If you love emojis so much as we do, you’ll probably adore one typed emoticon called a shrug (here https://howsociable.com/blog/typing-the-shrug-emoji/ you can learn more about this emoji). It looks like this ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It’s timeless and evergreen. Here are a few ways to learn how to type it in one second on any device you have.
Mac:
- Copy “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“
- Go to System Preferences
- Click Keyboard
- Press Text
- In the Replace box, type “shrug”
- In the With box, insert “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“
iPhone:
- Copy “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“
- Go to Settings
- Press General
- Tap Keyboard
- Choose Text Replacement
- Select the “+” button
- In the Shortcut field, type “shrug”
- In the Phrase field, insert “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“
Android:
- Copy “¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “
- Go to Settings
- Press Language & Input
- Tap For All Languages
- Select the “+” button
- In the Shortcut field, type “shrug”
- In the Type a Word field, insert ”¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
It’s all about fun but what important and useful skills can you obtain during your leisure time? We’ve selected top skills that will do the most for you once you gain them.
You can find many different classifications of skills, and here for simplicity of perception, I decided to divide competencies into four main areas:
Top Soft Skills to Gain
Basic communication skills help you develop relationships with people, maintain a conversation and act effectively in critical situations when communicating with others. Everyone needs these skills.
Self-management skills: help to effectively control your condition, time, processes.
Effective thinking skills: managing processes in the head that help make life and work more systematic.
Management skills that people require at the stage when they become managers of any business processes and entrepreneurs.
Communication:
- listening skills
- persuasion and argumentation
- networking: building and maintaining business relationships
- negotiation
- producing a presentation
- basic sales skills
- self-presentation
- public performance
- teamwork
- focus on results
- business letter
- customer focus
Self-management:
- emotions management
- stress management
- self-development management
- planning and goal setting
- time management
- energy / enthusiasm / initiative / perseverance
- reflection
- feedback
Thinking:
- systemic thinking
- creative thinking
- structural thinking
- logical thinking
- search and analysis of information
- decision making
- tactical and strategic thinking (for leaders)
Management Skills:
- performance management
- planning
- motivation
- monitoring the implementation of tasks
- mentoring / coaching
- situational leadership
- project management
- change management
- delegation
Entrepreneurial skills:
When compiling this list, there was an idea to add some entrepreneur skills. Here we mean such skills as business planning, financial modeling, understanding of marketing processes, business promotion skills, and reputation management.
But since we are talking mainly about soft skills, we came to this decision that an entrepreneur possesses (ideally, of course) all of the above-mentioned skills. It may seem to you that in this case he or she needs only X-ray vision and flying skills, and perhaps you will be right. In this model, an entrepreneur is an ideal example of a superman filled with the most necessary skills.
Most businesses collapse not because the entrepreneur did not find an idea, but could not implement them due to a lack of personal competencies.
How to Gain and Develop Soft Skills?
- Make your learning and development a continuous process: gain new experiences, meet new professionals, take on more complex tasks, use new tools in life and, most importantly – do it all the time.
- Learn how to effectively plan and organize your development.
- Approach your own development comprehensively. Use different formats of development and training.
- Be curious about the surrounding information. Study the processes surrounding you, constantly learn about new trends, and be interested in achievements in your areas of interest.
- Develop skills gradually. Choose the areas that really help you succeed in your education.
- Take the habit of reading literature and information resources every day, constantly increasing the level of expertise.
- Develop your personal and professional skills while studying, constantly taking on new tasks and projects.
- Find people whom you want to learn from and who will inspire you (both personally and professionally).
- Learn how to effectively use the feedback you receive (the reaction of others to your actions or inactions) and determine its value.
- Attend all useful and interesting events like master classes, trainings, seminars. Determine their quality and level of speakers in advance.
Where to Start?
Here are a few variants of your first step to take to obtain new skills.
Self-study. It’s an independent study of information about successful behavior patterns. Here we can include reading literature, and independent analysis of various materials (articles, blogs, training manuals), listening to webinars.
Feedback Search. Getting feedback from teachers, managers, mentors, and experts from the open market about the success of their behavior in terms of a particular skill.
Learning from the experience of others and mentoring. Highlighting models of successful behavior in the work of a person with a high level of development of a specific competency and working with a mentor.
Special tasks (background trainings) are independent exercises that develop certain competencies or personal qualities in you or utilize bad habits.
Development in the process of work. It’s the search and development of more effective models of behavior in solving problems that are part of your professional activities.
What’s more?
We advise you to love what you are doing and learning. And we believe that variety and versatility are the keys to success in any area. Even if it’s learning how to type a shrug emoticon in only one second.
Where did this emoticon come from? It first became viral on the Internet in 2009, when Kanye West spoiled the moment when the Taylor Swift (singer) was awarded. He was shouting to the crowd that Beyoncé had shot the best video. Before leaving the scene, he made a gesture similar to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Just try to gain a new skill of typing it in a second today.
