Learned versus inborn traits. Because soft skills are talked about as traits of a person’s personality, it may seem as though you have to be born with them. While some soft skills come more easily to one person than they might to another, soft skills are not inborn. Like all skills, they can be learned. Because we all have our own preferences and ways of moving through the world, some soft skills may be more difficult to learn than others. But if we think back, there are also aspects of our hard skill set that were difficult at first, though they now seem to come quite naturally to us. We develop soft skills in the same way we develop hard skills; we practice. Spending time with people who seem to be able to effortlessly demonstrate a soft skill that you find challenging is one way to build your soft skill set. Another way is to seek opportunities to practice in which the risk of failure is low until you feel confident in your ability. You don’t have to be born a networker or an empathetic person. You can learn and build these skills throughout your career.
