The 4 PERSONAL COMPETENCES

Personal competencies refer to the set of abilities that the human being presents, already manifested or as potentialities to develop, whose specific characteristics will allow you to develop a concrete life project in your life trajectory.

In the following Psychology-Online article, we will talk about the personal competencies: what they are, list and examples. We discover the different types of skills that exist and a specific list of positive skills whose development will favor the ability to develop complete, integral, creative and healthy.

Index

1. What are personal skills
2. Types of personal competencies
3. List and examples of personal competencies

When we speak of personal competences, we refer, in a general way, to the set of capabilities, skills, attitudes and values ​​of a person. Aspects that he develops throughout his life and that will allow him to build a certain personal, family, social and professional life project.

Most of the information created in this regard refers, mainly, to the personal competences referred to in the field professional, as a way to specify the list of optimal skills and competencies to favorably develop the career professional.

In this article, however, we will focus on personal skills referring to all areas of human life, whose acquisition and development will allow you to walk a path of growth and personal development that will favor a generalized state of personal well-being and harmonious coexistence with the environment.

What are the personal competencies? As with all ranking attempts created, there are multiple possible combinations to create a list of specific personal skills considered of greater or lesser interest and wingspan. The classifications will be determined by the type of specific objective pursued.

In our case, the objective is to offer a list of personal skills that cover all areas of human life, becoming a growth and development factors of their human potential to create a life project.

In this sense, below, we present the main types of personal skills:

• Personal self-regulation skills: refer to all those involved in the management and control of the internal functioning itself.
• Social and interpersonal skills: includes all those skills that cover the field of personal relationships with the environment through which a generalized, optimal and positive social functioning is favored. For example, skills applied in the family, interpersonal, professional, etc.)
• Communication skills: all skills and capacities for efficient and effective expression are taken into account. If you want to improve these skills, in the following article we show you different techniques for effective communication.
• Transversal skills: it is a set of personal competencies that unite and interact continuously and permanently with the rest of the competencies. They favor the development of each of them and the overall development of the person.

Based on the types of personal competences exposed in the previous section, below We present a more detailed list with examples of the personal skills included within each typology.

1. Personal self-regulation skills

The personal competencies involved in personal self-management are the following:

• Awareness of oneself: be aware of one's own existence, of one's own limits and capacities.
• emotional self-management: being able to manage emotions properly and soberly so that the result of management is positive and constructive for others and for oneself.
• Appreciation and confidence in oneself: feel a positive affection and respect towards oneself, which will favor positive development in the rest of the areas.
• self control: ability to correctly manage personal behaviors so that, as happens with emotional self-management, they are constructive for us and our entire environment. In this article you will find more information about what is self-control: definition and techniques.

2. Social and interpersonal skills

The main personal and social skills, used in the field of personal relationships, are:

• Empathy: ability to put yourself in the place of others, which favors personal interactions very positively. If you have doubts about how to do it, in this article, we tell you how to practice empathy in my life.
• Assertiveness: ability to express oneself with sobriety and respect towards others
• emotional intelligence: set of skills that favor the positive development of social interaction that encompass and contain all the others. In this article you will see how to develop emotional intelligence.
• Conflict resolution: ability to positively and constructively resolve conflicts that may arise in social interactions.
• Cordiality and affectivity: ability to be affectionate and cordial as a fundamental element that encourages positive social relationships.

3. Communication skills

If we talk about examples of personal skills in the communication field, the most important are the following:

• Effective and consistent use of verbal and non-verbal language: that the verbal message emitted is confirmed by the non-verbal communication expressed.
• Correct level of reading and writing: constitutes an important communication skill that facilitates communication at the written level.
• Active listening: it is essential to promote effective and positive communications between people. If you are interested in knowing more, in this article, we will show you what the active listening: characteristics, exercises and examples.
• warm eye contact: to favor the establishment of a sincere and true communication.

4. Transversal skills

To describe what a person's personal and professional skills are, it is essential to mention the transversal skills, since they unite all the others. Let's see what they are:

• Teamwork: ability that guarantees conciliar coexistence between social groups.
• Results orientation: allows the achievement of proposed goals.
• Flexibility and adaptability: positive skills insofar as they allow constant adaptation to changes in the environment.
• Creativity: a fundamental factor for personal, social and community growth and development. If you wonder how to be more creative, in this article, we tell you how to develop creativity.
• Problem resolution: ability to seek and find positive solutions to the problems that life presents us.
• Organization, planning and management: very important skills when developing personal, family, work, social projects, etc.
• Initiative: ability to propose new challenges and projects.
• Decision making: ability to adequately manage a problematic situation and finally adopt a positive solution. In this article, we tell you what they are the 7 steps of the decision-making process.
• achievement motivation: force that pushes towards the achievement of the proposed objectives in the different spheres of life.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to What are personal competencies and examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Personal growth and self-help.

• Bisquerra Alzina, R., & Escoda, N. P. (2007). emotional competencies.
• Di Giusto Valle, C., Martin, M. E., Arnaiz, A., & Guerra, P. (2014). Personal and social skills in adolescents. Ibero-American Journal of Education.