WHO Life Skills, 1993

1. The ability to make decisions helps students assess their options and carefully consider the different consequences that can result from their choices.
2. The ability to solve problems helps students find constructive solutions to their problems. This skill can significantly reduce anxiety.
3. The capacity to think creatively is essential to decision making and problem solving. It enables students to explore all possible alternatives together with their consequences. It helps students look beyond their personal experience.
4. The capacity to think critically helps students objectively analyze available information along with their own experiences. It is this ability that helps students recognize the factors that influence their behavior, such as societal values, peer influence, and influence of the mass media.
5. The ability to communicate effectively helps students to express their feelings, needs, and ideas to others—verbally or otherwise.
6. The ability to establish and maintain interpersonal relations helps students to interact positively with people whom they encounter daily, especially family members.
7. Knowledge of self is the capacity of students to know who they are, what they want and do not want, and what does and does not please them. It also helps students recognize stressful situations.
8. The capacity to feel empathy is the ability to imagine what life is like for another person in a very different situation. It helps students to understand and accept diversity, and it improves interpersonal relations between diverse individuals.
9. The ability to handle emotions enables students to recognize their emotions and how they influence their behavior. It is especially important to learn how to handle difficult emotions such as violence and anger, which can negatively influence health.
10. The ability to handle tension and stress is a simple recognition by students of the things in life causing them stress.