Why Life Skills Still Aren’t Important to Indian Society?

What is mindfulness?

Shouldn’t we know how to regulate stress?

Won't confidence matter in life!

Shouldn't we understand the psychology of motivation for things we do!

Isn't thinking an important concept to be taught?

Isn't most of our misery around our behaviour, beliefs and relationships around us!

Isn't Self-acceptance and self-balance an important aspect of building ourselves.

Shouldn't we learn money management right from when we are adolescents.

Why are these skills aren’t important to Indian Society?

While there is a hue and cry on Artificial Intelligence across industry, what makes human as a 'human' is his behaviour, human characteristics such as critical and creative thinking, emotions, relationships, decision making skills, presentability, communication to the context, social skills, contemplation and many more.

More than anything, most important dynamic factor for all above is - human mind can perceive, imagine and enhance skills substantially and consistently with conscious effort.

But, why do we still feel that mental health isn’t a great challenge and problem sounds to be a problem when things are not as expected. Problem is a problem only when it hits places of concern such as academics, reputation, & social norms.

Majority of adults including working professionals and parents seal themselves from learning post graduation or during work life unless it is corporate sponsorship or credentials oriented. We don’t consider learning as an investment for life. Learning needs dedication, and as we grow older, learning and devoting time becomes a last priority and regrettably we cascade the same mentality to the generations down.

From a personal experience standpoint, I have had parents approaching me expecting instantaneous results – arrogance, social media addiction, stressed out, can’t concentrate, gets irritated easily, friend circle is bad, habits are getting worse etc.  But most importantly alarm rings aloud only when all these are affecting their academics, grades and CGPA’s. Rest all gets snoozed.  

Well, this truth extends as insecurity in leadership, inferiority complex in speaking up, lacks self-confidence and consistency, or finds too challenging to take decisions when it comes to working professionals.

Why Indian society is still ignorant about life skills, mental health, behavioural building, personality and habits and many more.

Reason#1: We still don’t believe that personality building needs training

Personality just gets built as how we up bring each individual. We do understand there are parameters around it, but seldom we think that it can be trained and want to invest on personality building which is an outcome of our psychology - mind, thinking and feeling-fundamental brick for overall being and identity. Beauty of this is – it just can start anytime. It only demands your time, perseverance, thought and conscious effort in implementing changes you want to instil.

Reason #2: We think we know it all

There is nothing to be learnt on how to regulate emotions – we know how it works. We never learnt any while we grew up and aren’t we good enough to be leading lives.

Of course! We are leading lives, but each generation carries its own challenges and today’s world needs much more hand holding, attention and guiding than any other. These subjects are much more complex and abstract and lies beyond advices and experience sharing.  Emotional Intelligence is a science which encompasses self-introspection, deep learning, step wise mentoring and transforming into a habit and habit becomes a behaviour.

Reason #3: We aren’t able to relate to the results instantaneously

With growth of instant age, expectation on moving things at a fast pace is demanding which also has influenced the way we connect and convey results. Instantaneous gratification or immediate outcomes aren’t practical in self-building process. Growth involves its own ratio and time and it is neither a destination to have arrived nor a rank to have accomplished. It’s for life. And life is a long process, we can learn at any juncture, but we use it for life long. That’s life skills.

Reason #4: We still don’t believe careers are made complementing our personality

We have many speaking on various other professions to be chosen, but none want to explore to be first in the list. Earning is important, but earning is just a by-product too. Various professions earn more as an individual excels. And being excellence demands motivation, passion & purpose. But, many of us are doomed out of this truth. We need careers explored, experimented, well placed, steady promotions, security and titles to flaunt around with onsite opportunities.   Intrinsic motivation, how satisfied & happy an individual is, takes a last seat. Probably this is the same reason why we have less than 35% engaged employees in various domains inhibiting us from being ourselves, loving what we do, and ascending with what we can really thrive for.

Reason #5: We still don’t believe in emotional intelligence

EI is a buzzword since more than a decade. I see EI for leaders, first time managers, leads, senior executives and specialists etc.  And the EI workshops are for 3 days to one week and we expect the world to change. How I wish EI could be taught and effectively implemented in a week.

We still lack basic awareness on what emotional intelligence can do for us. IQ is valued more than EQ. But the hard truth is – EQ holds all your keys. You can regulate any of your quotient if your EQ is in place.

Reason #6: We are unaware that relationships build on social skills and we can acquire conflict resolution skills

Relationships are an important part of our lives. Social skills and conflict resolution are never taught to us in any sense. We imbibe it observing others or we develop it on priorities and pressures. But, social intelligence is a beautiful life skill to embed and to connect ourselves with outer world.

Be it perception we build, living in real or virtual world, developing relationships across borders and all places we go, conflict is a part of life and how do we deal with it is more dealt on suggestions, advices, influences, oppressions or extortions. It does impact our peace of mind. But, we don’t value this piece because we are unacquainted with ourselves which extend itself for being ignorant about others presence and identity too.

Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has a wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure.

That’s the state of our life skills awareness.