Introduction to the soft skill

Self-awareness is the ability to reflect on your needs, aspirations and wants. Through self-awareness you will be able to recognise and modulate your feelings, behaviours and thoughts.

Why is this an important skill?

People who are self-aware tend to feel more comfortable in their own skin which helps to build positive professional and personal relationships. Not only will you have a better relationship with yourself, but you will also have a better relationship with those around you. Being self-aware is important because it helps build strong relationships and develops control over life decisions and overall wellbeing.

Self-aware employees have a stronger understanding of their personal strengths and weaknesses; therefore, they are able to select tasks which are suitable for them and identify steps they must take in order to develop.

OERs + Icebreakers

Have a look at some of the following materials before completing the exercises. Reflect on how and when these skills have been applied by you or someone else.

• • SWOT Analysis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA5ikRm6yNo
  • Johari Window – Take the test online https://kevan.org/johari
  • Self-Awareness– Pathways to Happiness https://pathwaytohappiness.com/blog/self-awareness/

Estimated time:

15 minutes

Exercise 1: COPS

Challenges, Opportunities, Potential weaknesses, Strengths (COPS)

Overview:

This exercise presents the Challenges, Opportunities, Potential weaknesses, Strengths (COPS) strategic planning tool which helps individuals to specify objectives and identify the internal and external factors that are helpful and harmful to achieving the specified objective.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

A brief guide to COPS analysis:

Challenges

• How can you attract employers?
• How can you be more effective?
• How can you develop yourself?
• What are the barriers you face?

Opportunities

• Where is there a gap in the market?
• What sector best suits your skills and experience?
• Where can you further develop yourself?
• What opportunity would be enticing to you?

Potential weaknesses

• What do others do better than you?
• Where is your experience lacking?
• Where are you lacking adequate resources?
• What skills need improving?

Strengths

• What do you do better than others?
• How strong is your reputation?
• What experience do you have?
• What skills can you rely on?

When it comes to searching for a job, it is important that you are able to identify and evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, potential threats, and opportunities. Using the COPS analysis is a beneficial method to go about this. COPS has been adapted from a strategic planning tool created by Albert Humphrey (SWOT). Users of COPS specify the objective and then identify the internal and external factors that are helpful and harmful to achieving that objective.

Click here to download the COPS chart analysis, and focusing on your job search, fill in the information relating to the different sections of the chart.

Exercise 2: Johari Window

Overview:

This exercise is the Johari Window technique which enables individuals to improve their understanding of themselves through how they see themselves compared to how others see them. It emphasises the importance of soft skills such as self-awareness and helps to uncover any areas where development can be made. This model promotes personal growth and a greater understanding of oneself (strengths and weaknesses). It was developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

The Johari window was developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham. This technique enables users to better understand their relationship with themselves and others. This simplistic model emphasises the importance of soft skills such as self-awareness and allows users to develop their ability in this area. This model promotes personal growth and a greater understanding of oneself (strengths and weaknesses).

You can find a downloadable list of adjectives, print these off and give them to friends and family, they will choose five adjectives which they think are relevant to you. You will also choose five adjectives which you believe are relevant to yourself.

When you have collected all the adjectives from your friends and family, compare them with the adjectives you chose for yourself. Now you can put these into the Johari Window:

• Any adjectives that you and your network chose should go in the top left corner.
• Any adjectives that your network chose, but you did not go in the top right corner.
• Any adjectives that you chose, but your network did not go in the bottom left corner.
• The left-over adjectives go in the bottom right corner. These adjectives are where there is room for personal improvement, and this is where you should focus your energies.

Click here to download the Johari Window template and put the adjectives as described above.

Exercise 1: Lifeline/Milestones

Overview:

Our life can feature milestones, some of them are positive and some of them are negative. This exercise allows you to visualise these milestones and your feelings at specific times to understand change to a greater extent.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

On a blank sheet, list out some of the key events in your life: education, employment, relationships and any key changes. This list should be shaped around what your life goals were at these various points in your life.

