Self-Management Skills-1

Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, students will be able to:
e Understand the meaning of self-management.
e Demonstrate the positive results of self-management.
o Identify the factors that help in building self-confidence.
e Demonstrate self-management skills.

2.1 DESCRIBE THE MEANING AND IMPORTANCE

OF SELF-MANAGEMENT

SESSION 1 MEANING OF SELF-MANAGEMENT

Self-management skills are the core skills that govern our attitude and approach towards life further
making us self-confident when faced with difficult times. These skills complement variety of other
personal and professional skills. The way we deal with others in our professional and personal lives
is dependent on the way we deal with oursclves — our self-management skills. Improving these self-
management skills builds our confidence to face different pleasant and unpleasant situations in our
day-to-day life. In other words, self-management skills refer to cluster of our personal qualities such as
personality traits, social graces, and ease with language, personal habits, friendliness and optimism that
differentiate us from other people to varying degrees.
Our self-management skills involve:
e Our ability to manage our own emotions.
e Our ability to manage others by mapping their mood.
e Our ability to function harmoniously with others.
e Our openness to learning new ideas.
e Our tolerance to not-so-pleasant situations and differences in opinions.
e Our readiness to accept people from different cultures.
e Our willingness to make things work in our personal and professional life.
o Our ability to manage situation by weighing its sensitivity and attuning our actions accordingly.
'SESSION 2 SELF-MANAGEMENT SKILLS
In short, these skills have a bearing on our intellectual (or cognitive) skills determined by our IQ as
well as on our interpersonal (or non-cognitive) skills reflected by our EQ. To cut the long story short,
the three broad areas of these skills of influence are:
(a) Rational abilities: These simply mean the abilities to understand a problem and then to find a
way to effectively solve it. These abilities can be improved by diving deep into your specific area
of work for its further expansion and growth.
(b) Personal qualities: Do you take personal initiative? Are you considered responsible? Do you take
accountability seriously? What about your self-esteem? Are you sociable and socially sensitive? Do
you adapt well? How about self-management with integrity and honesty in personal—professional
set-ups? The answers to these questions determine the presence or absence of a number of
personal qualities.
(¢) Interpersonal skills: These include the ability to participate as a member of a team, serve clients/
customers, act like a leader when the situation demands, negotiate, and work with ease even with
people who come from different cultural backgrounds.

I e Self-management skills are the core skills that govern our attitude and approach towards life.
These skills complement variety of other personal and professional skills. They refer to the
cluster of personal qualities such as personality traits, social graces, and ease with language,
personal habits, friendliness and optimism that differentiate us from other people.
e These skills also have a bearing on our intellectual (or cognitive) skills determined by our IQ as
well as on our interpersonal (or non-cognitive) skills reflected by our EQ.

=
A. Multiple choice questions.
1. Which of the following is not a self-management skill?
(a) Rational ability (b) Personal quality (c) None of these
2. Which of the following shows your ability to participate as a member of a team?
(a) Interpersonal
skill (b) Communication skill (c) None of these

B. Answer the following in True or False.

1. Self-management skills musters your vanity.
2. Your intellectual (or cognitive) skills are determined by your EQ.
3. Your interpersonal (or non-cognitive) skills are determined by your 1Q.

