Youth Accomplishment: Identify, Describe, and Rank

This activity will help you identify and evaluate important youth accomplishments. This is valuable by itself, but it also helps identify your top skills — those which you really enjoy using and excel with.

Strong life skills will help you apply your past accomplishments, and will help you achieve many more.

You want to insure that your future career is less like work and more like play. To achieve this goal you need to identify your favorite skills — those skills that you possess, that you really enjoy using. One way to determine what your favorite skills are is to look at your past accomplishments. These include awards, winning a competitive event, getting a good grade on a school assignment, or doing a good job on a major task that you were given.

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Additionally, you want to identify your most energizing experiences, in addition to youth accomplishment. Perhaps you rode your bike across the country, showed your artwork at an art show, or put on a concert with the band that you play in. It’s very likely that you utilized one or more of your favorite skills in these accomplishments, or while participating in that energizing experience. You will therefore analyze these activities to determine your favorite skills.

As you recall, your accomplishments or most satisfying experiences will provide you a sense of “I can do these things.” Use this energy to give you confidence that in your future you can and will make a difference.

 

Explore our Life Purpose and Future Mission Program

 

STEP ONE: List Your Past Accomplishments

By recalling your accomplishments and most memorable experiences, it will be easier to identify your favorite Skills. These are the Skills you’ll want to use in your future work. To develop your list of accomplishments and energizing experiences, you will review your background. Consider experiences in your jobs, education, extracurricular activities, leisure/hobbies, and volunteer work. Capture those moments when you, not necessarily anyone else, recognized you had done something that felt good. List your most satisfying experiences, regardless of where it happened (work, play or education).

Starting with the present year and working backwards, list any satisfying experiences, achievements, awards, or accomplishments you realized during that period – regardless of where it happened (work, play or education). If you have more than one satisfying experience within the same year, list them separately creating a new entry for each experience.

 

Year:

Accomplishment 1:  

 

 

Year:

Accomplishment 2:

 

Year:

Accomplishment 3:

 

 

Year:

Accomplishment 4:

 

 

Year:

Accomplishment 5:

 

 

 

 

STEP TWO: Rank and Summarize Your Accomplishments

INSTRUCTIONS for RANKING

List below the accomplishments you identified on the previous page. And, rank these accomplishments by biggest impact and what you enjoyed the most. Place a 1, 2, or 3 beside your accomplishments, where 1 is your favorite and 3 your third favorite.

 

Your Five Accomplishments

RANK ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Rank: 1

Accomplishment:

 

 

Rank: 2

Accomplishment:

 

 

Rank: 3

Accomplishment:

 

 

Rank: 4

Accomplishment:

 

 

Rank:5

Accomplishment:

 

 

INSTRUCTIONS for SUMMARIZING

For your top three achievements you are going to add more detail to the description. In the spaces below,

  1. Create a short phrase that summarizes the accomplishment, and
  2. Describe your experience in more detail.

In the detailed description, be sure to start the achievement with a verb (i.e., what you did) and conclude with the outcome. Quantify and qualify specifics about your accomplishment or experience. List any tasks, responsibilities, and goals you might have used or had during this experience.

 

HERE’S AN EXAMPLE…

Short phrase description, First Accomplishment: “Helped the community center organize the park cleanup.”

Detailed description, First Accomplishment:  “Asked my friends to help. Shared ideas on how to make it fun. Handed out bags and t-shirts. Helped with the actual cleanup. Manned the drink table at the picnic afterward.”

NOW, YOU DO IT….

Short phrase description, FIRST Youth Accomplishment:

 

Detailed description, FIRST Youth Accomplishment:

 

 

 

 

Short phrase description, SECOND Youth Accomplishment:

 

Detailed description, SECOND Youth Accomplishment:

 

 

 

Short phrase description, THIRD Youth Accomplishment:

 

Detailed description, THIRD Youth Accomplishment: