Study material - 21st-century skills identified by the World Health Organization

Picture credit - Global Values Alliance
 

Study material

21st-century skills identified by the World Health Organization

This study material is created for all my friends. 

I struggled a lot to find proper reading material. It was scattered all over. So created this so you can get the material on all 10 life-skills in one place. 

All the articles I studied to prepare this material are listed at the end.

The study material is organised in the following manner -  Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology

Hope my effort in your service helps you enrich yourself. 

Decision-making skill

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (24 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Problem-solving skill

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (23 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Creative thinking skill

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (22 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Critical thinking skill

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (25 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Communication skill

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (25 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Interpersonal skill

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (23 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Self-awareness

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (22 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge (15 minutes)

Empathy

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (22 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Coping with emotions

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (23 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Coping with stress

Articles published as part of the 66-Day Challenge on LinkedIn, Medium and on this blog site - Principles, Process, Techniques, TED Talks, Books, Movies, Stories from mythology (7 articles - reading time around 5 minutes each)

YouTube audiobook co-created as a gift (25 minutes)

Facebook posts (in Marathi) as part of the 100-Day Challenge

Resources

To create the study material, I studied these articles and videos. Grateful to the contributors

Decision-making skill

1. How to Make Decisions
2. Different decision-making techniques
3. The Effective Decision - Peter Drucker
4. Decision Tree Examples
5. The chaos during decision making
6. Tools for thought
7. Don Sahong hydropower project, Cambodia
8. Four Pests Campaign
9. The Hindenburg mishap
10. Berlin Conference 1884
11. 3 ways to make better decisions — by thinking like a computer
12. A Primer on Foraging and the Explore/Exploit Trade-Off
13. The 37% Rule
14. The Secretary problem
15. Knowing When to Stop
16. How to make hard choices
17. Martha Stewart’s questions
18. Book reviews - Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, The Best Books on Decision-Making, The 10 Best Books for Better Decision-Making 
19. Why CEOs should watch 12 Angry Men
20. 4 decision-making lessons from Captain Sully
21. Stories from mythology - The judgement of Paris, Dasharatha’s dilemma 

Problem-solving skills

1. Quality improvement fundamentals
2. 5 Whys analysis
3. The 5 Whys process
4. 5 Whys example - the best and the worst examples
5. Design thinking
6. 15 Times Design Thinking Re-Imagined Our World!
7. Philippe Starck on democratic design
8. Design Thinking 101
9. Charles and Ray
10. IDEO Design Thinking - Journey to mastery
11. All you wanted to know about Fishbone
12. Writes’ 5M model
13. McCarthy’s 4P model
14. Six Sigma Tools - Fishbone Analysis
15. Some Fishbone diagrams
16. Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast
17. Would you sacrifice one person to save five?
18. Ethics of Aristotle
19. Who Decides the Ethics of Self-Driving Cars?
20. Top 5 books on problem-solving
21. Summary of Problem Solving 101
22. Book review of - The Art of Thinking Clearly
23. Chauffeur Knowledge
24. Behavioural Economic Theory — The Sunk Cost Fallacy
25. How to Change Your Own Mind When It’s the Right Thing to Do
26. The 10 warped lessons from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory
27. Rudy’s role model traits
28. What was the Gordian knot?
29. The Gordian Knot & its leadership lessons

Creative thinking skill

1. 8 creative thinking techniques and tools
2. Mind mapping
3. The Phoenix checklist
4. Six Thinking Hats
5. How the CIA Defines Problems and Plans Solutions: The Phoenix Checklist
6. Picture Association
7. Random Word Generator
8. Other people’s view
9. Creativity and walking - Get Up and Go Out
10. Creative Thinking Techniques
11. Iconstorming for visual practitioners
12. The morphological matrix
13. How to use Morphological Matrix
14. For a more creative brain - follow these 5 steps
15. A technique for producing ideas
16. Mansukhbhai Jagani’s story
17. Forbes' list of 7 powerful rural Indians
18. Peter Ueberroth’s story
19. Want to be more creative? Go for a walk
20. The surprising habits of original thinkers
21. The Alternative Uses Test
22. Creativity and Creative Problem Solving Tests
23. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
24. 15 Best Books on Coming Up With Genius Ideas
25. Beyond Competition to Sur-Petition
26. August book review- Creativity: Flow and The Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
27. Summary of sur/petition
28. The learning from the series - ‘Abstract’
29. 7 Lessons In Creativity From The Movie “The Imitation Game”
30. Hephaestus
31. Hephaestus in Greek Mythology
32. Hephaestus and how brokenness contributes to creativity
33. Hephaestus: The God of Design & Creativity
34. How to Train Your Brain to Think Fast and Think Smart
35. Thinking on your feet
36. Speed-thinking