C. Practical work.
Make a list of 10 of your strengths and weaknesses each. Then, chalk out a one-month plan to leverage on your
strengths and overcome your weaknesses.
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 2.2 IDENTIFY THE FACTORS THAT HELPS
IN BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE
SESSION 1 FACTORS BUILDING SELF-CONFIDENCE AND HELP IN HONING
SELF-MANAGEMENT SKILLS
There are enough reasons for you to start honing your self-management skills. Below given are some
areas that you can start working on:
® Locus of control: Locus of control is the degree to which you perceive control over a situation
being internal or external. It refers to the range of beliefs that you hold in terms of being
controlled by self (internal locus) or controlled by others or the situation (external locus).
o Self-efficacy: It refers to a belief about your own ability to deal with events and challenges.
High self-efficacy results in ability of staying happy even with little and having greater
confidence in dealing with varied situations of varying degrees of difficulties. Tt has also been
observed that success in your previous situations may lead to increased self-efficacy for your
present and future challenges.
o Self-esteem: It is your general feeling of self-worth. Individuals with high self-esteem have
positive feelings about themselves while those with low self-esteem are strongly affected by what
others think of them, and may view themselves negatively when criticized by others.
o Self-monitoring: It is the extent to which you base your behaviour on cues from other people
and situations. Individuals high in self-monitoring pay attention to what behaviour is appropriate
in certain situations such as staying clean and hygienic, spending time with positive people, and
standing by high ethical standards while those low on self-monitoring prefer that their behaviour
reflects their attitudes, and are not as flexible in adapting their behaviour to situational cues.
It is often seen that an individual with high self-monitors does well in customer relationships,
sales jobs or in any position that requires meeting the public because of his attentiveness
to cues from other people and from situations while individuals who are low self-monitors
do well in jobs that are consistent with their fundamental beliefs. Because they prefer that
their behaviour is consistent with their attitudes, they become uncomfortable in certain sales
situations, such as having to sell a product they don’t believe in.
e Positive thinking: Individuals exhibit attitudes about situations in a positive or negative manner.
Your tendency to accentuate the positive aspects of situations is referred to as posiiive thinking,
while those accentuating less optimistic views are referred to as having negative thinking. It has
been observed that people who do physical exercise on regular basis generally are physically fit
and think positive. In fact, your physical and mental health also influence your self-confidence.
People with positive effect are physically fit and are less absent from work and those with
negative effect often fall sick and report higher levels of job stress.
Apart from the above mentioned internal factors, some other external factors — social and cultural help
in building your self-confidence. It has been observed that people coming from a society which respects
individual and has a culture of forgiving failure or is tolerant to one’s accidental mistakes rather than
penalizing, have higher degree of self-confidence than the ones coming from a society or culture which
is intolerant and punitive to its people’s mistakes and failures.

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C. Short answer questions (Il).
1. Explain the meaning of self-management.
2. Explain the personal qualities influenced by self-management skills.

3. How do people work on self-management through self-maonitoring?

D. Long answer questions.

1. What do self-management skills involve?

2. Explain how self-management skills influence rational abilities and interpersonal skills of a person.
3. Explain various factors building self-confidence of a person.

E. Practical work.
1. Inculcate positive thoughts by repeating these thoughts to yourself on waking up and before going to bed.

2. Make groups of 5 students each and devote a Sunday for working for community together doing activities like
cleaning community park, donating clothes in slum areas, conducting ‘nukkad natak’ for awareness on a social
topic etc.

3. In order to experience the effect that your positive thinking has on your overall mood on a daily basis, do the
following exercise for 1 week:

(a) Give yourself positive strokes by saying 5 good things (such as” |am a lucky person”, “Everybody loves me”,
“Itreat others with respect and compassion”, “l will make my elders proud and friends happy by my words
and actions today” etc.) to yourself on waking up. Write in 50 words how you felt for the entire week.

(b Give yourself positive strokes by saying 5 good things (such as “ My day was fruitful”, “God has blessed me
with a healthy body and sound mind”, “ | didn’t hurt anyone with my words or action today”, “ | contributed
towards community building by keeping the environment clean” etc.) before going to bed. Write your
experience in 50 words.

4. Observe the leaders in your society/country and write a paragraph (of 100-150 words) on how he/she helps
others and works for community at large.

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I For h your self-management skills, you should start working on some areas like —

A. Multiple choice questions.

ds is the extent to which you base your behaviour on cues from other people and situations:
(a) Self-monitoring (b) Self-esteem (c) Both (a) & (b)

2. General feeling of self-worth is known as: )

(a) Self-confidence (b) Self-esteem (c) None of these
B. Answer the following in True or False.
1. Rational abilities include your ability to understand a problem and then to find a way to effectively solve it.
2. Taking initiatives reflects your positive personal qualities.

C. Activity & practical work.

Observe your teacher/parent or any other elder whose self-management skills you admire. Make a list of
those skills. Also mention the positive words or metaphors he/she uses in his/her daily life.
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EXERCISES
A. Multiple choice questions.

1. Self-management skills do not involve:

(a) Manage emotions (b) Manage inanimate objects (c) Manage situations
2. Three broad areas influenced by self management skills do not include:
(a) Rational abilities (b) Personal qualities (c) Communication skills
3. refers to a belief about your own ability to deal with events and challenges.
(a) Self-confidence (b) Self-efficacy (c) Self-monitoring

4. Improving your self management skills:

(a) Builds your confidence (b) Helps in making friends (c) None of these

B. Short answer questions (1).

1. Define self-management skills.

2. What are the three broad areas influenced by self-management?
3. Mention the areas a person should work on for sharpening his self-confidence.