10 Essential Human Skills for Success

Note: This article is taken from author Vanessa Van Edwards, in which she tells us about the basic skills in dealing with others in order to achieve success.

When you have strong interpersonal skills, you are able to:

• Promote yourself and your skills.
• Overcome social anxiety.
• Convey and communicate your ideas better.
• Positively influence others.

What are human skills?

Human skills are the tools you use to communicate and interact with others. Individuals with strong interpersonal skills can predict other people's behavior, understand and empathize with them, and can socialize and build relationships easily. Human skills are also known as soft skills, interpersonal skills, social skills, emotional intelligence, and the intelligence of knowing others.

Research has found that those with strong interpersonal skills make an average of $29,000 more per year.

People skills are one of the most underappreciated areas of career development. In career development, we're quite lucky if we can get some soft skills training or occasional communication courses. I think that interpersonal intelligence, or PQ, needs constant development, just as we develop our IQ; we need to develop PQ. People's intelligence is just as important as the instructional intelligence gained through books.

The science of human skills:

Researchers define human skills as three sets of abilities:

1. Personal Influence:

Personal influence as a personal skill means how you deal with others. Do you have the ability to promote your skills, communicate clearly with others, and get what you need from them? A person with a strong personal influence usually makes a good first impression that is memorable and has a confident presence with the people they meet.

2. The Ability to Interact:

Can you empathize the extent to which you are able to predict, monitor, and analyze people's behavior in interaction with others? Or do you have the intensity of perception, insight, and seeing what others can't?

3. A Person with Strong Interpersonal Skills is Able to Easily Mediate with Others:

This means that they can lead, influence, and build connections between people. Do you consider yourself a person who is able to easily build connections between people? Or can you be a mediator?  Often these qualities can soothe toxic or difficult people.

10 Essential Human Skills for Success:

This list includes the top 10 skills of human beings. Try to read them and identify your strengths and weaknesses in dealing with others. Highly qualified individuals have these skills:

1. Social assertiveness:

Do you know how to defend yourself in social situations? Do you feel confident in dealing with others? Are you assertive with your social needs? Assertiveness is a necessary skill for maintaining social energy.

We do not have much social energy, and if you are socially assertive, you can save your social energy and spend it in the right ways, but if you lack social assertiveness, you will waste your energy on the wrong people or situations, or you will not align with your social goals.

People with high social assertiveness have more focused social energy, have greater clarity in their interactions with others, and communicate their points of view.

People with low social assertiveness:

• They feel less in control of social situations.
• Passionate about pleasing others.
• They have more toxic people in their lives.

People with high social assertiveness are able to:

• Set boundaries.
• Defend their needs.
• Reject others' requests.

Practical Step:

Social, introverted, and undecided people (both social and introverted) have different levels of social energy. So, try to find out if you are social, introverted, or undecided so that you can spend your social energy efficiently.

2. Enjoying a great attendance:

Are you an influencer? Do you make a strong first impression on others? Do people remember your name after meeting you?

People with a great presence have the ease to communicate with others and the ability to build relationships. So, a good presentation has a direct relationship with your ability to build personal links and develop a permanent network of relationships. If you have a strong presence, people are easily attracted to you and remember you better, and are more likely to work with you.

People with Poor Presence:

• They find it difficult to find clients or make friends.
• They often deal with people who forget their names.
• They feel awkward at most social gatherings.

People with a strong presence:

• They make a strong and lasting first impression.
• They have a strong relationships network.
• They build intimacy and harmony quickly.

Practical Step:

Learn how to be impressive. I think everyone has the potential to be great and influential, but we don't always know how to master that.

3. Communication mastery:

Do you enjoy giving presentations or speaking in public? Specifically, do you have the ability to communicate your ideas to large groups? Communication experts know exactly how to present themselves and communicate their message effectively.

Weak communicators tend to:

• Believe they are not worthy of attention.
• Avoid sharing their thoughts.
• Obtain approval of their views.
• Believe their hard work is not appreciated.