Think about how you were feeling about your life at that time and then rate each event from minus 10 to plus 10. This data will be used to plot your milestones in terms of highs and lows on a timeline.

You can download the time plot template here

Write key words alongside the milestones to indicate what event they represent. The positive events will be plotted above the central line (high points) while the negative events will be plotted below the central line (low points). Once you have finished plotting the events, it will look similar to the diagram below:

Exercise 2: Covey

Overview:

This exercise uses the Circle of Concern and Control created by Stephen Covey to help individuals realise the power they have over things that feel out of their control by focusing their efforts on things which can be under control. As we focus our efforts on the circle of control, this area will expand and will begin to affect the circle of control which lies outside our control.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

The Circle of Concern and Control is an effective method of coming to terms with change. Covey’s concept builds the resilience of its users as they become more aware of the influence that they can have.

Below is a diagram of the Circle of Concern and Control:

Below is a story, choose what lies within the speaker’s circle of control and what is outside her area of control. In addition, describe the actions she could take to gain control over her concerns.

Case study

A friend of yours has been having a hard time for a while now. She is concerned every day about how she will be able to secure her dream job as a chartered accountant for a big firm. As the economy is not doing very well in the country she lives in, she is worried that there will not be many vacancies for chartered accountants in the next few years. She is losing a lot of sleep over her predicament and she is eager to start a career in this industry.

Solution: Use the downloadable template

This activity can be adapted to any situation. If you are concerned about something, why not use it and see whether it expands your circle of control and enables you to reduce your concerns?

Exercise 1: Get curious!

Overview:

This exercise is designed to raise awareness about the importance of curiosity at work and in every aspect of life.

Estimated time to complete: Around 5 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Easy

The activity:

Choose an activity that you think you are not interested in or even dislike, such as a daily task or chore. Alternatively, you could try something out of the ordinary for you, like listening to a genre of music that’s not your favourite, eating a food you disliked as a child, watching a sport you think is boring, or learning a hobby you’ve never before found intriguing.

Try to let go of any expectations, positive or negative, that you have about the experience. Simply keep an open, curious mind.

While engaged in the activity, take note of at least three new things about it that you have never noticed before.

You may find your preconceived ideas changing, opening up new possibilities for interest and enjoyment in your life. Even if not, you will have added a few new and interesting things to your catalogue of experience!

Exercise 2: Learning new things is fun

Overview:

This exercise helps us to learn new things and treasure the importance of curiosity by working on our eagerness to learn.

Time estimate: 5 to 10 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Newspapers
  • Pen or pencil
  • Paper

Difficulty: Easy

The activity:

All we have to do is to find some time to get a newspaper (or a magazine) and choose an article. This article should be, possibly, about something we are not very interested in.

We should underline all the new concepts that we come across and, if possible, do a little research about them.

In the evening (or right after reading), ask yourself, “What have I learned today?” and make some notes.

Exercise 1: Openness as part of the ‘Big Five personality’ theory – Track where you stand!

Overview:

In this exercise, learners are able to keep track of their actual behaviors and course of actions in the six dimensions of openness. Openness is a part of the ‘Big Five’ personality theory.

Estimated time to complete: 30 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Hard

The activity:

According to the theory and model, there are 5 core traits in the role of underlying dimensions that play a significant role in an individual’s personality. These traits are the following (built on the initial letters of each dimension, the model is also known by the name ‘OCEAN’):

• Openness
• Conscientiousness (being/not being reliable, organised and methodical)
• Extraversion (being/not being energetic, talkative, and assertive)
• Agreeableness (being/not being friendly, compassionate, and cooperative)
• Neuroticism (being emotional stable and tense, including experiencing often negative emotions)

For the needs of this training unit, the model offers itself as a tool to test one’s self in the dimension of Openness. According to the model, Openness involves 6 sub-dimensions:

