Everyone has the ability to learn a life-changing skill. By life-changing, We mean something that can have a positive impact in your life moving forward, even if it’s something you can’t envision today. Certain skills we can immediately reap the benefits of, while others will be life-changing when we least expect it.
These skills belong to all spheres of life, ranging from interpersonal to the most profitable ones. But regardless of which sphere of your life these skills cover, each of them has the potential to change your life for the better.
13 Best Life-Changing Skills to Learn in 2020
1. Speed Reading
Tell me if this sounds familiar:
You’ve got a presentation tomorrow and you’re drowning in a whole stack of files to read through.
Since there’s really no time to read all that information, you decide to skim through to get the gist. The only problem is that as soon as you start reading faster, the text stops making sense.
Almost every reader has the habit of subvocalization, which essentially means that he says the words in his head while he reads them. This habit is known to significantly increase reading time.
Speed reading helps eliminate this tendency by allowing readers to skim through the text and comprehend it at faster reading speeds. According to an article on Forbes, an average adult reads at a speed of about 300 words per minute while speed readers clock in at 1500 words per minute.
Imagine all the time you could save while reading the paper, researching for reports, skimming through emails, and reading books.
2. The Art of Delegating
This is a skill that I believe everyone, especially those in managerial positions, should master.
The problem is that many of us are trying to micromanage tasks and the people around us.
But here’s why that sucks:
Micromanaging drains all your mental energy on tasks that don’t matter.
By learning to delegate, you can free up your time and mental space for important tasks.
3. Learning to Play an Instrument
You might just consider playing an instrument as a fun skill to learn.
But what if I tell you that learning to play an instrument can help you boost memory and improve cognitive functions?
In fact, it’s even shown to retard the onset of dementia.[3] With so many mental and health benefits, this is certainly one of the best creative skills to learn.
Check out Udemy’s list of music courses where you can learn to play any instrument online. However, if you’re after faster results, I’d recommend looking up someone in your area who could teach you the instrument you’re interested in.
4. Prioritizing Tasks
Many of us lack the skill to prioritize. But today, more than ever, we need to learn this art to increase productivity and output.
I believe that the biggest reason why people fail at prioritizing tasks is that they lack daily planning. Something as simple as having a to-do list in order of priority can help you boost your daily output and effectiveness.
But it gets better…
By learning to prioritize, you’ll let go of a lot of useless tasks that wouldn’t make it to the priority list.
And despite that, you’ll realize at the end of the day that you accomplished more results with lesser effort.
5. Mastering Body Language
According to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), people consider information from body language over facial expressions when perceiving emotions.[4] This study effectively proves that you can get your message across to people more firmly if you use the right body language. That makes this one of the most important skills to learn.
Now, “body language” itself is quite an extensive subject involving gestures, eye contact, body posture and much more.
To master your own, try out these 11 body language tricks. Bear in mind that body language doesn’t improve overnight. In fact, it’s a subconscious change that occurs over the course of months.
6. Videography Skills
Have you noticed how social media giants like Facebook and Instagram have been trying to push more video content on your feeds? You’d also know that brands are now routinely marketing their products and services through Youtube; a lot more than they used to.
There are a host of reasons for that, one of which is that video content has been proven to garner increased user interaction.
It’s simply more stimulating, gripping and entertaining. People enjoy it and want more of it every day.
So, by learning videography skills like shooting, lighting, and editing, you can ride this social media wave and help yourself or others generate more video content. Oh, and there’s always the possibility of making good money out of this skill!
7. Mental Clarity
Did you know that in 2013, the average person’s attention span had decreased to about 8 seconds?
Now, there are a plethora of reasons why our attention spans are dropping so rapidly. But I attribute this loss in attention span to our collective loss in mental clarity.
What you need is to develop the skill of decluttering your brain and find your purpose, drive, and reason.
Without a defined goal, you’re just a hamster running in its wheel. And a lousy one at that since research shows that mental fatigue drastically impacts physical performance as well. So, it’s about time you reduce your brain fog.
By having mental clarity and defined goals, you can then reverse engineer your brain and decide what you really need to focus on. With that knowledge, you’ll know what needs immediate attention and what can wait.
8. Learning Humor
What if I tell you that being funny is a skill?
In fact, I consider it so powerful that I decided to include it in this list of skills to learn.
Being funny is almost synonymous with being liked. If you make people laugh, then you’re automatically a center of attraction for all your social groups. This brings with it a lot of benefits including greater influence in your peers and increased social exposure.
