Self-Efficacy - I adapt
Self-efficacy is the strength of your belief that you can confidently action behaviours that lead to successful outcomes, and that you can influence your motivation, behaviour, and environment. Self-efficacy is building your general skills and being confident that you have tools to fall back upon, to cope with many different situations. These can be physical skills, social skills, mindset skills or verbal skills. Building your general knowledge is also helpful in building strong self-efficacy. You don’t have to be an expert in everything, a wide range of respectable skills is best. At its core self-efficacy is:-
To have confidence in your worth and value as a person
To have confidence in your skills and abilities, or your ability to learn new things that you do not currently know.
To have confidence in your ability to handle expected and unexpected situations.
The benefits of great self-efficacy
Protection
If you have the confidence to deal with many different situations then you have less chance of falling foul to those who would manipulate or use you to their benefit. They may scam you, as they are able to take advantage of your lack of knowledge or simply leave you in a vulnerable position once they have taken what they need. Without self-efficacy you may find social or work situations where you are landed with dull jobs as you have limited skills. With strong self-efficacy you can feel confident enough to manoeuvre yourself into a safe space at all times.
Self-growth
If you cultivate a growth mindset you can feel resilient and ready to build new skills. Self-efficacy is about growing yourself and learning new skills when and if you may need them. Without the urge to grow you will simply stay where you are and have to rely on others.
Self-confidence and self-respect
Feeling self-confident is about knowing that you can deal with many different situations. Socially, self-efficacy will help you build rapport and relationships with different types of people as you have knowledge on a range of interests. You can gain self-respect and the respect of others if you feel confident and others have confidence (or admiration!) in your skills to cope and deal with situations. Self-efficacy will also help build your rapport with other people and grow your social circle.
The general skillset that you need for everyday life need to cover:-
Common Skills
These are skills or general knowledge, that many people have, and knowledge of these will be very useful in everyday life and conversation, especially when building rapport.
Social cues / assertiveness
Your ability to be a social animal, to build relationships and react accordingly. To be able to defend yourself from aggressiveness but also to support others and be compassionate. You can read others and react accordingly to create the response that you want.
Appearance and Dress sense
Your ability to dress attractively or appropriately for each situation. Your dress sense affects how others perceive you so it’s important that you give out the impression that you want others to see.
News, events or current society themes
Part of being a social animal is knowing what is going on in the world. What are people talking about, how do they feel? What is exciting people at the moment or affecting them in other ways? Canvasing opinions that people are having about current events or what is the general opinion about current topics. How are people coping health wise or financially? Learn what are sensitive topics or what words or phrases can or cannot be used in current conversations.
Sciences
Science is everywhere in our lives, biology for our health, reproduction or injuries, chemistry for the products that we use, cook with and ingest, and physics for the tools we use such as with electricity or DIY. Knowing the basics can mean your time efficiency, health, safety and problems are solved in a proper, efficient manner.
Life Skills
These are basic skills that help you organise and manage your life.
Cooking
Basic cooking is a skill and is good for your health if you can cook real food rather than food out of a packet. You should be able to create several basic dishes from scratch (using fresh food). Knowing how to cook/bake staples such as rice, pasta or pastry. Knowledge of cooking safety such as average timings and temperature for common foods and rules about what you can reheat or not. Lastly knowing about food preparation safety in terms of germs, cleanliness and techniques to keep bacteria to a minimum in your cooking space. Try learning some popular dishes and practice them. You may even find you enjoy learning more in this new skill.
Driving
Learning to drive a car is a daunting and expensive journey. Even once you have your license, then the real learning journey begins. Many people find the complexities of modern driving quite scary, not to mention the stresses of interacting with other users on the road. This is completely understandable given mistakes can be expensive, cost health or lives. Building your driving experience should be a slow, gentle road. Push yourself to continually try things a bit harder, longer journeys, new areas or more complicated routes. Find people to support you with knowledge, or research yourself. Google can be a great source of pre-emptive information for a journey so that there are no scary surprises. There are many YouTube videos that can advise how to handle different situations. The main challenge for driving is nerves, the more you can sooth these, the better you can grow your skills and confidence.
