7 basic skills for personal effectiveness

Personal effectiveness depends on a range of different factors, from the experiences you’ve had so far to the talents that you have developed and the knowledge that you have acquired. Being more effective can help you to get closer to your goals in life and may help you to identify ways to achieve those goals that are smarter and more efficient. You can develop personal effectiveness by nurturing 7 basic skills.  

1. Focus

  Being able to focus single-mindedly on your goals can be crucial to ensuring that you don’t get distracted from achieving them. This may require a combination of developing more self-discipline and also learning when you need to take a break and start afresh tomorrow.  

2. Resilience

  Knock backs and rejections are something that happen to everyone but if they throw you off course every time then you will find it hard to be effective. Resilience means developing a kinder mindset that allows you to keep moving forward even if you make a mistake or something doesn’t go your way. Combined with persistence, developing resilience will ensure that you’re able to overcome obstacles and keep getting closer to your goals, no matter what happens.  

3. Self-confidence

  Being confident in who you are starts with understanding what you’re capable of and what you want in life and recognising where your strengths lie. You can demonstrate self-confidence in the way that you walk, speak, stand and present yourself to others in terms of your appearance. It’s important that this comes from a genuine sense of being comfortable and happy with who you are and what you can do, so do the internal work first.  

4. Coping skills3

  Particularly if you’re ambitious, stress is going to be a part of every day life. Stress can be created by anything, from deadlines to the attitudes of those around you. Developing the skills to cope with stress may require a combination of improving communication skills, learning how to find alternative solutions and using tools such as meditation or yoga to help you wind down and relax when you need to. The more you’re able to switch off from stress the less it will slow you down.  

5. Thinking outside the box

  Problem solving is an essential skill to have for anyone who aspires to be more effective. It can help you to identify solutions to obstacles and challenging problems, as well as more efficient and effective routes to your ultimate goals.  

6. Being able to generate original ideas

  If you know how to find your way to an original idea you will be able to reach your goals more easily and also establish yourself as a valuable resource to partners or employers. There are lots of tools to use to develop this, such as mind maps that help you to visualise, analyse and develop ideas to help generate new ones.  

7. Nurturing creativity

  Creativity is something we all have but some are better at using than others. It’s this skill that will give you access to big ideas as well as shorter pathways to end goals – and innovative approaches that can make more impact. Nurturing creativity is an essential skill if you want to be more effective.   There are lots of different ways to improve personal effectiveness - these 7 key skills are a good place to start.   Find out more by booking onto our Personal Effectiveness