While communication experts excel in:

• Elocution or speaking in public.
• Making presentation.
• Communicating big ideas to large groups.

Practical Step:

Most people think they can't learn communication skills, but this is not true. Anyone can learn how to become an expert in communication.

4. Maintaining permanent trust:

Have you ever felt socially anxious? We all feel stressed in certain social situations, but the question is: Can you overcome your social anxiety? People who maintain lasting confidence are able to overcome their shyness and avoid embarrassment and may have strategies or motivational statements to overcome their anxiety, or have communicated with many people, and overcome shame and confusion.

People with high social anxiety:

• Avoid social situations, albeit useful for career goals.
• Feel embarrassed or helpless.
• Overthink and analyze during meetings and conversations.

People with high social trust:

• Stand out in most social situations.
• Feel embarrassed, but they have the ability to overcome it.
• Feel more excited than anxious when socializing.

5. Conversational mastery:

How to overcome the difficulty of dealing with short conversations? In my book, Captivate, I talk about the idea of having important conversations, and how to turn short, predictable, boring conversations into a deep conversation that makes a good impact. I think most interactions or situations where people communicate with each other occur at three levels:

The first five minutes:

It is what determines your first impression when you decide whether someone is worth getting to know, and this can happen on a professional, romantic, or social level. This level is the first step in determining your entry into the close circle or to someone's surroundings.

The first five hours:

Once you pass the first level, you'll get your first meeting, phone call, or date, and that's when you move from first impressions to building relationships.

First five days

This is the last level, and you need people you enjoy spending time with on the weekend. It is the level of familiarity and absolute confidence, and this may be in terms of romantic or professional relationships or friendships. So, the conversation is the key to moving to these three levels.

People who do not master the conversation suffer from:

• Running out of things they want to say.
• Not knowing how to start a conversation with someone.
• Many moments of awkward silence.

While people who master the conversation:

• Know how to participate in an unforgettable conversation, and they have the ability to carry on with it easily.
• Transform brief conversations into deeply moving conversations.
• Use conversation as a tool for everything from relationship building to social networking to sales.

6. Impress others:

Do people describe you as lovable? Is it easy for you to attract people to your team or influence others through your point of view?

Having a friendly and loving personality is an essential trust aspect. We often hear about the need to be “honest” or “real,” and these are all important aspects of admiration. To admire someone, their words must match their actions; we often love those who show us their true selves. Psychologist Carl Rogers described a concept called self-actualization, which talks about the degree to which people show their true selves compared to their ideal selves (represented by their hopes and desire).

Unloved people:

• Find it hard to convince people of their ideas.
• Feel they have a lot of potential, but rarely act according to their ideal selves.
• Often feel excluded, or like a stranger.

Loved ones:

• Are highly respected and are often asked to join teams, social shares and groups.
• Feel that their ideal and true selves are closely interconnected.
• Others ask for their opinions.

Practical step: Making friends as an adult is a skill to be mastered. Maybe it was too easy when we were younger, we had school, camping, and sports activities to meet new people, but as adults, we have to work hard to achieve this.

7. Experience in analyzing other people's feelings and way of thinking:

Do you think you're observant? People who are good at reading people are exceptionally strong at knowing how others think and feel. Analyzing people, having a strong intuition, and having strong empathy are the aspects of emotional intelligence that fall within the intelligence of knowing others. When we look at the intelligence of knowing others (or human skills), we find three main types:

• Emotional intelligence is the degree to which you rely on your intuition and emotion.
• Social intelligence is how you express your emotions when you're surrounded by others, as well as how you respond to their emotions.
• Self-knowledge intelligence is the extent to which you know yourself, your needs, and your social boundaries.

Each person has different strengths and weaknesses in different aspects of the intelligence of knowing others.

People who have difficulty analyzing emotions:

• Find it hard to empathize with others.
• Have difficulty reading and interpreting body language and facial expressions.
• Often miss social cues.

