Self-management skills enable us to manage our behaviours, emotions, and thoughts so that we can be productive, manage and achieve our goals. Self-management skills require us to take ownership, take initiative and help us to maintain focus. They help us understand our personal responsibilities and take accountability for our actions. They also mean we can deal with different situations appropriately, particularly when they are stressful.
To learn more about your skills in this category, you can evaluate your skills through the ‘Skills Discovery’ tool, via your CRSID.
Skills included in this area
- Ability to reflect
- Ability to work remotely
- Accountability
- Achievement orientation
- Adaptability
- Autonomy
- Career management
- Compassion
- Coping with uncertainty
- Courage and risk taking
- Emotional intelligence
- Financial literacy
- Goal monitoring, adjusting and evaluating
- Grit and persistence
- Humility
- Independence
- Learning to learn
- Motivation to learn
- Positive thinking
- Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility
- Seeking relevant information
- Self-control & regulation
- Self-awareness
- Self-confidence
- Self-development
- Self-motivation
- Time management and prioritization
- Understanding biases
- Understanding own emotions and triggers
- Understanding own strengths
Ideas to develop skills in this area
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Access career and personal skills development programmes through your college, as available (examples: Homerton Changemakers, Girton Skills Programme, Hughes Hall ‘Pathways Programme’, Murray Edwards ‘Gateway’ programme; Pembroke ‘LEAP’ programme).
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Manage your career with support from the Cambridge Careers Service and attend talks and workshops from employers, careers fairs, skills workshops, career planning sessions, access job listings, connect with Alumni, take part in career festivals and access psychometric tests and self-reflection tool-kits.
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Manage your independent study timetable.
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Completing individual study or extra-curricular projects on time – evidencing that you can manage workloads and contrasting priorities.
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Taking part in community and volunteering projects – evidencing (for example) time management, compassion, independence.
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Taking part in physical activity & sport (e.g. to grow grit and resilience, time management, adaptability, and motivation) – perhaps setting personal fitness goals and reaching them.
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Taking part in professional development and skills workshops on personal branding and career management, such as those provided by the Careers Service or career programmes within your college, as available.
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Access CamGuides from the university library, with attention to the ‘self-directed learning’ and/or ‘time management’ sections, as well as ‘Dealing with feedback’ (various categories available for undergraduates, masters, and PhD candidates).
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Access the self-reflection toolkit from the university library
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Access short courses (many self-directed) on productivity via the UIS training catalogue – for example, the curated recommendations on the JISC Digital Productivity list.
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Depending on your needs, you may find it helpful to browse the support available through Student Support services, including workshops on self-management skills such as grounding techniques, perfectionism, spending your time well and more.
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Engaging with activities that expand your knowledge and are not directly related to your study or that extend your study, on your own accord (for example, public lectures, festivals around Cambridge (literature, science, music)). Attend open lectures, exhibitions and talks on a range of topics via the university ‘What’s On’ pages
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Asking for support, feedback and adjusting your goals when things don’t go to plan.
Other skills categories to explore
Digital, technology use and technical skills
Interpersonal, communication and social skills
Writing, analytical and reporting skills
Learning, thinking and reasoning
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Skill |
Definition |
|
Ability to reflect |
The ability to engage in introspection, evaluate personal strengths and weaknesses, and seek feedback from others. |
|
Ability to work remotely |
The ability to navigate hybrid or fully remote work setups (e.g., the use of email and virtual meetings and work without in-person guidance). |
|
Accountability |
The ability to take ownership of one's behaviours and responsibilities and being able to provide reasonable explanations for one's decisions and actions. |
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Achievement orientation |
The ability to concentrate on achieving one's goals and developing or modifying plans to achieve them. |
|
Adaptability |
The ability to change one's attitudes or behaviours to accommodate new changes (e.g., new technologies, work patterns, new skills). |
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Autonomy |
The ability to make your own decisions and to govern your actions and decisions. |
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Career management |
The ability to create a long-term vision of future careers, seek opportunities for growth and skill development, reflect on one's progress, and ensure one's skills remain relevant and diverse. |
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Compassion |
The ability to understand other people's hardships and express sympathy and the desire to help them. |
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Coping with uncertainty |
The ability to navigate and perform adeptly in situations with significant levels of unpredictability or potentially unexpected changes. |
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Courage and risk taking |
The ability to embrace uncertainty and potential setbacks in the hope of desired results or great achievements. |
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Emotional intelligence |
The ability to have awareness over and to control one's emotions and their expression in order to handle interpersonal relationships thoughtfully and empathetically. |
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Financial literacy |
The ability to understand and make use of basic principles of business and finance (e.g. budgeting, investing, etc). |
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Goal monitoring, adjusting and evaluating |
The ability to regularly track progress towards a goal, evaluate the effectiveness of activities, and adjust future steps and strategies to ensure alignment with desired objectives. |
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Grit and persistence |
The ability to pursue a long-term task, mission, or journey in spite of obstacles and discouragements. |
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Independence |
The ability to rely only on oneself or one's own abilities, judgment (e.g.,to complete a task) |
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Learning to learn |
The capacity to take personal responsibility for one's own learning; the ability to pursue and persist in learning, to organise one's own learning |
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Motivation to learn |
The desire to learn the content of the training and development activities |
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Positive thinking |
The ability to focus on thoughts of success, as a strategy for achievement |
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Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility |
The ability to quickly recover from setbacks or challenging situations and easily adjust to changing circumstances or requirements. |
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Seeking relevant information |
The ability to identify missing and relevant information and the most effective resource or medium where to find it. |
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Self control & regulation |
The ability to stay rational and in control of one's emotions, reactions, and behavioural patterns, even in emotionally charged situations. |
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Self-awareness |
The ability to perceive and understand one's own character, desires, motives, and feelings. |
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Self-confidence |
The ability to trust one's abilities, judgements, and personal qualities. |
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Self-development |
The ability to pursue personal growth and improvement through learning, self-reflection, and intentional development efforts. |
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Self-motivation |
The ability to do something enthusiastically without pressure or encouragement from others. |
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Time management and prioritization |
The ability to manage one's time, organise tasks according to their urgency, and choose the most efficient method of executing them. |
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Understanding biases |
The ability to recognise when pre-existing patterns affect one's thinking process or judgement, often in an unconscious or unfair way. |
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Understanding own emotions and triggers |
The ability to understand when and how emotions affect personal decisions and the factors that trigger specific emotional responses. |
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Understanding own strengths |
The ability to identify personal values, skills, experience, and knowledge to assess areas of excellence. |