• Imagination (levels of using fantasy, perceiving/not perceiving the world as simple, being oriented/not oriented to facts rather than fantasy)
• Artistic interests (levels of absorption in and appreciation of art and beauty, as well as aesthetic sensitivity)
• Emotionality (awareness of own feelings and open expression of own emotions)
• Adventurousness (eagerness to try new things and activities, preference/non-preference for familiar contexts and routine)
• Intellect (enjoying/not enjoying abstract ideas, intellectual exercises, discussing intellectual issues. Intellect as a dimension in this model is more about an attitude, not to be confused with intelligence, which is an ability)
• Liberalism (challenging/not challenging authority, conformity, stability and security)

What you need to do

Consider the 6 sub-dimensions of Openness above and think of the way you approach tasks, obligations, other people, ideas, change and challenges. Keep track of your actual behaviour and course of action in each of these sub-dimensions using a simple scale like ‘High-Average-Low’. Think mostly within the context of your professional life, or if there is not much experience in this, think of yourself along the way of dealing with diverse situations in your life, since openness is rather a way of dealing with life issues, which more than often spills or will spill over in your professional life as well. Once you have scored yourself, reflect on the following:

• Do you know of others who have dealt with professional or life aspects in a more open or closed-off way than you? What was the outcome? What is it exactly that they have benefitted from their attitude? What does this suggest to you and your chosen attitude?
• Which of the 6 sub-dimensions is/are the one(s) that you scored better on (having selected ‘High’ in the respective scale)? How did this score in the situation at hand help you?
• Which of the 6 sub-dimensions is/are the one(s) that you scored worse on (having selected ‘Low’ in the respective scale)? What was the impact of this for you?
• What is your combined score in ‘High’ and ‘Average’? If they count to 4 or more, you are already on the positive side of being ‘open’.
• Think of the reasons you either scored ‘High’ or ‘Low’ in certain dimensions. Why is it so, and how could you change your attitude? (examine life or work experiences, think of yourself as a young child, a pupil at school, the way you react to ‘changes of plans’, the way you organise your day, your holidays, or even the path you take when driving or walking back home.

For a more elaborate assessment of your performance in Openness, you can use this free, online test:

https://www.truity.com/test/how-open-are-you

Exercise 2: Turning assumptions from barriers to facilitators of openness

Overview:

This exercise helps individuals to become more and more aware of their assumptions and prepare them to work through these in future situations to achieve a state of openness.

Estimated time to complete: 10 - 30 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Hard

The activity:

Assumptions seem to be the main barriers in achieving the state of being open. More than this, it is our propensity to hold assumptions as truths, rather than beliefs. When facing, or about to face a situation, a relationship, a new idea, assumptions seem to form the first level of reaction, even at a subconscious level.

Openness, as already demonstrated, is considered a personality trait. Those who lack this trait can ‘train’ themselves to deal with assumptions in order to minimise their effect as barriers to openness. This in turn makes the process of tackling assumptions a learned skill, that eventually can lead to openness.

In the following video, assumptions are analysed and brought forward in order to be challenged and ideally suspended themselves; that is, turned from barriers to facilitators of openness.

The Magical Assumptions behind Openness - https://youtu.be/67m0ucdAr1w

What you need to do

Watch the video and reflect on the two situations presented, in order to first understand the power of assumptions.

Try to recall real-life situations out of your experience where you have been either as the producer of assumptions in a relevant situation, or the observer of assumptions made by others on the face of these situations.

Keep track of the process suggested in the video in order to minimise the power of assumptions, using their supposed qualities as tools towards that goal (registering assumptions, suspending belief so that new ideas can emerge, challenging assumptions).

Then, judging from the outcome in those situations ask yourself the following questions:

1. a) In what way have your assumptions affected the outcome of a situation? In the case when another person has shared her/his assumptions in a situation, ask yourself the same question.
2. c) Reflect on how often you tend to make assumptions in diverse situation and examine the power of them in your case.
3. d) Reconsider the ‘scenario’ of a situation and think of what the outcome would be if you tried to bring your assumptions to the surface, in order to turn them into something that can be challenged.
4. e) Think of possible situations when assumptions have proved to be a ‘false alarm’ and made you pay the cost of not being open.
5. f) In the case that you can recall situations where you fought against assumptions, try to recall, in detail if possible, about the process you followed to deactivate those assumptions.

