People are in continuous learning. There isn’t a day that goes by that we go to bed without learning something new. These learnings mean that, the next time we are presented with the opportunity to put into practice what we have learned, we can do so without difficulties or, at least, with less difficulty than the first time.
Through this learning, different skills are developed throughout our lives, which improve through experience. However, many times we don’t know what it really means to have a skill. For this same reason, at Psychology-Online we want to explain to you, using examples and definitions, what are skills of a person and what they consist of.
What are the skills of a person
As we find defined, the ability refers to the skill, talent or aptitude that people possess to effectively carry out some task. It can be said that when we say that someone is skilled, we are referring to their ability to perform a task successfully thanks to their skill.
A person’s abilities can be considered both innate like learned, since some of them are only acquired through trial and error. Specifically, skills can be classified into three large groups:
- Cognitive habilyties: They are all those that are involved in mental processes, that is, memory, logic and the use of formal languages as in the case of mathematics. In this article you will see what the are.
- Social skills: These are involved in dealing with others and are related to the ability to communicate appropriately depending on the context. Here you will find those that exist.
- Physical abilities: Within these are all those that require coordination of the body and mind.
Difference between skills and abilities
According to the RAE, the capabilities are a set of conditions, qualities or aptitudesespecially intellectuals, who allow you to fulfill a function or the performance of a position. If a person is capable of performing an action, it means that he has the necessary ability to do it, however, if he is not capable but he has the potential to learn to do it, we speak of capacity.
For its part, a aptitude is an innate ability to acquire certain types of knowledge and perform adequately 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 definitions individually, it can be said that all the concepts are interrelated with each other. Therefore, to develop a skill it is necessary that the person have an innate aptitude. Furthermore, to develop the necessary capabilities to perform an action, it is not enough to have a skill for it, but it is also necessary to know how to perform said activity beforehand.
Relationship between skills and talent
He talent itself is the “special” intellectual capacity to learn things easily and skillfully develop a specific activity. Talented people excel only in the subject in which they have facilities. They tend to stand out in that activity when compared to the rest. It is an innate gift that you are born with. Although it is true that it can develop over time, the person who has it will execute the activity naturally and effortlessly.
The term talent is the one that is more separated than the rest when it comes to defining itself, since it is about doing something in a special way without previous experience, study or training, while skill is the ability to perform an action through learning.
List of skills of a person and examples
Below, we show you the list of skills that people can develop throughout their lives. According to the WHO, the first 10 are the ones that all people should develop.
- Self-knowledge: ability to be aware of oneself and know what one’s qualities and defects are, as well as recognize one’s own feelings. In the following article we will tell you.
- Empathy: Knowing how to put yourself in the shoes of others is completely necessary to be able to make appropriate decisions that do not affect the rest of the people around us. Here you can read.
- Assertive communication: refers to the ability of a person to express their opinion appropriately, defending their point of view, but always respecting the opinion of others. Even if you don’t agree with it. Known .
- Relationships: being able to create and maintain relationships with those people around us. It does not only refer to relationships with close people, but also to work relationships, daily relationships, etc.
- decision making: Being able to make decisions based on reasoning and experience will help you not to rush and make decisions that you may later regret. Here you will find a.
- Problem and conflict management: It is very important not to block yourself at times when a problem occurs. Therefore, being able to handle these situations by making the best possible decisions will allow the person not to enter a stressful situation. In the following article you can see.
- Creative thinking: one of the skills of a person that offers the possibility of approaching situations from a renewed perspective, so that we can contribute new ideas and solutions.
- Critical thinking: ability to evaluate things and situations through objective assessment and analysis, that is, without getting carried away by opinions.
- Emotion management: Being able to understand our own emotions and learn to manage them is a capacity that is constantly being learned, but which allows us to improve interpersonal relationships. Know these.
- Management of tension and stress: being able to control stressful situations and not let them affect our effectiveness when carrying out a task.
- Flexibility and adaptation: all areas of society are in continuous change (technology, science, etc.) so being able to learn and adapt flexibly to new changes will allow us to face new challenges with confidence.
- Resolving capacity: Life is full of problems, so being able to create batteries of proposals to solve them will help us in our performance.
- Ability to work as a team: Every day we have to live and interact with other people, especially in the workplace. Therefore, possessing this skill will help us achieve efficient and satisfactory work.
- Motivation and confidence: to achieve a goal we have to visualize it and believe in ourselves with confidence and conviction. These thoughts will allow us to increase our motivation and therefore we will work harder to achieve it.
- Working under pressure: Getting used to managing stress and pressure helps the person with this skill to get ahead in the best way possible. Always staying calm.
- Proactivity: Taking the initiative and anticipating events that may happen will help the person to function in a safer way, without the uncertainty of not knowing what is going to happen.
- Expression fluid: being able to express oneself is a fundamental skill to be able to interact in any area of our life.
- Professionalism: Developing good work habits will allow us to organize ourselves and carry out the tasks assigned to us efficiently.
- Attention: This is a practically unconscious ability, because even if we avoid it, our senses continue to pay attention to what surrounds us.
- Memory: There are people who surprise with their high memory capacity, however, we all have this ability developed, since each learning we do is stored in our memory.
- Reasoning: We have the ability to draw conclusions from the reality that surrounds us and act accordingly.
- Association capacity: This is considered the basis of any learning, because without the association of action-consequence, we would not be able to understand the causal events that surround us.
- Force: some more and some less, but we all have the ability to exert muscular tension in order to overcome a resistance that is presented to us. In the following article you will find.
- Endurance: This skill refers to both the physical skill and the social skill. It is about a person’s ability to maintain effort over a long period of time.
- Active listening: Hearing is very different from listening, so being able to pay attention to other people and listen to what they tell us is really important for our social development.
- Patience: As they say in my area, it is the mother of science. Patience is a skill which helps you stay relaxed and avoid entering into situations of continuous stress. In the following article you will find.
- Metacognition: refers to the ability to evaluate from one’s own cognition, that is, having the ability to analyze the information that we lack in order to optimize and improve our capabilities.
- Inhibition: it is about being able to ignore those stimuli that surround us and that are irrelevant which could create interference in the development of a task.
- Speed: Within physical abilities we refer to the ability to make one or several movements in the shortest possible time. But in cognitive skills, we refer to the ability to respond or think in the shortest time possible.
- People management: be able to understand the personalities of the people around you and adapt your interaction with them to their needs.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Ibañez, N. Personality. Jaume I University (2015)
- Ibañez, N. Human differences. Jaume I University (2016)
- Julián Pérez Porto and María Merino. Published: 2008. Updated: 2012. Definition of: Definition of skill (https://definicion.de/hibilidad/)
- Royal Spanish Academy. (2001). Disquisition. In Dictionary of the Spanish language (22nd ed.). Recovered from: http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=disquisici%F3n