Unit 2

Self-management
Skills

Introduction
Self-management, also referred to as ‘self-control,’
is the ability to control one’s emotions, thoughts and
behaviour effectively in different situations. This also
includes motivating oneself, and setting goals. People
with strong self-management skills are better in doing
certain things better than others.
Therefore, employers too strongly prefer
people with good self-management skills.

Basics of Self-management
To perform well at work and life in
general, you must be able to manage
and improve yourself in various skills
including discipline and timeliness,
goal-setting, problem solving, teamwork,
professionalism, etc. Once you develop
your personality and abilities in these
areas,you will be able to succeed in
personal as well as professional life.
Figure 2.1 Self-management

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 Following are some of the skills you must master to
succeed in life:
• Self-awareness: Ask for honest feedback. Gather
insights on your personality and work-specific
proficiencies. Think about your daily interactions
and how you handled situations well or could
have handled them differently.
• Responsibility: Taking responsibility for your
tasks is very important. Taking ownership is
the step towards self-development. For example,
if you have been assigned a task by a teacher;
ensure you take complete ownership. Even if you
are unable to complete the task on time, you must
report it and then correct it.
• Time Management: Prioritise the things you
have to do. Remove waste and redundancy from
work. Make a time table and follow it diligently.
• Adaptability: Stay current with best practices
and read up on new information always. Prepare
yourself for new changes, so that you can
transition seamlessly.

Session 1: Stress Management

Stress and Stress Management
Have you ever felt worried that you will not pass in an
exam? Do you feel pressurised when people around you
bring up certain topics for discussion (issues that you
are not comfortable with)? Do you fear that
you will be unsuccessful in life? If yes, then
you are going through stress. Stress motivates
you to achieve more but when you are under
stress for a prolonged period of time, it can
cause health problems and mental troubles
as well.

What is Stress?
Stress can be defined as our emotional,
mental, physical and social reaction to any
perceived demands or threats. These demands
or threats are called stressors. Stressors are
Figure 2.2 Stress the reason for stress.

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 For example, Notes
• you are too close to the exams but feel unprepared.
• you are experiencing a loss of someone close in
the family.
• you are worried about what people would think
of you if you don’t dress well or cannot speak
confidently.
• you are stressed due to lack of sleep.

Stress Management
Stress is a part of everyday life. There are many
instances when stress can be helpful. A fire alarm
is intended to cause stress that alerts you to avoid
danger. The stress created by a deadline to finish a
paper can motivate you to finish the assignment on
time. But when experienced in excess or for a long
period of time, stress has the opposite effect. It can
harm our emotional and physical health, and limit our
ability to function well at home, in school and within
our relationships.
Managing stress is about making a plan to be able to
cope effectively with daily pressures. The ultimate goal
is to strike a balance between life, work, relationships,
relaxation and fun. By doing this, you are able to deal
with daily stress triggers and meet these challenges
head on.
Always keep in mind the ABC of stress management
A: Adversity or the stressful event
B: Beliefs or the way you respond to the event
C: Consequences or actions and outcomes of the event

Stress management can help you to

• have a joyful life.
• focus and complete tasks on time.
• be a happy person as you are stress free.
• be more energetic and spend quality time with your
friends and family.

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 Three Steps to Manage Stress
Look out for signs of stress, such as
Step 1: Be aware
headache, sleeplessness, sadness, excessive
that you are worrying, nervousness, etc. Only when we
stressed are aware, we can manage stress.

Step 2: Identify Find out the reason for your stress. Is it

what is causing because of exams, family pressures, money
you stress issues, not eating good food, etc.?

Use time management tools to manage your

Step 3: time well. Focus on the important tasks and
Apply stress get them done. Talk to someone close about
management the issue. Take time to relax by exercising,
methods watching movie or any other activity which
can help feel relaxed.