Critical thinking skill

1. 3 Simple Habits to Improve Your Critical Thinking
2. 15 Logical Fallacies You Should Know Before Getting Into a Debate
3. De Bono speech on critical thinking
4. The Six Hats of Critical Thinking and How to Use Them
5. How to solve problems using six thinking hats
6. The Six Types of Socratic Questions
7. Critical thinking handbook
8. Encourage critical thinking with 3 questions
9. This is what it’s like to go undercover in North Korea
10. ‘Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite
11. Why do people join cults?
12. Weaponized Lies
13. Summary of the book - Weaponized Lies
14. Summary of the book - Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
15. Teaching with Girl Boxer
16. Teachers Look to Film to Foster Critical Thinking
17. Meet The Women Behind The Documentary ‘With This Ring’
18. Teachers Look to Film to Foster Critical Thinking
19. The boy who cried warming
20. Prashnopanishad
21. Questions that inspire India
22. Pippalada's answers to the unanswered questions
23. The Science of Prashna Upanishad
24. The questions that Buddha declined to answer

Communication skill

1. 5 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Every Time You Speak
2. 3 Simple Frameworks to Give Effective Feedback
3. The McKinsey model
4. The Stanford method
5. Pixar’s top 6 Rules of Great Storytelling
6. Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling
7. 7 Basic Story Types and Why They Matter to Your Marketing
8. The 100 stories that shaped the world
9. The Element of Surprise: A Storyteller’s Secret Weapon
10. Importance Of Storytelling For Children In Today's Digital World
11. How miscommunication happens (and how to avoid it)
12. Transmission models
13. The importance of emotional tone in the digital age
14. Behavioural analytics
15. Personalization
16. Top 10 Books On How to Improve Effective Communication Skills
17. Top 5 Business Storytelling Books
18. Skill with people
19. The mastermind within
20. Made to stick
21. Notes on made to stick
22. What is Hubris?
23. Hurtful communication
24. Steve Jobs' response when faced with hubris

Interpersonal skill

1. Games People Play
2. Psychology games an employee plays
3. How to Express Feelings... and How Not To
4. Negotiation tactics
5. 5 methods of principled negotiation
6. The BATNA steps
7. Some good BATNAs to use as a buyer
8. Programme on Negotiation
9. How motivation can fix public systems
10. The secret to giving great feedback
11. Difference between influencing and persuasion
12. The 7 Best Books To Improve Influencing Skills
13. Influence without Authority
14. Summary of - Influence without Authority
15. Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Makes Us Influential
16. Summary of Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Makes Us Influential
17. 5 TED Talks That'll Make You More Persuasive
18. Lord Krishna – Role model of an effective negotiator
19. Not a Needle Point of Territory
20. Calliope: Muse of Eloquence

Self-awareness skill

1. What Is Self-Awareness and Why Is It Important?
2. Are you self-aware?
3. How Self-Efficacy Changes Your Self-Confidence
4. Self-Efficacy
5. How to Deal With It Imposter syndrome
6. What Is Imposter Syndrome?
7. How To Journal For Self-Awareness
8. 59 Journaling Ideas: What to Write About in a Daily Journal
9. Keeping a Daily Journal Can Give You Tremendous Power
10. How To Write In Your Journal To Improve Yourself and Achieve Your Goals
11. Writing a daily journal
12. The power of vulnerability
13. Should you live for your résumé or eulogy?
14. Book summary - “Insight: Why We're Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life”
15. Book summary - StrengthsFinder 2.0
16. Smultronställe—a hidden secret place
17. Film review “Wild Strawberries” - Ingmar Bergman (1957)
18. Psychoanalytic Notes on Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries
19. Making of Wild strawberries
20. Breaking down Bergman
21. Ingmar Bergman on 'Wild Strawberries'
22. Film Review - Ship of Theseus
23. Platonic Allegory of the cave
24. Thomas Hobbes’ twist to Plutarch paradox
25. The Flight of Icarus
26. Self-Awareness is the first step to spiritual awareness

