YOUR LIFE STORIES

If you take time to muse and write about the following topics, you will eventually come to see the pattern that emerges for you and specific clues to the type of work that will be most satisfying. Your pattern will ideally indicate:

• your source of inspiration prior to taking on a task
• your natural (and transferable) skills
• your intrinsic personal qualities or traits
• your interest areas (learned subject areas)
• what gives "meaning" to what you do according to your standards

Look for the patterns. Your gifts have shown up in the past through the following ways:

• Courses you liked in school
• Activities you have enjoyed
• Accomplishments that made you feel proud
• Tasks you have done well or enjoyed --- whether or not you were paid
• Things people have said about you or the work you have done

Take a separate sheet of paper for every five-year period of your life up to and including your present age. On each sheet, make a list of your accomplishments for that period of time. There should be at least three to five accomplishments for every five-year period. Pick those accomplishments that you most enjoyed doing or the ones that were most satisfying to you in some way. The most useful way to state the accomplishment is by using the "I" statement and an action verb, i.e., "I learned how to play the guitar." If you have trouble remembering, just close your eyes and picture yourself actually going through the steps, and answer the question: "What was I doing?"

2. Next to each accomplishment you list, state why this was satisfying or meaningful to you. You do not need to write a paragraph; one statement will do.

3. After you have listed the accomplishments, choose the five to seven accomplishments that seem to be most meaningful to you. These may come from any five-year period. Your task now is to define your experiences in as much detail as possible. It is important that you mention every action that you took. Write it as though you were writing the story to a child, begin at the beginning and go though to the end.

Advice from http://lifeworktransitions.com:

4. Important points to remember:
a. Describe how the event started and who started it.
b. Describe any planning or preparation you did for it.
c. Familiarize yourself with Action Words (verbs). Discuss every detail of the project using action words.
d. Describe any interactions you had with people involved in the project.
e. Describe your personal outcome in terms of accomplishments, success, good feelings.

Continue:
Skill Inventory (with printer)
Transferable Skill Survey (without printer)