Research published in the American Psychological Association shows that humorous speech is comprehended and retained better. So, in easier terms, people can understand you better if you’re funny.
Another study showed that humor increases camaraderie and productivity in work environments.
Now, as a funny guy myself, the best advice I can give you to learn humor is to watch people who are good at it. Notice how they deliver punchlines and focus on their timing and tonality. You may notice that quite a lot of them actually try to laugh at yourself. Embracing their “weaknesses” is actually a way of showing their confidence in themselves
Another great way of learning humor is watching quality sitcoms like F.R.I.E.N.D.S. With time, you’ll start to notice yourself cracking similar jokes as the characters in these shows.
9. Writing
If you came to this list looking for creative skills to learn, then consider this evergreen one. Despite rapid digitization, writing remains one of the strongest forms of communication.
Be it an office report, a social media picture caption or a romantic text; good writing can get you some useful brownie points.
But don’t just consider writing as an important communication skill. Writing is, in fact, one of the most profitable skills to learn.
Take it from me; I make a living from this skill and teach it to people all the time. Gone are the days when you had to write a book in order to make money writing. Today, there are industries like blogging, social media marketing, copywriting that have opened so many doors for people to earn a living through this skill.
10. Learning a New Language
Learning a language is a fantastic way of improving your mental capabilities. When you learn a new language, you expose yourself to a brand new set of rules and vocabulary that exercise your brain muscles.
In theory, you’re training your brain to function better by learning a new language. Research shows that bilinguals take more rational decisions and have a stronger working memory.
Being bilingual can open a lot more doors in life than you’d think. By learning a local language, you can better connect with the people of that area. This can even lead to a host of job opportunities in the field of translation to consular officers.
One of the easiest ways to learn any language is by using a language learning app.
11. Carrying Conversations
Let’s just face it:
Nobody likes a person who’s hard to converse with.
In fact, there’s nothing worse than talking to a person who doesn’t know how to carry a healthy discussion.
People who know how to start a conversation and carry it are loved by everyone for the sole reason that they’re easy to spend time with.
No matter the situation, such smooth talkers never make others feel uncomfortable and can even say the cheekiest of things in the smoothest of manners.
This art is vital in winning arguments, negotiations, and conversations.
12. Social Influence
Social influence is one of the best skills to learn for everyone. In fact, this skill was mastered by some of the most powerful personalities in human history.
People like the late Nelson Mandela and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were masters of the art. Actually, they wouldn’t be regarded as the icons that they are unless they knew how to get people rallied behind them.
13. Gaining Control over Your Creativity
We all know that creative people are more innovative and are able to find better solutions. But do you ever find your creativity burning out from time to time?
If so, then you’re not alone. In fact, creativity comes in fits and bursts for most people.
Here’s the thing:
You can gain control over your creativity so that ideas never seem to run out.
As a writer, engineer and entrepreneur, I know how irritating it is when you’re desperately looking for your creative juices to kick in. Merely waiting it out until you’re feeling creative again can make you lose precious hours… even days! And let’s just face it; we hardly have any time for that.
In order to gain control over your creativity, you can try a number of approaches. My favorite of which is retreating to a creative hobby that you love. This can be playing the piano, drawing or singing. Essentially, you’re looking to get those creative juices flowing so you can utilize them elsewhere.
A useful tip for obtaining a creative problem-solving approach is using the Six Thinking Hats Technique by Edward de Bono. This approach suggests that you divide your thought process into 6 thinking styles (or hats) and use them only one at a time.
For example, virtually wearing the white hat can mean thinking only about the monetary aspect of a decision. Similarly, the red hat may compel you to think of the emotional facet alone while the black hat may warrant considering what could potentially go wrong and so on.
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it. In this list, I tried covering everything from skills to learn for making money to those that can help you gain influence in your social circle.
Before choosing which skill you’re actually interested in, I’d like you to first consider why you’re learning it in the first place.
Learning to play an instrument could prove to be a great skill to learn when bored. But there’s no doubt that a skill like videography could prove to be a new income stream while gaining mental clarity could increase your productivity. So, choose the skill you want to learn according to the benefits you’re looking for!
How You Can Learn And Master Any Skill Fast In 5 Simple Steps
Have you ever struggled to learn a new skill while knowing nothing about it? This article will show you a method to learn new skills in a fun, engaging and exciting way.