Empathy

1. 5 People Who Changed the World By Taking Compassion to the Extreme
2. Six Habits of Highly Empathic People
3. How brands are using empathy to enhance marketing
4. Thank you mom
5. ‘Can you make it to the end?’
6. ‘Real Beauty’ campaign by Dove
7. Difference between Emotional Intelligence and Empathy
8. Types of Unempathetic People
9. Trash cart Superheroes
10. Compassion and the true meaning of empathy
11. 7 Books That Will Help You Develop More Empathy
12. Well-Designed: How to Use How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love
13. Speed Summary: Well Designed
14. The importance of ethnographic research in product design
15. When and How to Use Ethnographic Research
16. Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy
17. 15 movies that teach empathy and compassion
18. Culture Shock Lessons from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
19. 5 Life lessons to learn from Greek mythology
    

Coping with emotions

1. The Emotion Wheel: What It Is and How to Use It
2. Ways to cope with emotions
3. Chakra Therapy
4. Balance Your Chakras and Create Higher Self-Esteem
5. The Biology of the Chakras and the Vagus Nerve
6. Vagus nerve
7. The 7 Chakras – A Guide about their Attributes, Strengths and weaknesses, related yoga postures
8. 1-Minute Mindfulness Exercises
9. Career as a Radio Jockey
10. The gift and power of emotional courage
11. Why we all need to practice emotional first aid
12. How to distract yourself from loneliness
13. 12 Must-Read Books That Will Raise Your Emotional Intelligence
14. The Book of Human Emotions
15. The Best Books on Emotions
16. Emotional Intelligence 2.0
17. Book Review: Emotional Intelligence 2.0
18. EQ
19. Total Life Counseling
20. Identify emotions
21. Accept emotions and not repress them
22. Express emotions correctly
23. Regulate emotions
24. The Iliad and what it can still tell us about war
25. Achilles by Britannica
26. The story of Dhruv
27. Character analysis of Achilles

Coping with stress

1. Reminiscences of Hans Selye, and the Birth of “Stress”
2. Inspirational story about stress and stress management
3. Carpenter and his worry tree
4. Common symptoms of stress
5. Main causes of workplace stress
6. Holmes-Rahe stress inventory
7. Career workout
8. What’s the difference between anxiety and stress?
9. Stress vs Anxiety: How to Tell the Difference
10. The Real Difference Between Stress & Anxiety
11. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
12. All it takes is ten mindful minutes
13. Ultimate anti-stress weapon called 365-method
14. How to make stress your friend
15. 16 Best Stress Management Books for 2020
16. Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
17. Book summary of ‘Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers’
18. Manage Your Time to Reduce Your Stress
19. Ten moments that made us fall in love with ‘Amélie’
20. Stress management guide
21. Review of the movie Destressed
22. Ashtavakra – the Self-Realised Saint
23. Janaka and Ashtavakra: A Journey Beyond
24. Death anxiety. The worm at the core of mental health
25. Psychology Analysis: The Epic of Gilgamesh
26. The Epic of Gilgamesh

My LifeSkills calendar

Under construction😀

Day 70 - Coping with Stress

 

Picture credit - Janaka and Ashtavakra

Day 70 - Coping with Stress

18 June 2020

─

Prabodh Sirur

sirurp@gmail.com

My learning for the day

Today I want to share my learning on the topic of coping with stress from two mythological stories. The first story is about King Janak and Sage Ashtavakra  and the second is about the Sumerian King Gilgamesh. 

Story 1 - King Janak and Sage Ashtavakra (From Hindu mythology)

This is a story of King Janak, Sita’s father, revered as an example of non-attachment to material possessions.

Janak was Sage Ashtavakra’s disciple and would regularly visit the Sage to learn the ultimate truth from him.

Ashtavakra’s sanyasi students were jealous of Janak because of Ashtavakra’s love for Janak. Observing this jealousy, Ashtavakra played a trick on them. He told one of the students to come in during the discourse and shout, “Oh sanyasins, a monkey has come and is taking away all your clothes.” Hearing this, all rushed out to shoo away the monkey. The next day, he asked the student to come and shout, “Oh king Janak, your palace is on fire.” Janak just glanced at the person and went back to his prayers.