At a meta-cognitive level, this kind of mental process will gradually help you to become more and more aware of your assumptions and prepare you to work against them in a similar manner in future situations.

Exercise 1: Energy Givers and Energy Takers

Overview:

This exercise is designed to help you identify the overall energy givers and energy takers in your life, to help you to see the bigger picture and work out which areas require greater focus for improved satisfaction and productivity.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

Consider the nine ‘life domains’ as identified by the NDTI (n.d.) (see image below). It is important that when evaluating one aspect of our lives, e.g. work, we understand how the many other factions of our lives influence this. In the image below, you will see how your identity can be divided into nine key areas, each one just as important as another. Using this image, take a few minutes to think of what you could include in each domain.

Once you have completed this, put a ‘+’ or a ‘-‘ next to each activity to indicate whether this task either gives you energy or takes your energy away (Click here to download the Activity template).

Example:

Now review your list. How is the balance between energy givers and energy takers? Are there any steps you could take to increase the number of energy givers?

Think about your identity domains (see above image). Are there any that you have not covered on your list? And if so, would it boost your energy to do so? E.g. a creative person who does nothing to do with the ‘arts’ domain may experience reduced energy, as they are not fulfilling their passion.

Notice the energy-giving activities. Think about why these activities give you energy and how you can incorporate more of this into your daily life. Do these activities have anything in common? Perhaps you notice that you get a lot of energy from tasks that involve interacting with others.

Completing this exercise can help you to become more aware of your overall energy levels and take more notice of the activities that boost and reduce your energy levels. With this knowledge, you will be more able to plan and structure your days to allow for a balanced workload. You will know which tasks to focus on when you need an energy boost and which tasks you can delay until you are feeling more resilient. Being able to manage your workload will enable you to remain productive and give you better control over your overall wellbeing.

Exercise 2: Dealing with Setbacks

Overview:

This exercise facilitates your ability to deal with setbacks by reflecting on your previous approach to deal with them and replacing negative thoughts with positive ones.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

How we deal with setbacks is important. Do we respond with hope or despair? Do we say things like “I knew I could not do it” and “this was never going to work” or do we ask, “what can we learn from this?” or say “we tried our best! Better luck next time”. Taking a positive approach to setbacks demonstrates resilience.

Part A:

Think about how you dealt with a recent setback. Did you face the situation with despair? Did it make you feel angry or disappointed? What did you think/say to yourself? What judgements did you make about yourself and/or others if something fails? Were you critical? Did you allow yourself to fail? Write down your thoughts.

Part B:

Now think about how you could have responded to these setbacks with hope. Try to replace each negative comment with a positive one. Try considering what your manager’s expectations were and what you could have done to achieve this. How could you have impressed them? What could you still do/have done to add to the results to improve them? Try using the table below to help you (Click here to download your Reframing template)

By retaining a positive mindset and approaching the situation with hope, you are more likely to improve the situation by finding alternative ways to reach the desired result. Furthermore, even when it is not possible to change the outcome, facing a setback is still a valuable experience to have and learn from.

Tips

• Next time you face a setback, try to consider the following:
• Is there anything you can still do to improve the situation?
• Ask for feedback, where possible, so that you can learn from it
• Analyse the situation – what worked well? What was challenging?
• What could you do differently next time?
• How would a resilient person react to this situation?

Source: SME Tools to Prevent Burnout e-learning ( https://www.losglobos.eu/form/burnout )

Exercise 1: Assessing my level of adaptability

Overview:

This exercise is designed to help individuals access their adaptability level by reflecting on feelings, reactions and consequences in real-life situations.

Estimated time to complete: 5 - 15 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Hard

The activity:

Let’s start by investing sometime thinking about how adaptable we currently are.

Below you will find a list of questions extracted from a typical job interview where the interviewer tries to assess your level of flexibility and adaptability in the workplace. Firstly, read through all the questions. Secondly, take your time to think about different situations you went through that were especially challenging in your life (both professional and personal) and real-life situations in which you experimented where the questions below could be applied.

