What Are Personal Competencies And Examples?

When we speak of personal competencies, we refer, in a general way, to the set of abilities, skills, attitudes, and values ​​of a person. Aspects that he develops throughout his life 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 personal skills related to the professional field, as a way of specifying the list of optimal skills and competencies to favorably develop the professional career.

In this article, however, we will focus on personal skills referring to all areas of the life of the human being, whose acquisition and development will allow him to walk a path of optimal personal growth and 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 the attempts at classification created, there are multiple possible combinations to create a list of specific personal skills considered to be of greater or lesser interest and scope. 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, constituting factors for the growth and development 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 one’s own internal functioning.
• Social and interpersonal skills: all those skills that cover the field of personal relationships with the environment through which a generalized, optimal, and positive social functioning is favored are included. For example, skills applied in the family, interpersonal, professional, etc.)
• Communicative skills: all the skills and abilities of efficient and effective expression are taken into account. 
• Transversal competencies: 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 skills set out 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: being 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 oneself.
• Appreciation and confidence in oneself: feeling 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.

2. Social and interpersonal skills

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

• Empathy: the ability to put yourself in the place of others, which favors personal interactions very positively. 
• Assertiveness: The ability to express oneself with sobriety and respect toward others
• Emotional intelligence: the set of skills that favor the positive development of social interaction that encompass and contain all the others. 
• Conflict resolution: ability to positively and constructively resolve conflicts that may arise in social interactions.
• Cordiality and affection: the ability to be affectionate and cordial is 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 issued is confirmed by the non-verbal communication expressed.
• The correct level of reading and writing: constitutes an important communicative skill that facilitates communication at a written level.
• Active listening: it is essential to promote effective and positive communication between people. 
• Warm visual contact: to favor the establishment of 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: the ability that guarantees conciliar coexistence between social groups.
• Orientation to results: allows the achievement of proposed goals.
• Flexibility and adaptability: positive skills insofar as they allow constant adaptation to changes in the environment.
• Creativity: fundamental factor for personal, social, and community growth and development. If you wonder how to be more creative.
• Problem-solving: 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: The ability to propose new challenges and projects.
• Decision-making: ability to properly manage a problematic situation and finally adopt a positive solution.
• Motivation towards achievement: the force that pushes towards the achievement of the proposed objectives in the different spheres of life.

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