People with exceptional ability to analyze emotions:

• Can quickly read people's thoughts and intentions.
• Are good at interpreting body language and facial expressions.
• Are quick-witted.

One of the best ways to improve your ability to analyze is to learn how to read the seven microexpressions.

8. Promote your ideas and skills:

When people ask, “What's your job?” Do you know exactly how to present yourself and your skills well? And when you have to promote yourself or your ideas, can you do it with confidence? Promotion is a very important human skill for professionals because it happens all the time, not only in elevator pitch meetings, but also during every meeting when you are asked for your opinion, in emails when you introduce yourself, and in conference calls.

Now, I know it's never easy to brag or talk about yourself, but you should be able to get excited about your thoughts. The most important question is: When you talk about yourself, can you get people excited to work with you?

People who find it difficult to promote their skills and ideas:

• Feel anxious when talking about themselves.
• Underestimate their successes.
• Miss opportunities because they feel unworthy or afraid to talk (they may have impostor syndrome).

People who are good at promoting themselves and presenting their ideas:

• Can get people to adopt their ideas.
• Feel confident in promoting themselves without bragging.

Practical Step: If you have impostor syndrome, know that it is the biggest obstacle for people who find it difficult to express themselves, so be sure to solve this problem; you deserve success.

9. Enjoying gravity:

What is charisma or a captivating personality? Most people think that you should be born with an attractive personality, but I disagree with them completely. I found that charisma is a perfect combination of two basic traits of human skills: affection and competence.

People without charisma or captivating personality:

• Are seen as cold or scary people, and people have a hard time communicating with and trusting them.
• Are seen as superficial and hesitant, and people don't easily rely on them.
• Are nice or competent, and without both, you're not an attractive person.

People with high attractiveness:

• Are seen as very friendly, trustworthy, and lovable and can be communicated with and dealt with.
• Are seen as highly competent, reliable, capable, and knowledgeable people.

10. Enjoys the status of influential leadership:

You don't have to lead a company or be the head of an organization to be a leader. Leaders in both working and social life can gain the support of others, mobilize teams, and make intimate friends.

I don't think the opposite of a leader is a follower. in fact, it's great to be a follower sometimes. When you learn something new or want to participate in an adventure, it's almost impossible to be a leader if you have three traits:

carelessness:

Do you value your life? Do you wake up excited every day? Indifference is a lack of enthusiasm or interest in our lives or the things we do, but true leaders fight indifference by choosing to always be with people or doing activities that really excite them.

Frequency:

If you are hesitant or contradictory in your opinions regarding the people or activities in your life, you will never be able to become a leader. I believe that indecision is the root cause of stress in relationships.

Lack of Purpose:

Leaders have direction, goals, plans, and strategic paths that guide their actions, making them more determined, and helping others follow them.

Leaders fight these three traits:

• They invest in their enthusiasm, providing their energy to the people and tasks that matter to them.
• They know who belongs to the team, and who doesn't, and they choose team members to be with in their lives.
• They make plans, are driven by their thoughts and actions, and encourage others to follow their example.

Practical step:

Fight those three previous traits in your life, and start with the trait that affects you the most. Do you need to get rid of some unstable relationships? Do you need to make a plan for yourself? Do you really need to find activities that excite you? This is how you can become a leader.

In conclusion: An additional skill is productivity

I have one more skill for you that I simply had to include this skill because it shows up in our students' answers over and over again when we ask them a simple question:

What skills do you currently lack that prevent you from achieving your goals?

Our students repeatedly tell us about specific interpersonal skills such as those mentioned above, attractiveness, communication, and confidence, but the third most common answer, productivity, specifically says:

• Resolve and determination.
• Perseverance and follow-up.
• Confronting distraction.
• Harness motivation.
• Time management.

I realize that this is an additional skill of humans because the intelligence of knowing others requires determination, motivation, and follow-up to refine it. Developing the intelligence of knowing others or human skills is just as important as your IQ, and we need a systematic way to enhance human skills to be more successful and achieve goals.