Take your time to remember how those situations made you feel, your specific reactions and the consequences of your reactions. Now try to note down the answers to these questions being completely honest with yourself.

• How do you adjust to changes you have no control over? (e.g. A person from your team decides to quit.)
• If your co-workers had a “this is how we do it” attitude to learning something new, how would you try to convince them to follow a different, more effective method of working?
• What are the biggest challenges you’re facing when starting a new job?
• You have been working on a client’s project for a while, when your manager informs you that the project’s requirements changed suddenly. What would you do?
• How do you re-adjust your schedule when your manager asks you to prepare a report within an hour? How do you make sure you don’t fall behind your regular tasks?
• Describe a time you were assigned new tasks (e.g. due to job enrichment or promotion.) How did you adapt?
• The new HR Manager implements formal, quarterly performance reviews for all employees. How would you prepare yourself and your team, if you were used to having only informal meetings?
• Tell me about a time you had to learn how to use a new tool at work. How long did it take you to understand its features and use it daily?

Exercise 2: Commitments to improve my adaptability

Overview:

This exercise helps to identify moments when an individual did not react with the flexibility required to succeed and remain optimistic, and to improve adaptability.

Estimated time to complete: 10 - 30 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Hard

The activity:

Phase 1:

Now give yourself again some more time to think about those challenging moments you went through, this time focusing on those where, on reflection, you are not so satisfied with how you handled them. The aim is to identify those moments where you did not react with the flexibility required to succeed and remain optimistic.

Now think, based on your answers in exercise 1, how could you have reacted better to those situations? If faced with the same situation now, how could you change your behaviour? The aim is to think about your development needs here. How do you think you could have better taken advantage of the situation and achieve more positive results? Make notes of your thoughts.

Phase 2:

To finalize the exercise you should now make a list with 2 columns, one where you identify the skills you need to develop which you identified related to your adaptability and flexibility towards change and challenges, and one with your ideas on how to train in such skills from now on. Once your list has at least 5 skills to improve and details how to improve them, commit yourself to start implementing a personal training plan to develop them daily. Come back to this list in a set time period to update it and consciously log your improvements.

You can use the next example as a guide when customising your list:

Exercise 1: Positive Affirmations

Overview:

In this exercise, learners practice to entwine positive affirmations in daily life to improve self-belief and self-efficacy.

Estimated time to complete: 5 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Easy

The activity:

Look at the positive affirmations below, choose one which is relevant to you (if none of them feel relevant, create one of your own). You should try and entwine this affirmation into your day – chant it in the morning, say it to yourself in the mirror, write it in your diary – whichever way works best for you.

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions

I attribute my success to my efforts and determination

I am worthy

I am beautiful

I am full of love

I am grateful for my life

I find joy in everyday

I make myself better everyday

I am learning

I find beauty in ordinary things

I am free

I am powerful

I am independent

I am unapologetically myself

I am at peace

I am successful in whatever I do

I am energetic

I have the power to change myself

I am wonderful

Exercise 2: Meditation and Visualisation

Overview:

This exercise introduces an effective method to strengthen mindfulness and well-being – meditation - to increase the awareness of goals and performance.

Estimated time to complete: 5 - 10 minutes

Materials needed:

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

Difficulty: Easy

The activity:

Meditation is a key player when it comes to mindfulness and wellbeing. Through mindfulness, one is able to become more present in the moment. Mindfulness and self-efficacy are closely linked, as when you become more mindful, your awareness of your goals and performance increases. Therefore, those who are seeking to increase their self-efficacy often practice meditation.

Below are some simple meditation guidelines for beginners:

1. Get into a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Breathe naturally and try not to control the breath.
4. Focus on your breath and how each inhalation and exhalation affect your body. You should be able to notice slight movements throughout your body as you breathe.
5. If your attention strays, bring it back to your breath. A wandering mind is not a failure!
6. Maintain this meditation for two to three minutes.
7. Evaluate how the meditation made you feel and how you feel now that you have completed it.

