The last H of the 4 Hs of the Targeting Life Skill model is Health. It deals with skills that are related to Health. This section is subdivided into two parts, namely, living and Being. The ‘living’ skills are related to general lifestyle, behaviour, or how a person lives his life. For example, how an individual manages their stress. While the skills in ‘being’ are related to the general aptitude or nature of a person or living his/her life according to his/her aims, in order to live a successful and satisfying life. Self-discipline is an appropriate example.
Healthy Lifestyle Choices:
Lifestyle is defined as the typical way in which an individual leads their life. It is an encompassing phenomenon that starts from daily life routine to the career of that individual. It includes habits, mental/physiological status, family status, and financial status. While making healthy lifestyle choices includes decisions and attempts made in order to live a healthy and satisfying life. This is very important because it involves everything, even spending each moment. The basic life skills of healthy lifestyle choices enable an individual to understand themselves and make better decisions at every step of life. Examples of this choice would be pursuing a career of interest rather than parents or friends saying so or following a regular healthy daily life routine, or eating healthy food.
Moreover, leaving a bad habit like getting up late early in the morning would also be a healthy lifestyle choice. This skill can be developed through persistent practice and understanding oneself. If an individual starts with small healthy choices, then with time, they would always make healthy choices.
Stress Management:
Stress is considered to be an emotional/mental force that affects the well-being of individuals. Stress management means every attempted technique in order to reduce daily life pressures. Its goal is to manage the stress and not let it be a hindrance to a healthy, happy, and satisfying life. Stress management is important because of the following reasons.
1) Stress affects human beings’ health as it is one of the major causes of heart attack and quick cancer. Moreover, it also makes a person unhealthy.
2) It also has psychological/mental effects. It quickly results in depression, anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks. And there are many more effects of stress. They can develop stress management skills through many techniques like meditation, exercise, etc., but the main yet simplest solution is a simple healthy lifestyle. A simple healthy lifestyle would include a proper routine, healthy food, regular exercise, proper rest, and the appropriate amount of time for work. This way, an individual can manage their stress along with other techniques. People with this skill are very effective and efficient in what they do and live a very healthy and satisfying life.
Disease Prevention:
Everybody has heard that ‘prevention is better than cure.’ Disease Prevention as a skill is a twofold process; to prevent the new disease from occurring and reduce the threats and natural treatment of already existing diseases in an individual. With every passing moment, our environment is getting unhealthier, but still, we are neglecting our health. In such times, it is very crucial to value our health as everything else becomes meaningless without health. It includes the utilization of vaccination, preventive treatment, identification of dangerous factors, and maintaining a healthy routine. Regular exercise and eating healthy food are two very good means of disease prevention.
Personal Safety:
Today the world has changed as well as got busier. It has resulted in many challenges for an individual’s life, starting from health to personal safety. So, it is crucial that we all know about different ways of personal safety. Personal safety is saving oneself from unfavorable/dangerous situations. This is not specific to protecting fatal issues; rather, it encompasses everything related to life and its protection, like diseases. Personal safety can be ensured by learning personal safety measures. It is very crucial, especially for teachers and parents, to teach these personal safety measures to their children.
Self Esteem:
Self Esteem is defined as the self-worth of an individual and how he/she feels about his/her strengths, weakness, and overall life. A person with high self-esteem takes high regard for themselves, values their strengths, is confident, and tries to overcome their weaknesses. While a person with low esteem never values themselves. They are not confident people. They also underestimate their strengths and feel that they can’t do anything, all is useless, and in effect, they waste their whole life. This easily explains the importance of self-esteem. Self-esteem develops in an individual mainly from his/her childhood experiences; if a child been listened to well, given importance, had successes in friendships, sports, and studies, he/she would be confident and would possess high self–esteem otherwise, the child would have very low self-esteem. Self-esteem can be developed in an individual through challenging his/her negative thoughts about him/herself, listening to him, encouraging him, valuing him, and above all, showing affection to him. At the same time, individuals can also increase their own self-esteem by valuing themselves, adopting a healthy routine, and socializing with people who value and encourage them.
Self Responsibility:
Self Responsibility is defined as being responsible or accountable for anything within one’s power, control, or management. Steven Covey defined it in the following beautiful words, “Look at the word responsibility –“response-ability”– the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.” This is an important skill that, once developed, gives freedom to an individual who, without any extra or unnecessary forces, can lead his/her life. It also enables individuals to take control of their life rather than being dependent on others. A very simple example would be cleaning one’s room rather than waiting for a maid or a servant to do it. In the same way, throwing a used rapper in a dustbin is also a sign of self-responsibility.
Character:
The overall attitude of an individual is known as character. While building a positive character is known as character building. Character plays an important role in our lives as it is part of everything. It is part of our daily routines, our work ethic, and our daily behavior with friends, family members, and relatives. A positive character beautifies the lifestyle of individuals and increases their value in society. A good character would include fairness in attitude, respect for others, self-responsibility, trustworthiness, caring, and responsible citizenship.
Managing Feelings:
Human beings are complex species that act differently in different situations and conditions. They exhibit different emotions like happiness and anger in different circumstances. So, for a satisfying and fulfilling life, one has to manage his/her feelings and exhibit emotions and feelings appropriate to situations. No one can be happy all the time neither can anyone be sad or angry 24/7. It has been proved that Children’s abilities for recognizing, understanding, and managing their emotions are influenced by the ways the adults who care for them acknowledge and respond to their feelings. So, it becomes crucial for parents and teachers to understand and value their children/pupils with love and care. In a class, group work will give the best practice of managing feelings as it will help students express few feelings while suppressing unnecessary emotions.
This is to be emphasized that these skills are not only to be developed for the textbooks; rather, texts books must develop these skills for their application in our daily lives so that we can live a ‘successful and satisfying life.’
Lastly, the specially developed curriculum of EAST for class three has incorporated such activities, which build all these skills in the students. For more information on our courses, please contact.