What are the skills needed for an innovative world?

Innovation is the ability to create something new, moving away from traditional thought patterns. With the help of innovation, one can generate new ideas, act differently, and come up with novel solutions to problems. This requires skills that people need to learn, whether at school or on their own.

The first skills I would like to highlight are adaptability, the will, and the curiosity to learn new things. If you don't have those, you won't be interested in exploring new skills, and you will find it hard to evolve with the never-ending evolving world around you.

Second, in a world that is turning into a digital one, especially after COVID, e-skills are the capabilities required for researching, developing, designing, planning, and servicing information and communication technology systems.

The third set of skills is mainly the one activists need. If you are advocating for a cause, you need to listen to others, ask questions, express yourself, and write so other people can understand. You also need skills in community engagement, social issues, environmental issues, community outreach, and social justice.

Additionally, whoever you are and whatever you do, you need soft skills, which are personal attributes, personality traits, and communication abilities needed for success. Soft skills include communication, compromise, creative thinking, leadership, listening, ethics, teamwork, positivity (a healthy kind), time management, motivation, problem-solving, critical thinking, conflict resolution, and negotiation.

Last but not least, well-being. Well-being is a skill. Your well-being is significant since it affects your ideas, habits, and emotions and is a vital component of your life. Well-being skills are essential for connecting with others. They help you manage your emotions, build healthy relationships, and feel empathy. Make friends and keep friendships. They help you gain confidence, resolve conflicts, manage stress and anxiety, learn social norms, make appropriate decisions, resist negative social pressure, learn your strengths and weaknesses, and gain awareness of what others are feeling. Being emotionally healthy can increase productivity and effectiveness in tasks such as education. It is crucial to the health of your relationships since it helps you adjust to changes in your life and deal with hardship. To look after your mental health, you need to remember to take breaks, make time for yourself, have a good night’s sleep, open up to others, and remind yourself that all your feelings are okay.

If I were to prioritize, I would put well-being above everything else. I might be biased, but how can I not be? Because no amount of knowledge and skills I gained in my life made me successful until I learned about well-being.

I said it at the beginning, and I will repeat it: the skills I mentioned and many others can be taught at schools and universities, but when not, it is your responsibility as a learner to go find your way and gain them, and the ways are out there; they might be in your comfort zone or outside of it, but they are out there.