Ashtavakra turned to his disciples and said, “Yesterday you were worried about your loin cloths, the only possessions you have. Look at this King. He showed no stress even when the whole of his palace was burning.”

Janak continued to study under the guidance of Ashtavakra. This study, a dialogue between Ashtavakra and Janak, is known as Ashtavakra Gita. Ashtavakra Gita is about the nature of soul, reality and bondage and about the complete unreality of the external world and absolute oneness of existence. 

The learning 

Problems, uncertainty and crises are part of life. In such situations, maintaining equanimity opens up opportunities to find solutions.

There is no merit in getting stressed about what has already happened. You can not undo it.

Story 2 - The Epic of Gilgamesh (From Sumerian mythology)

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest written story from Sumer, the earliest known civilization.

This epic is written on clay tablets dated c 2000 BC.

The epic is about King Gilgamesh and his quest to become immortal.

King Gilgamesh was a powerful and arrogant king of Uruk. The Gods created Enkidu, a wild man to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. Enkidu challenges Gilgamesh but loses the fight. Nonetheless, the two become great friends. 

Together, they slay Humbaba, the guardian of the sacred Cedar. This enrages the  gods and they decide to sentence Enkidu to death and kill him.

This event triggers great fear and stress in Gilgamesh’s mind. The distress over Enkidu's death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to meet the immortal man Utnapishtim and discover the secret of eternal life.

He learns from Utnapishtim that life on earth is temporary, so we should live it to the fullest. 

Gilgamesh also learns why Utnapishtim was immortal. It was because Utnapishtim built a ship for all living beings to be carried in and keep them alive when the gods brought floods to eliminate all life on earth. 

The learning

Death anxiety causes distress casting a shadow over our daily life. Thoughts of death create a sense of powerlessness, loneliness, and meaninglessness.

We must learn to accept death as a natural fact of life and live life to the fullest.

We become immortal when we live for a cause.

References

Ashtavakra – the Self-Realised Saint

Janaka and Ashtavakra: A Journey Beyond by Ashraf Karayath

Death anxiety. The worm at the core of mental health

Psychology Analysis: The Epic of Gilgamesh

The epic of Gilgamesh

My learning so far on this topic

Day 10 post -  What is Hans Selye’s stress theory?, Ways to cope with stress 

Day 20 post - Symptoms of stress, Main causes of workplace stress, Holmes-Rahe stress inventory

Day 30 post - Stress and Anxiety; are they different?, Mobile Apps to cope up with stress

Day 40 post - Two TED talks - All it takes is ten mindful minutes & How to make stress your friend

Day 50 - Two books - Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers & Manage Your Time to Reduce Your Stress

Day 60 - Two movies - Amélie (2001) & Destressed (2014)

What is stress?

When you perceive a threat or a major challenge, chemicals and hormones surge throughout your body. This is called stress. It is basically a survival mechanism of our body. 

There is good stress (eustress), bad stress (acute stress) and chronic stress

Eustress is the type of stress when we feel excited e.g. when riding a roller coaster or when competing for a promotion etc.

Acute stress is a short term stress because of some stressors e.g. stuck in a traffic jam when we are late for a meeting, an argument with your spouse, an unkind criticism from your boss etc. 

Chronic stress is a long term stress brought on by continual acute stresses when we repeatedly face stressors. This condition gives a feeling of helplessness and a feeling of being put in inescapable state. Chronic stress causes many physical and mental health related issues e.g. heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver and suicide.

How to improve this skill?

Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of coping with stress. 

Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of coping with stress. 

Learn - Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of coping with stress 

Apply - 

Identify a model suitable to you

Create a template to document the flow of the process

Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template

Maintain record/ process flow of every important activities you did with respect to coping with stress

Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others

Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)

Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts

Purpose of this document

I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day. 

My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself. 

This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends. 

I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.

What are Life Skills?

UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three  broad categories of skills

- cognitive skills for analyzing and using information, 

- personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself, 

- inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.

Which LifeSkills are covered?

The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures: 

1.  Decision-making

2.  Problem-solving

3.  Creative thinking

4.  Critical thinking

5.  Communication

6.  Interpersonal skills

7.  Self-awareness

8.  Empathy

9.  Coping with emotions

10. Coping with stress.

Some trivia

‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.

Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives

- Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS

- Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy

- United Kingdom - child abuse prevention

- USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence

- South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.