Gladwell -author of “Outliers: The Story of Success” explains that reaching the 10,000-Hour Rule, which he considers the key to success in any field, is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years. However, this method is demonstrably not true, all you need is 20 hours. You just need to allocate 4 hours/day for 1 month. Even in the busiest schedule, if you can spend 30 minutes to 1 hour a day, to sit down and finally learn what you really wanted to learn, you will be amazed by what you will find. This method is discovered by Josh Kaufman-author and business adviser.
The method is made up of 5 simple steps:
1-Decide Exactly What You Want
This step can be really easy and hard at the same time. It depends on the level of self-awareness. In fact, if you’re able to define exactly what you want to be able to do the easier it will be for you to find ways to accomplish that desire to end result as quickly and efficiently as possible.
People who “know themselves” will find it easy. Whereas, others who can’t decide what they really like to do for the rest of their lives will find it really hard to choose a topic. In fact, these people will begin to work on a certain skill, once they’re stuck, they will change the skill and restart from 0.
To solve this issue, try to meditate for 5 minutes, once per day for 1 week. Think of something you’re really passionate about and imagine yourself in 10 or 20 years from now. Ask yourself this question: “What will I become if I master this specific skill?”. Write down all the answers on a paper and read it every day. Store it on your phone or stick it on the back of your closet. This will keep you motivated and push you to make that extra step.
2-Deconstructing The Skill
Or as I like to name it: “divide and conquer”.
Most of the things that we think of as skills aren’t really just one skill. As a matter of fact, they’re bundles of smaller sub-skills that we use in combination with each other. For example programming, it’s not just one thing. In fact, it’s a bundle of all sorts of things. To master coding skill, you need to increase your critical thinking and debugging skills, learn the ins and outs of the APIs and frameworks you will be using, etc…
Same for golf, basketball, sales, and other skills.
As a result, instead of learning let’s say basketball as a global skill, try to break it apart into these smaller parts and practice the most important sub-skills, the thing that you’re going to use most first. That allows you to focus on the elements of practice that actually give you the performance that you’re looking for. Therefore, the key is to practice the individual sub-skills
3-Researching
Research just enough that you’re able to identify the most important sub-skills involved in whatever it is that you want to learn how to do, also, to understand how you will be able to self-correct as you’re practicing. To do so, find three to five books, courses, mentors or people that can help you do that initial deconstruction and understand which are the sub-skills that are going to help you to possibly master the skill as quickly as possible.
The trick is to prevent that research to become a form of procrastination in itself. The best approach is to pick 3,4 or 5 resources but don’t go through the, completely. Just skim them. Catch the ideas that come up over and over and over. Those concepts and those techniques are particularly important. Those are the things that you should know in order to self-correct as you practice, and those are the sub-skills that you should probably practice first.
4-Remove Barriers To Practice
Set up the environment that will actually help and motivate you to sit down and do the thing that you want to get better at it.
There are hundreds of distractions that keep you away from success. For instance, your cell phone, TV, friends, etc…
To overcome these distractions, you should turn off your cell phone, remove the distractions that can take your focus away from whatever this thing that you’re trying to practice is and make sure that the time that you’ve set aside to practice in a way that was going to make you better is as undivided and focused as possible. Likewise, do anything you can to make it easy for yourself to practice. For example, let’s say you want to learn how to use a guitar. Which is easier, to use the guitar that is just next to the chair that you usually sit on, or go to the next part of the house to pick the guitar that is in the case every time you want to practice. Therefore, by putting the guitar next to you, it will be easier for you to remind yourself that practice is a priority.
Anything you can do to remove the effort from desiring to practice to getting started is a benefit since it helps you do what you’re already decided to do.
5-Pre-Commit
This is a very important step. Pre-commit to at least 20 hours of focused deliberate practice before you begin. That pre-commitment is very important because it serves the purpose of deciding whether you’re going to invest at least 20 hours in this skill or give up. It allows you to check up on yourself and ask yourself this question: “How important is this really?” You should know that the first few hours of practice are frustrating for everybody at the beginning of everything. By pre-commitment, you’re guaranteeing to yourself that you’re going to make it through those hard times where nothing is working or when you come up against an unexpected obstacle and don’t know how to overcome it.
There’s no magic to it. It’s just focused strategic effort invested in something you care about and rewarding to yourself, and to your life.
Conclusion
The process of learning isn’t difficult. However, what you’re doing in this process is just removing all of the frustrations or barriers that get in your way of sitting down to the work.