EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS.

By Sam Odhiambo.

TOPIC .3. Self-management

What it involves

Self-management is defined as the personal application of changes in behaviour which can

produce a desired improvement in employability or life skills.

Self-Management Skills are those skills that help a person to control his thoughts, wants,
feelings and actions. It allows you to maximize your productivity and performance in
various fields of your career. When we talk about employability, Self-management skills help
you to manage a good career path. It helps you to overcome in many bad situations.

Self-management is a relative concept and may necessitate a small amount or a wide-scale of

change or development. Self-management can be used to live a more efficient daily life,
banish poor habits and acquire new ones, accomplish new tasks, and achieve personal goals.
Learning and teaching self-management skills have many advantages and benefits to the
individual over both the short and long-term. Self - management allows learners to
understand and show how to relate their interests, skills and qualities to particular job roles.
Exploring Self-Management skills involves three dimensions related to the skills of the
learners.

1. Ability to manage current skills through

 Identification of current employability skills
 Identification of areas for improvement
 Understanding of need for change
2. Ability to manage new skills
 Identification of new employability skills
 Identification of short-term and long-term career pathways
 Identification of new skills for particular jobs
3. Ability to understand learning style
 Understanding of different learning styles
 Identification of own best learning styles
 Employment of these in future learning or skills development

Following are some of the skills you must master to succeed in life:

 • Self-awareness: Ask for honest feedback. Gather insights on your personality and
work-specific proficiencies. Think about your daily interactions and how you handled
situations well or could have handled them differently.

 • Responsibility: Taking responsibility for your tasks is very important. Taking

ownership is the step towards self-development. For example, if you have been
assigned a task by a teacher; ensure you take complete ownership. Even if you are
unable to complete the task on time, you must report it and then correct it.

 • Time Management: Prioritise the things you have to do. Remove waste and
redundancy from work. Make a time table and follow it diligently.

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  • Adaptability: Stay current with best practices and read up on new information
always. Prepare yourself for new changes, so that you can transition seamlessly.

Stress Management

What is Stress?
Stress can be defined as our emotional, mental, physical and social reaction to any perceived
demands or threats. These demands or threats are called stressors. Stressors are the reason for
stress.
For example,
• you are too close to the exams but feel unprepared.
• you are experiencing a loss of someone close in the family.
• you are worried about what people would think of you if you don’t dress well or cannot
speak confidently.
Stress Management Managing stress is about making a plan to be able to cope effectively
with daily pressures. The ultimate goal is to strike a balance between life, work, relationships,
relaxation, and fun. By doing this, you are able to deal with daily stress triggers and meet
these challenges head-on.

Always keep in mind the ABC of stress management

A: Adversity or the stressful event
B: Beliefs or the way you respond to the event
C: Consequences or actions and outcomes of the event

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as
the emotions of others.

• Emotional awareness: the ability to identify and name one’s own emotions.
• Harnessing emotions: the ability to harness and apply emotions to tasks like thinking and
problem solving.
• Managing emotions: the ability to regulate one’s own emotions when necessary and help
others to do the same.

Some steps to manage emotional intelligence are as given below.

• Understand your emotions: Observe your behaviour and note the things you need to work
on. You can then work on the things you need to improve.
• Rationalise: Do not take decisions abruptly; be rational in your thinking.
• Practise: Do meditation and yoga to keep you calm.

Ability to Work Independently

If you can become a calm and relaxed person, you will have the ability to work
independently, which means.
1. becoming self-aware, self-monitoring, and self-correcting.
2. Knowing what you need to do.
3. Taking the initiative rather than being told what to do.
4. Recognising your mistakes and not blaming others.
5. Having the ability and the will to learn continuously.

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 Self-awareness — Strength and Weakness Analysis
Techniques for Identifying your Strengths and Weaknesses
Finding Strengths (or abilities)
 Think of anything that you are always successful at.
 Think about what others like in you.
 Take out time and think about what you do well.
Finding Weaknesses
 Point out the areas where you struggle and the things you find difficult to do.
 Look at the feedback others usually give you.
 Be open to feedback and accept your weaknesses without feeling low about it. Take it as an
area of improvement.

Difference between Interests and Abilities (Strengths)

Interests
1. Things that you like to do in your free time that makes you happy. An acquired or natural
capacity
2. Things you are curious about or would do even if no one asked you to do it.
3. Things you want to learn or would like to do in the future
Ability
1. An acquired or natural capacity
2. Enable you to perform a particular job or task with considerable proficiency.

Session 3: Self-motivation
Self-motivation is simply the force within you that drives you to do things. Self-motivation is
what pushes us to achieve our goals, feel happy and improve our quality of life. In other
words, it is our ability to do the things that need to be done without someone or something
influencing us.
Qualities of Self-motivated People
1. Know what they want from life
2. Are focussed
3. Know what is important
4. Are dedicated to fulfil their dreams
Building Self-motivation
 Find out your strengths
 Set and focus on your goals
 Develop a plan
 to achieve your goals
 Stay loyal to your goals
 Self-regulation — Goal Setting
Goals: They are a set of dreams with a deadline to get them, for example, saving pocket
money to buy a favourite mobile phone by a particular date.
Goal setting: It is all about finding and listing your goals and then planning on how to
achieve them.
How to Set Goals?
We can use SMART method to set goals. SMART stands for:

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• Specific: A specific and clear goal answers six questions. Who is involved in the goal?
What do I want to do? Where do I start? When do I start and finish? Which means do I use?
Why am I doing this?
Not a specific goal: “I would learn to speak English.”
Specific goal: “I would learn to speak English fluently by joining coaching classes after my
School every day, and in six months I will take part in the inter-school debate competition.”
Measureable: A measureable goal answers the questions “How much?”, “How many?” and
“How do I know that I have achieved results?”
Not measurable goal: “I want to be rich.”
Measurable goal: “I want to have 5 times more money than what I have today in my hand at
the end of this year.
Achievable: Breaking down big goals into smaller parts will make the goal achievable.
Bigger Goal: “I want to become a teacher in my school.”
Realistic: A realistic goal would be something that we want to achieve and can work
towards.
Example of unrealistic goal: “I will read my entire year’s syllabus in one day and get good
marks.”
Realistic goal: “I spend 3 hours every day of the year after school to revise my subjects to
get good marks in the exams.”
• Time bound: A SMART goal should have a timeframe by when the goal needs to be
achieved. This encourages us to take actions to completely fulfil the goals.
Not a time bound goal: “I want to lose 10 kg someday. “Time bound goal: “I want to lose
10kg in the next 6 months.”
Session 5: Self-regulation — Time Management
Time Management and Its Importance
Time management is the thinking skill that helps you to
• complete tasks on time.
• make a daily timetable.
• make a good guess at how long it will take you to do something.
• submit homework and assignments on time.
• Not waste time during the day.
Four Steps for Effective Time Management Organise
1. Organise: We plan our day to- day activities.
2. Priorities: We make a to-do list that has all our activities and we rank them in the order of
importance.
3. Control: We have a control over our activities and time.
4. Track: We identify and note where we have spent our time.

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