Maths/Budgeting
Basic maths is a key life skill. Many things in general life involve maths such as measurements, finances or working out the best value, discount or offer. It helps you budget your money or make plans for the future (such as saving). You don’t need to be a genius but knowing the basics such as times tables, easy and common additions hacks, percentages or being able to swap between metric and imperial measurements will definitely benefit you.
English
Basic english skills such as spelling and grammar are key skills. How well is your vocabulary? Can you read well and fast? Is your handwriting clear and easy to read? Can you speak clearly and eloquently? Knowing how to write basic paperwork like a letter or a CV is essential for your english skills kit. A well written email can help you progress in your career, up your status or help you defend yourself if needs be.
Project Management
Managing a project isn’t necessarily just a business skill. Project management can help you organise a holiday, your children’s social or school life, or plan your shopping list and budget. Whether you prefer paper or using technological help, use the tools you prefer to help plan your life. Many apps are available for on your phone to make planning on the go easier. Google is a great place to advice of any apps or software that could help you. Calendars, lists, reminders and planners can help you make a plan from chaos. You can always create your own if you like.
Creativity (art or problem solving)
Creativity is a great skill for solving problems, de-stressing, having fun, socialising or making something look that bit better. It can come in handy for finding ways to cover mistakes /errors or breakages, creating something alternative for something you cannot afford or simply making something bland look amazing. Creativity can come in many common home areas, art, cooking, flower arranging or gift wrapping. Work on your creative skills to make your life look impressive and better.
DIY/Decorating/fixing
Practical skills come in great for many areas, such as fixing a problem (leaks, breaks), building DIY furniture, decorating a room or any other emergency that may need fixing. Knowing how to use basic tools and knowledge about DIY subjects is an essential skill. Do you know the basics about plumbing, electrics or car maintenance? YouTube is a great teacher. Practice makes perfect!
Technology usage
Keep up to date with common techniques and technology to keep yourself relevant in social interactions. If you don’t keep up, you may find that you are inadvertently missing out of news, information and connection with others. There are many apps on peoples phones for communication these days not to mention all the social media platforms. Learn about what each one does and how people use them (and who!). Create your own account and have a play. If you have children it will help you keep them safe and you can see what information they are being exposed to and how to track, monitor and secure information, and lock out unwanted connections. There are many technologies to use to help with other everyday life issues. Many things are now downloadable or online (paperless) to access and manage. There are career based skills such as using a computer and computer first aid, using common software such as office or creative cloud can be helpful at home or in the office. Technology can be daunting but it’s worth keeping up to date with how others are using tech to improve their life. Often things are quicker and easier to manage once you get the hang of them.
Impressive Skills
Challenging skills, that are showcased to a good standard, are always admired. Everyone loves admiration from others and can feel their popularity grow when they showcase an impressive skill. Anything that risks creating criticism, is challenging to learn, or potentially involves an embarrassing fail, creates respect from others. If you can handle showcasing that kind of skill, especially with a large audience involved, the more this will boost your status.
Singing & Dancing
Performing arts are a good skill to show confidence, as long as you have the skill to match! People love a good show and if you can provide one, that’s great. Having the confidence to showcase your skills builds respect from others.
Presenting or Comedy
Both of these skills involve the potential for either embarrassment at a bad performance or heckling from your audience. If you can learn to both present/perform well and also handle questions or criticisms effectively, then that is the key. There are many courses on presenting or performing speeches, comedy is harder to learn and is based on your personal style! Practice is essential to building both of these skills. You may need to persevere, learn, improve and weather criticisms at your initial efforts but with practice you can grow better.
Popular social sports
Learning how to play popular sports well is a good skill to help you bond with others and raise your status game. While being able to showcase your fitness is good to grow respect from others. Impressive fitness skills that gain respect include running, swimming, weightlifting, climbing, hiking or gymnastics. Build your skills in social sports so that you can bond with others without embarrassing yourself. These include sports such as golf, bowling, snooker or darts where you can socialise and play with others for fun.