Figure 2.3 Managing stress

Management Techniques
Here are a few simple stress management techniques.
• Time management: Proper time management
is one of the most effective stress-relieving
techniques.
• Physical exercise and fresh air: A healthy lifestyle
is essential for students. Stress is generally lower
in people who maintain a healthy routine. Doing
yoga, meditation and deep breathing exercises
help in proper blood circulation and relaxes the
body. Even taking a walk or playing in the park
will help you get a lot of fresh oxygen, which will
help you become more active.
• Healthy diet: Having a healthy diet will also help
you reduce stress. Eating a balanced diet, such
as Dal, Roti, vegetables and fruits will give you
the strength to do your daily work efficiently.
• Positivity: Focussing on negative aspects of life
will add more stress. Instead, learn to look at
the good things and stay positive. For example,
instead of feeling upset over a scoring less in a
test, try to maintain a positive attitude and look
at ways to improve the next time.

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 • Organising academic life; no delaying: By Notes
keeping class notes organised, finishing in
assignments on time, and keeping track of all
deadlines, stress can be reduced to a great extent.
• Sleep: We should get a good night’s sleep for at
least 7 hours so that your brain and body gets
recharged to function better the next day.
• Holidays with family and friends: Going to a
relative’s place, such as your grandparents’ house
or a new place during your summer vacations can
help you break from the normal routine and come
back afresh.

Ability to Work Independently

If you can become a calm and relaxed person, you will
be have the ability to work independently, which means.
1. becoming self-aware, self-monitoring and
self-correcting.
2. knowing what you need to do.
3. taking the initiative rather than being told what
to do.
4. recognising your mistakes and not blaming others.
5. having the ability and the will to learn continuously.

Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and
manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions
of others. It is generally said to include at least
three skills:
• Emotional awareness : the ability to identify and
name one’s own emotions.
• Harnessing emotions : the ability to harness
and apply emotions to tasks like thinking and
problem solving.
• Managing emotions : the ability to regulate one’s
own emotions when necessary and help others to
do the same.
Knowing how to manage one’s emotions is critical
for all of us. You can manage stress, keep your brain

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 Notes active and open minded, and easily overcome failures
if you can keep your emotions in check. Emotional
intelligence can also help you have better relations with
your friends and family.
Let us take an example. Ravi and his best friend,
Shiv, have been practising for the annual school dance
competition. They are both performing solo. On the
day of the competition, Shiv won. Ravi felt extremely
sad and dejected. He shouted at Shiv unnecessarily,
cried and also did not talk to his parents for 3–4 hours.
On the contrary, if Ravi would have been emotionally
intelligent, he would have accepted defeat gracefully,
and done better in the next competition.
Being emotionally intelligent enhances your chances
of success and a balanced life.
Some steps to manage emotional intelligence are as
given below.
• Understand your emotions: Observe your
behaviour and note the things you need to work
on. You can then work on the things you need
to improve.
• Rationalise: Do not take decisions abruptly; be
rational in your thinking.
• Practise: Do meditation and yoga to keep
yourself calm.

Practical Excercise
The teacher will facilitate these activities by showing you the
e-learning module for this lesson via [Link]
Employability_Skills.html. The module will include videos and
e-content for the above topics as well as detailed instructions for
some activities below.
• After watching the video ‘Have you faced this situation?’ in
the e-learning lesson, discuss what you have learnt from
the video. Do you think Priya was worried that she will
not meet her goal? What would you do differently in her
situation?
• After watching the video ‘Managing Stress at Work’ in the
e-learning lesson, discuss the various stress management
techniques that were used in the video by Gaurav to
improve his situation.

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 Activity 1 Notes
Role Play on Avoiding Stressful Situation
Material required
Pen, notepad or sheets of paper
Procedure
• Form groups of three.
• Choose any one situation from below.
• Prepare a skit (role play) and perform within your groups.
• Two members will perform the skit and one member will
observe and share feedback.
Situation 1
You have missed your school bus and you are getting late. What
will you do? Will you panic or call for help or try to find a way?
Situation 2
You have to perform your best in the next cricket or badminton
match so you get a chance to play for your school at the national
level cricket or badminton tournament. You have been anxious
(worried or stressed). Will you lose your sleep worrying about it
or will you go to the field and practice?

