Basic Life Skills
Your Personal Assessment

Awareness of your basic life skills is an essential aspect of your self assessment and evaluation. I'm going to help you discover these skills - just follow the steps on this page.

You'll take away some really useful information that you can apply to career decisions and you can decide which skills you may want to develop further.

I believe you have lots of life experience. As you work through the steps on this page please think wider than the career skills you currently use.

Take time to reflect on all your skills so that you don't just rely on what you're doing now to inform your future.

Matching your skills to a career is important to ensure a 'good fit'. But be careful of choosing a career just because you have the skills it requires.

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Ready? Let's start.

Roles

Use a spreadsheet or a few blank pages to make a list of your skills. Divide the page into three columns down the length of the page.

If that's too much work you're welcome to download this free .pdf life skills worksheet - yeah, I did it for you!

A useful way to start is to align roles and skills. Head the left hand column Roles and make a list of the roles you've had in your life. What are all the different roles and responsibilities you've had in life? You should leave a few lines of space between each of the roles you write down.

Roles are official and unofficial functions and positions you've had in your personal and professional life. Or just think about all the things you do or responsibilities you have. Your personal life could include roles such as mother, father, son or daughter.

Perhaps you are a partner to someone. Think about all areas of your life and include roles from sport, hobbies, interest groups, or being a student.

Push yourself to think of different roles and write them all down. Don't hold back! Think about all the things you do. If you are a friend to someone, write that down. If it's your job to mow the lawn write it down. Write everything down.

Professional Roles : Basic Life Skills

Now think about professional roles. Write down the job titles you have held. If you've been a committee member write it down. Other than your official job title what other roles were you expected to perform at work? Think hard. Be creative.

Remember to keep some space between each of the roles you write down. The idea is to generate a list of as many different roles you've had. Hopefully you've got plenty to work with.

If not, go and ask someone to help you. Ask them to help you creatively think of as many different things that you do as possible.

Lastly, think about the things you really enjoy doing. Are these already on your list? If not, add them now.

Head this column Skills. Next to each role you've written in the left hand column write the basic life skills you need to complete the task. Again, think hard! Be creative.

Write everything down. There are no wrong answers!

There's usually more than one skill for each role. For example, mowing the lawn requires me to operate a machine, but also requires excellent time management skills and organisational skills. I might need good communication skills and an awareness of safety procedures. Can you think of more?

Some ideas of skills you can draw on include:

• Written communication skills: expressing yourself clearly in writing
• Verbal communication skills: expressing your thoughts and ideas clearly by speaking
• Being Flexible: adapting easily to different situations
• Persuading: convincing others
• Teamwork: working easily as part of a group
• Leadership: motivating and leading others
• Planning and organising
• Implementing ideas
• Problem solving: investigation and analysis skills
• Mathematical skills: analysis and understanding of numbers
• Computing skills: understanding of computers and software
• Emotional Intelligence skills: self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Fill that middle column with abilities relevant to each of the roles you have written. Ask yourself What do I need to know in order to fulfill this role? What do I know, or do, that helps me in this role?

You may find yourself writing the same or similar skills for different roles. That's ok, but push yourself to think 'outside the box'. What career skills are you overlooking? Think of as many different but relevant skills as you can.

Make up a symbol for each rating. You might use a smiley face or a big check (tick) to indicate I do this well and a question mark (?) or a star (*) for I need to develop this skill further. Place a symbol next to each of the basic life skills you have written in the middle column.

It's hard work isn't it? But this level of planning and knowing your basic life skills will help you make decisions in your life.

The last thing you need to do is create two new lists of skills. Using the pages you've created make one list of basic life skills that you do well, and another list of basic life skills that are areas for development.

What's Next? Learn more about yourself...

The skills assessments on this page are part of a 4-part personal assessment.

When you've finished the basic life skills assessment choose the next assessment (abilities and aptitudes) from the list below.

1. Basic Life Skills (this page)
2. The Abilities and Aptitude test
3. Discover your Values
4. Personality profiles

I'm already preparing your next assessment. See you there!

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Hi! I'm Mark Connelly. As a psychologist and coach with 20+ years of experience, I help people create and manage change.

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