Self- Support Skills
Everyone should independently have the skills to support their needs and solve their problems in their everyday life.
Self-mastery (mindset strength and mental health)
Build your skills so that you know how to have a self-sustaining, health strong mindset, that keeps your mental health balanced and keeps you resilient to setbacks and aggression from others. Look to improve your skills in the 13 ‘self’ skills for holistic balance and personal strength.
Personal Development
Always be looking improve yourself, your skills and your knowledge. It should be a lifelong pursuit to improve your physical, mental and emotional health, skills and knowledge. Learn to be curious, positive and resilient, to learn from mistakes rather that judge yourself for them.
Self-sufficiency (key foundations – Income, home, health, safety)
An important part of self-mastery is learning to be self-sufficient. A health skill is to be in control of highly important, foundational parts of your life such as having an income, having somewhere safe and healthy to life that you control. You should be in control of your health and your safety. Being in control means that you have the ability to choose when, how or if things happen. Self-sufficiency means that your progress is not waiting on others to get round to fulfilling your needs or goals. It also means that others are not responsible for whether your safety or health, are protected or compromised. If you are self-sufficient then things are done to the timings and standard that sits best with you.
Your health
Having control of your health is essential. This may be having control of what you eat, when your eat and how much. Having an exercise schedule is essential for physical and mental health. It can also be interesting and stimulating such as when you go for a walk and meet people or see what is going on in your neighbourhood. Be in control of your medication if you need to take any or have the choice to take vitamins if you choose. Knowledge of first aid or health in general is great for keeping yourself in tip top condition.
Safety & protection
Being able to protect and look after yourself is also an essential skill. Important skills in this area cover things like, Can you swim well? Do you know first aid? How well can you defend yourself if attacked? How fit, healthy and strong are you? Knowledge and physical health will help you in this area, as well as training and practice.
Popular Interests
Knowledge of popular interests will help you build rapport, relationships and make you more interesting to talk to. Knowledge of the below will help you to mingle and network in social situations.
Music
Develop a general knowledge of what is around in current trends. What are people listening to? What niches are there? Learn about different artists and styles of music. What do different generations listen to? What music do you like and why? How do people listen to music today? and what did they do in the past?
Celebrities / TV / Movies
Keep up to date with who people are talking about and what’s going on in the celebrity world. You don’t have to be an expert if it doesn’t interest you but general knowledge can help you join in with conversations. What are people watching? Current movies? Netflix series? Being interested in exploring the interests of other will help you understand them.
The arts / ballet
Another popular interest that is more cultured, is exploring the arts such as dance, ballet, classical music or theatre. Less popular that main stream culture but it will help you click with those who have more refined, quieter tastes. It will also boost you in the intelligent status quota.
Sports to follow
Many people male and female are interested in popular sports. The main one is football. You don’t have to support a team yourself but many follow the competitions and games, so it’s worth knowing which teams are doing well, not so well, which players are who and general news within the football arena. Other more refined popular sports can be golf, tennis or snooker. These can peak at certain times of the year so it’s worth having a general knowledge about the main characters, their history and how they are doing.
Politics
Always a sensitive subject that can cause arguments but nevertheless an important area in country and world decisions. It may be complicated and manipulative but who gets in power can change the world stage. Opinions and misinformation can make decisions hard but having an idea of who is who and what each party represents is a good idea. Following statements and decisions by party members will help you form your own opinions and make conversation if you need to. If you have strong favourites or opinions, its worth having information and evidence to back up your preferences if arguments occur.
Always look to build new skills and gain knowledge from what you come across in life. Learn from others, be interested in their lives, interests and what drives them. How do others do things the same, different or better than you, how can you learn from them. Look at what you have to rely on others to do for you and where you can learn to do these things for yourself. Build self-confidence so that you know that whatever comes your way you have a toolbox of skills and knowledge to handle it!