Activity 2
Self-reflection
Material required
Pen or pencil
Procedure
• Complete the below table by listing the situation(s) that
can cause stress and what will you do to avoid stress in
such situations.
• Use the stress management techniques shared in the
lesson to complete the exercise.
Stress Management
Stress Causing Situation(s)
Techniques

Activity 3
Benefits of taking a holiday
Material required
Pen or pencil
Procedure
• Write an essay to describe the place and your experience
during a holiday trip or summer camp.
• Highlight how the trip helped you de-stress.

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 Check Your Progress
A. Subjective questions

1. Describe stress and stress management in your

own words.
2. List your favorite stress management technique and
elaborate why you find it the most effective.

What Have You Learnt?

After completing this session, you will be able to
• define stress management.
• identify the steps for managing stress.
• create a list of personal stressful situation and ways to
handle them.

Session 2: Self-awareness — Strength and

Weakness Analysis
Being self-aware means that you can identify your
strengths and weaknesses. Self-awareness, therefore,
will help you in converting your weakness into strength
and strength into an exceptional talent. Analysing your
strengths and weaknesses helps you to attain success
in life. However, strength and weakness analysis begins
with knowing yourself first.

Knowing Yourself
Understanding who you are, what
Beliefs you like or dislike, what are your
beliefs, what are your opinions,
what is your background, what
Background
you do well and what you do not
do well is important because only
Who am I? Opinions then can you actually measure
your strengths and weaknesses
(see Figure 2.4).
Likes/dislikes
Strength and Weakness
Analysis
Values
Understanding who you are
Figure 2.4 Knowing Yourself means looking outside your usual

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 characteristics, such as your name, qualification and
interpersonal relationships. In other words, being self-
aware actually means knowing your inner strengths,
hidden talents, skills and even weaknesses. Let us look
at how we define strengths and weaknesses.

Figure 2.5 Strength and Weakness

Examples of strengths
• I am good at creative writing.
• I am confident of speaking in front of an audience.
• I play guitar very well.

Examples of weaknesses
• I find it difficult to solve mathematics problems.
• I would like to speak English fluently.
• I do not like to lose in any game or sports.

By understandig Based on that

By improving, we will
ourselves we can information, we can
• become confident in
• know what we • plan the next steps
what we do.
can/cannot do. to improve ourselves.

Techniques for Identifying your Strengths

and Weaknesses
Finding Strengths (or abilities)
• Think of anything that you are always
successful at.

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 • Think about what others like in you.
• Take out time and think about what you do well.

Finding Weaknesses
• Point out the areas where you struggle and the
things you find difficult to do.
• Look at the feedback others usually give you.
• Be open to feedback and accept your weaknesses
without feeling low about it. Take it as an area
of improvement.
You can find your strengths and weaknesses once
you find answers to the questions given here.
• How am I different from others?
• What do I do better than others?
• What do other people admire in me?
• What makes me stand out?
• Where do I worry and struggles?
• Where, how and why do others perform better
than me?
• What advice for improvement do I often receive
from others?

Difference between Interests and Abilities

(Strengths)

Table 2.1: Difference between Interests and Abilities

[Link] Interests Abilities
1. Things that you like to do in your An acquired or natural capacity
free time that make you happy.
2. Things you are curious about or Enable you to perform a
would do even if no one asked you particular job or task with
to do it. considerable proficiency.
3. Things you want to learn or would
like to do in the future.

When your interests do not match your abilities, you

can either improve your abilities or follow some other
path. For example, you may like music, but you may
not be good at singing. In that case, do not try to become
a singer!

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 Practical Exercise
The teacher will facilitate these activities by showing you the
e-Learning lesson at[Link]
html. This will include videos and e-content for the above topics
as well as detailed instructions for some activities below.
Initial Thinking Activity
After watching the initial video ‘Finding the right job’ in the
e-Learning lesson, write down the points that you will use from
the video to understand your own strengths and weaknesses.

