# 3 Skills

Skills are the things that you can do. These might include things like being able to ride a bike or cook a meal. One characteristic of skills is that it is often fairly easy to recognise when one is being used; for example, we can tell when we see an experienced cook at work, or taste the delicious food they have prepared, that they have well-developed skills in that area.

So, what skills do you have? Maybe the first things you think about are skills related to a job or something you have had to take lessons to learn, like driving. It’s worth thinking about, because one big advantage about defining something as a skill is that it means we can get better at it.

People often think of learning as a means of acquiring skills that are useful for paid work. Of course, aiming to have secure and satisfying work is very important, but there are many other aspects to life that do not involve paid work. These include leisure activities, volunteer roles and caring for children or people who are older or have a disability. The skills of a swimming coach who is an unpaid volunteer may be very similar to those of someone who is paid.

OpenLearn - Succeed with learning
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.