Life Skills We Should Have Learned in School
If you ask anyone the most practical skills they learned in school, you’d most likely be met with a long pause and deep look of concentration. Some people had favorite subjects or ones they were especially good at. Many people have horror stories to tell you about school and how they hated it and didn’t learn a thing but whether you liked it or not, you learned. Not just subjects in classes, you learned implicitly and vicariously through being in the social setting of the school.
Now let’s change up the question a little – based on your experience of life so far, what practical skills should have been taught that would have made a big difference for you?
Truth be told, we learned communication skills, math skills, research skills, artistic skills but nothing relating to the mind and emotions. Nothing about our inner world and how to manage our thoughts and emotions.
Nearly everyone who works with a life coach eventually says, I wish I would have learned this in school! And continues to ask, “why didn’t they teach this? Or why don’t they teach this in school?”
So, what would our class curriculum look like if we’d learned more essential self-management life skills in school? Here are just a few of peoples’ favorites.
We spend much of our day in a kind of autopilot, not really present, aware or mindful. Mostly stuck in our heads, rehashing the past or making up things about the future, and generally reacting to life in an automatic way.
So what? That would be completely fine if we were happy and being the kind of people we really wanted to be but very often we’re not happy and we want to change.
The first thing we need to learn is to wake up and become aware and present in the moment, a) so we can live in reality instead of in our imaginations, and b) so we can truly live it by being more intentional about who we’re being and how we’re behaving.
Acceptance in itself is a very important life skill – it means taking a look at reality and saying, “yup, that’s happening” instead of resisting it and believing it should be another way. Thinking it should be another way is basically painful and stressful and wastes a lot of our energy or internal resources. When we accept the present moment, no matter how much we don’t like it, or how painful it is, it somehow makes it less stressful and painful, and puts us in the position to choose how we wish to respond now.
Likewise, when we don’t accept ourselves, when we don’t recognize our inherent worth, and believe we should be different, better, smarter, prettier, anything else but what we are, we create a lot of pain and suffering for ourselves.
From incessantly measuring yourself and coming up short to avoiding certain situations and people because you feel inadequate, a lack of self-acceptance can keep us from moving forward in all directions.
In learning to accept ourselves, all our parts, warts and all, we eliminate huge sources of stress from our lives and we open up to experiencing love, joy, peace and contentment.
Speaking of stress, imagine understanding from a young age, what stress is, how it affects the body and mind, and what we can do to manage it effectively. It would likely make a huge difference in our development and wellbeing.
Poorly managing stress, letting it build and accumulate and persist indefinitely wreaks havoc on our nervous systems, our bodies and our minds and thus our lives.
We can learn vital skills in managing our thoughts, regulating our bodies, taking care of ourselves, and even learning how to transform stress into opportunities for growth – so the same old things don’t continue to stress us out should definitely be on the curriculum.
When your mind isn’t wandering, and you feel engaged in and focused on what you’re doing, you’re in a flow state. However, if you have problems recalling the last time you felt focused and, in the zone, you’re not the only one.
Though flow is seen as an optimal state of consciousness, many people never get to experience it, either because the conditions or environment aren’t right or they never get the chance to develop their full potential and call on their own strengths and gifts.
Helping children find what they love and enjoy, that would serve a purpose in the world instead of forcing every child to try to be the same, would dramatically change the course of many lives leading to greater self-esteem, fulfillment, even efficiency and productivity in the workplace.
So, these are only a few of the subjects we would have wanted to learn in school that would have benefited our lives greatly.
Learn to live, love, and lead from the heart at HeartRich Coaching Toronto! Stop the incessant inner chatter and break free from limiting beliefs and life patterns with HeartRich's self-leadership & resilience-building skills! Visit us online to book a complimentary consultation session today!