Many people include meditation in their daily routine and they claim that it makes them more productive and mindful. Why not try introducing meditation into your routine?

Exercise 1: Mindmap

Overview:

This exercise uses a mind map tool to help an individual learn from someone who is motivated, recognise shared characteristics from them and identify their own unique motivation traits.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

Employers want to see evidence of drive and motivation in candidates, so it is valuable to undertake some self-analysis to identify what your drivers are.

Think of the most motivated person you know. It could be a parent, teacher, friend, family member or colleague. Analyse how they show they are motivated in their behaviour. How do they communicate? What do they do? What have you noticed about them?

Using the example below to help you, create a mind map of their motivation. You can download your editable Motivation Mindmap here. In the square boxes, provide examples of a time they demonstrated motivation and in the surrounding circles, indicate which behaviours they demonstrated during this time. Highlight or underline the behaviours with one colour of your choice.

Now it is time to identify how you have been motivated in your behaviour.

What did you do? How would people have known you were motivated? Is there something important that you learnt from that time? Where were you? What activities were you doing? Why were you engaged and motivated? How does that feed forward into your current situation?

Take a minute to think of some examples and add these to your mind map. When have you demonstrated motivation? What behaviours did you exhibit?

Then use a second, different colour to highlight these qualities of yours. If you find that you share a trait with the motivated person you have chosen, use a third colour of your choice to indicate that you both have this quality (see example below to help you).

By the end of the exercise, you should have a diagram that looks a bit like the one below. What have you learnt from completing this exercise?

This should help you to learn from someone who is motivated, going forward, recognise that you share some characteristics that you admire and also identify your unique motivation traits too.

Think about what unique traits you have that distinguish you from others. How could you use this to your advantage when finding a job? How could you apply this trait in the future to help you be more motivated?

Exercise 2: ‘Motivation Rope’

Overview:

In this exercise, a motivation rope is introduced to learners to identify interesting activities that they move toward as well as unmotivated activities from which they want to be away from.

• • Pen
  • Paper or a word document

The activity:

It is human nature to move towards things which we find interesting and stimulating and away from things which cause us distress, pain or do not interest us.

What are your drivers? Are you focusing your search around your strengths?

Imagine a piece of rope. You could draw it on a big sheet of paper. To the right add TOWARDS and to the left write AWAY FROM. The centre of the rope is the NEUTRAL zone. Think about all your activities in life currently and in the past: work experience, hobbies, prior jobs, internships and volunteering, social life and try to identify what you felt motivated by, or unmotivated by. If you felt motivated, then write the experience under or near to ‘Towards’ depending on how motivated you felt. Do the same with unmotivated. For example, you may find that from past work experience in a restaurant, you tend to gravitate towards teamwork, as you enjoy working with others. Equally, you may want to move away from repetitive work, as you seek more challenging tasks.

Your ‘away from’ should work as a tool of identifying areas you don’t want to work on. Your ‘towards’ can make you ask yourself ‘What could you do to fully make the most of these motivations, and use them for success?’ ‘What does this tell you about yourself?’ ‘Does your current job search match your ‘toward’ ideas?’ ‘Are your strengths and job search fields aligned?’

Sourcedfrom:

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/risk-balance-tightrope-business-4097298/

Example: Seema and career decisions.

Seema is a fine art graduate who has graduated recently, but has found it hard to get a job. She chose the degree because she loves to be creative and technical, but is now unsure of her career prospects.

Here’s her rope line.

After analysing this, Seema realised that she does not feel motivated by doing a job where she feels isolated and does not have a variety of tasks. She has also recognised a career path she does not want to pursue – jewellery making.

When looking at what she is motivated towards, Seema realises that she likes being creative. Combining this with her passion for designing and decorating, along with her mathematical skills, she realises that a career in Interior design could be perfect for her! She would work with people and always have diverse tasks. As she has a degree linked to this role, Seema’s next steps would be to research the career, and start finding opportunities for work or experience.