5 Essential Soft Skills To Win Hearts In 2023
Soft skills are those crucial skills that define our personality. No matter how many hard skills we have learned or how much experience we gather in our fields, If we lack soft skills, we will never touch the success line. The reason behind this is that you failed to get people’s admiration. You probably heard the famous quotation:
“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” — Ryunosuke Satoro
Before going into further exploration of soft skills, let me give you a brief introduction of mine.
Hi! It’s Roshan Fatima. A person of imagination and a book lover. I feel honoured to call myself a writer. Here on medium, my main focus is to write about self-improvement because I’m, too, on a journey to improve myself in this fast-growing world.
Talking about habits and skills is easy but applying them regularly in our practical lives is where we all find ourselves stuck. There are heaps of motivational videos by huge content experts on social media that motivate you to promise to be the best version of yourself but in fact, what happens? You will find yourself bored after continuing the process for a few days.
Do you know the reason behind this?
We want the change in ourselves too immediately that we forget that our bodies need some time to become habitual of the change. If we want to improve ourselves, we must consider that it is a slow and gradual process.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
According to psychology, repeated behaviour will lead to better memory and eventually become a habit.
For example, if you are trying to improve your sleep quality, you would try to go to bed early to wake up early. In the first few days, you will probably struggle to sleep early by turning sides even if you are in your bed at the proper time. But after a month or more, your body gets used to this routine, which becomes your habit.
Similarly, soft skills are those crucial skills that will lead us to become groomed and organized personalities. Let’s head in to learn some essential soft skills we all need to pursue in 2023.
1. Influencing And Persuasion
During my graduation, once my class had assigned an activity to develop a business idea since the subject is entrepreneurship. The whole class is divided into groups (of five members each), but the ideas are individual. The one whose idea is more influential will be considered the group leader, and her idea will be executed to make a group presentation.
No doubt, my idea was great, but I didn’t have those charming tactics to persuade others as I was shy, so my idea didn’t work. One of my group members and my best friend surpassed me as she has brilliant communication skills.
Influencing and persuasion are skills you need the most in every area of life, whether you have to persuade your parents to let you go on a faraway trip with your friends, to influence your customers to buy your product, or to grab your employees’ loyalty and compliments with your kind and humble attitude towards them.
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity. — Zig Ziglar
A great book on influencing is “Influence The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini, P.H.D.
This skill will make you a heart-winning person and a great human being, which is our biggest goal.
2. Time Management
Many people talk about time management, but we get bored of hearing this phrase and don’t pay much attention to it. Now, I don’t try to be your grandmother to lecture you about it, as you all know.
One thing that always makes me feel down is when at the end of the day, I realize that most of the planned tasks are not done yet because I couldn’t make time for them.
It’s not ridiculous that when I grab my phone and open any social media app, I start scrolling through it unconsciously. It takes many minutes to realize that I have wasted much time on it. (I know it would probably happen with you as well.)
One book that inspires me a lot to manage my time to get my priorities done on time is “Eat that Frog” by Brian Tracy.
Time is our biggest asset as it is more important than money. If we don’t learn to manage it properly, we will never succeed.
3. Work Ethic and Motivation
One thing that differentiates a successful person from an average one is work ethic and motivation. Elon musk works for 10 to 16 hours a day.
You probably heard a saying:
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
Now, the question arises that I have worked hard, but my efforts didn’t pay me off. Why?
You don’t only need to work hard; instead, mix your hard work with your smart work.
Author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes 10000 hours for you to become a master of any field. That means you can achieve mastery in any field by practising it for 10000 hours. So never be afraid before doing hard work, and always stay motivated.
Mastery by Robert Greene is recommended to help you overcome your fears and push you forward in harsh conditions.
A year ago, when I was about to complete my graduation. During this phase of life, we think about our future and what we will be. And I thought myself to be a writer. But it took me a lot of time (probably a year) to figure out all the difficulties and procedures of online writing. It makes me sometimes feel that I have wasted a year of my life. But when I think about my future self in my imagination, it motivates me toward my goals. I’m continuously learning and improving myself as a writer, and I want you all, too, who are just starting their careers.
Life is a process of continuous learning.
4. Leadership Skills
Many people confuse leadership skills with management skills. A manager is a job title where people work under you, and you must manage whether the work is being done correctly and on time. But being a leader isn’t a specific position. A leader doesn’t order people to work for him; instead, he works with them and leads them for their betterment. He guides them, not supervises them and chases his goals by keeping everyone motivated.
“Leadership is the creation of an environment in which others are able to self-actualize in the process of completing the job.”
This book encourages you to find your why? (The purpose)
Having this slight difference in human beings sometimes create significant results in life. You see, what happens many times, is people with the same education and hard skills when applying for a job. One gets a promotion early and starts doing well in life. Why?
Due to his leadership skills, that’s why you must acquire this skill to be an achiever.
5. Emotional Intelligence
As humans, we are emotional creatures. However, we have a mind that makes us different from animals, but we always make decisions based on emotions, not logic.
Consider a scenario of a person who is a well-settled businessman. He is planning a meeting with his partners that will change his entire life as he heads toward his successful future. Still, at that very moment, he receives a call from home that his mother is in hospital and in a critical situation.
What do you think he should do?
Cancel his meeting and go to see her mother in the hospital. Right?
See, we all thought the same because we are emotional.
Emotional intelligence is the skill of being aware of the emotions of the people around you. It’s a technique of knowing that when they are happy, sad, and motivated, what things make them motivated, why they work, why they do not work, all these things happen because of emotions. You can say understanding all these things is the key to success.
This book can aid you in becoming a great person and a healthier person mentally and physically.
Remember that people around you aren’t robots you can control by coding. They are living creatures and have emotions. If you respect their emotions, they respect yours in response.
Don’t ever create such rigid rules for others that, if applied to you, you will feel difficult to chase. Always be humble and friendly.
Thanks for reading!
