking back at the greats is inspirational. We look at all the artists of old and most had an apprenticeship where they nay have worked with a master artist for years learning how to paint hands or eyes, clouds or water. And only when they mastered these skills did they move on to create works themselves. 

Now this is becoming simple. We don't need vast shelves of  encyclodepeas because its all on the internet. You can find anything online. I believe that books are invaluable and I've quite a library including how-to books and classics; and I read frequently but this is just one resource. I still like the feel of books and settling down to read is relaxing and can help me switch off from general life for a while. But there are so many more resources online for an immediate answer.

So you can learn anything for free. But to learn about a specific subject such as photography or gardening, cake-making or a new language then I highly recommend

enrolling in a paid course. There are courses on every subject under the sun and the benefits are that you will be taught by a professional in a planned learning schedule. All the information will be together so you wont waste time on searching it out, and the information should be accurate so you won't have to decide what is correct or otherwise. And finally you'll be able to ask questions and set up a dialogue should you wish. 

Learn a new skill today. Find a course that covers something you want to learn or do and feel the satisfaction when you finish.

Here are my courses. Click on the image to go to the website

 

Courses Old and New

Hi Folks

Online courses seem the rage right now with almost everybody producing one. Some exceptionally good but many really aweful. But online courses, as opposed to attending night school are certainly not new. There have always been postal courses, the most popular being on writing, languages and body building. 

This is the last DVD copy of my first course I created back in 2006. Just to show that the new wave of online courses isn't new, except that we often couldn't download courses because of network speeds and other issues so in many cases we sent out DVDs.  And here are 3 covers. I produced a range of 6 or 7 courses mainly based on basic Powerpoint with a speak over. This was the easiest as video was not as easy as it is today.
 
My courses included The Evacuation Chair Trainer which was very niche but popular with health and safety officers in large organisations. I used to do on-site training across the UK but it was expensive as travelling time was always high.

Other courses included The Marketing Professional. Running an Exhibition Masterclass, High Flier Sales Masterclass and The Health & Safety Adviser aimed at small to medium businesses.

I ran  quickly through these courses and was surprised how relevant they were for today. Unfortunately the sound quality is really poor as we didn't have the benefit of the current range of good mics at accessible prices. The visual quality is poor too. It would have been impossible to imagine the vast improvements in video quality back then, Today we are really fortunate that anyone can make great video at little cost.

Just using a smartphone you can produce high definition video, plug  a lapel mic into another smartphone for quality sound and use a third smartphone with torch app to get some light on the subject, or use natural light through a window and you can produce a course. Many people have home studios now with low cost lighting, quality mic and webcam such as the Logica 920c and they are in business.

The major issues in producing a course today are taking positive enthusiastic action in creating the course right up to getting it online and being fearless in working in front of the camera. You can read every book on making course, watch every video, listen to every podcast, but if you aren't prepared to take action you just wont get anywhere. The third issue is the fear of failure. Remember, its better to do something now than keep trying for perfection because life isn't long enough.

Get the strength, be creative and make some money. The world is full of people waiting to learn what you know. The  saying was "we all have a book inside us". Now I think we all have a course. But because of technology its much easier to produce a course than a novel.

good luck.

Learning from our Fathers

Life should be full of fun. OK. Maybe a few problems thrown in. That's life. And I've a message for you today not unrelated to learning.

I guess the message is that we have benefited from the hard work and creativity of our past generation, well those over 65.

Many have given their life to bringing up a family, giving their children opportunities they never had, and encouraging them to better things. Some parents didn't have that attitude and their children didn't have the best upbringing, but that doesn't mean they didn't try, maybe they had problems of their own.

My point now is that this generation are often being neglected and I was really sad to hear about the elderly couple who dialled 999 because they were lonely and isolated. The local bobbies who called expecting an emergency realised the situation and stayed for a cuppa. The article written by Dr Max Pemberton in the Daily Mail on Saturday 14th November talks about loneliness and the fact that it is estimated that about one million people go without talking to another human being in over a month, and that this has both a psychological and physical profound effect. We all know that their used to be a community spirit around but this has gone. Now we don't often know our next door neighbour.

Christmas is the time when the appeal goes out: Look out for your elderly neighbours and why not invite an elderly neighbour in for Xmas dinner. This is all very good but this should be a round the year effort. I delivered meals on wheels for a year finishing a few weeks ago and was staggered by the number of older people who never see anyone, and often have relatives no too far away who don't bother to call. I was actually losing considerable money offering this service but I didn't stop because I felt I couldn't dessert my customers. Finally I was forced to stop. Whether I was right or wrong is immaterial. What matters is that we can all finf an hour a week and there is just no excuse for not seeking our a lonely neighbour.

Yes! Some will be cantankerous and grumpy but stick with it. You may be surprised and certainly you will get a new outlook on life. And these older people all have amazing stories about a life long gone. PLEASE GIVE IT A TRY.




Some of the skills that many of us have lost are knitting, sewing, darning, gardening and creative hobbies. My mother taught me to iron shirts, clean shoes so they gleam, sew on a button, knitting a hat and how to cook well. I learnt great gardening techniques from my father who always had fresh vegetables ready for the table. In fact on a Sunday we always picked vegetables and fruit and dug potatoes ready for lunch. And to get good crops I learnt how to prepare the soil and grow from seed. I'm sure these skills aren't being passed on nowadays. How do you feel about this?

I hope you have something to think about in this post. I hope I've encouraged you to take some action. Make a comment.