Activity 1
Pair Activity: Aim in Life
Material required
Pen, notepad or sheets of paper
Procedure
• Form pairs of students.
• Each student will make a list of things that they can do
well based on the given format.
• Share your notes with your partner.
• One volunteer from the pair comes and reads, in front of
the class.
Here is the format for you to fill in
I am
I can (abilities)
I will (plan)
My aim is

Activity 2
Individual Activity: Interests and Abilities Worksheet
Material required
Student textbooks, pen
Procedure
• Each student has to complete the given worksheet,
containing a list of statements and questions.
• Each student has to be real and honest when filling
the worksheet as it is for their own understanding
of themselves.
• If they are not real and honest, they will get incorrect
results about their own interests and abilities.
Worksheet - My Interests and Abilities

I am happiest when
My idea of a perfect day

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 Notes
Five things I really
enjoy doing
Three things I like to do
every day
I am most passionate about
Ideas or issues I care deeply
about
If I had the talent or ability,
I would
If I could choose any job, it
would be
The three activities that
I love to do?
How often do I do them?
What stops me from doing
the activities more often?
What specific changes do
I need to make in order to
engage in these activities
more frequently?

Check Your Progress

1. Fill in the table given below to prepare an action
plan to build upon your strengths and overcome
your weaknesses.
Strengths Weakness Action plan to build upon
your strengths and
overcome your weaknesses

What Have You Learnt?

After completing this session, you will be able to
• identify your own strengths and weaknesses.
• explain how to build on your strengths and overcome your
weaknesses.
• identify your interests.

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 Session 3: Self-motivation
Have you heard of the story of the hare and tortoise?
Who won that race in spite of being slow? The tortoise.
They key to win was that the tortoise never thought less
of itself and stayed motivated even though it was lagging
behind. But slowly and gradually it crossed all hurdles
and continued the race without being demotivated.
Self-motivation is simply the force within you that
drives you to do things. Self-motivation is what pushes
us to achieve our goals, feel happy and improve our
quality of life. In other words, it is our ability to do
the things that need to be done without someone or
something influencing us.
Here are some examples of self-motivation.

Neha spends all her Rekha gets up at 5

after-school hours am and goes for her
to practice more dance classes. Then
and more sample she comes home and
question papers. She finishes her hoemwork
wants to do well in before going to school.
her exams so that she She does this all by
can get admission in herself. No one tells
her dream college in her to do it.
the city.

Figure 2.7 Self-motivation

Different people are motivated by different things

and at different times in their lives.

Types of Motivation
Internal Motivation: LOVE
We do things because they make us happy, healthy
and feel good. For example, when you perform on
your annual day function and you learn something
new, such as dancing, singing, etc., you feel good.

External Motivation: REWARD

We do things because they give us respect, recognition
and appreciation. For example, Suresh participated
in a 100m race and won a prize. This motivated him
to go for practice every morning.

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 Qualities of Self-motivated People
There are some typical behaviours seen in self-motivated
people which are as given below.

Know what they want Are focussed Know what is Are dedicated to fulfill
from life important their dreams
Figure 2.8: Qualities of self-motivated people

Mr E Shreedharan, Former Managing Director, Delhi

Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, was a self-motivated and
energetic person. With his dedication and respect for
others, he motivated his team to work hard and achieve
results.
Mahashay Dharmapal Gulati, the founder of
Mahashian Di Hatti (MDH) Private Limited started with a
small shop in Karol Bagh but with his focus, dedication
and clear ideas, MDH (Spice Company) became one of
the most popular brands in India besides having a good
reputation all over the world.

Building Self-motivation
There are four steps for building self-motivation, which
are as given below.

Stay loyal to
Develop a plan your goals
to achieve
your goals
Set and focus
on your goals Work towards
Find out your Plan and set timelines
achieving your goal,
strengths even when you are
to achieve your goals, facing difficult time.
Plan a list of activities For example, even
Define the goals that you will do to
you want to though I did not clear
achieve each goal. For the Hotel Management
Identify your likes achieve and example, after schooling,
focus all your entrance exam, I will
and dislikes. you may be required to find out other ways to
Understand what energy to achieve appear for a competitive
your goal. For become a chef.
makes you happy. examination to join Hotel
For example, I example, I want Management Institute.
love cooking. to be a chef.

Figure 2.9: Building self-motivation

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