The following questions are about you, who you are, and what you like. Think about the people you know and who know you, your skills, abilities, and your dreams. Take time to think about your answers. Discuss them with family, friends and teachers. The choices are yours, but the people around you may have some important information for you.
This activity is broken down into 3 areas: school, personal interest and employment. Please take the time to complete each section.
1. What subjects do you do well in at school?
2. What activities are you involved at school? If you are not involved in any, are you interested in joining any? ( e.g. drama club, choir, science club or others)
3. What do you like to do outside of school?
4. List the things you can do by yourself at school:
5. What are some things you need help with at school?
6. How do you learn best? ( e.g. by reading/ discussing/ listening/watching or a combination)
7. Do you let your teacher know how you learn best? If yes, what information do you share?
8. Do you need reminders to do things at school? Please explain or give an example?
9. Do you know what kind of support you need in school in order to be successful? (example: note taker, extra time to complete a test or an assignment) Please list them.
10. What does success mean to you?
The Following questions are designed to better understand your personal skills and your interests. So go ahead write as much as you can about yourself.
11. What are your dreams for the future? ( e.g. living on your own/ being employed/ having your own business/ getting married/ having a family)
12. Do you set short and/or long-term goals to reach your dreams?
Short term goals: are ones that you will achieve in the near future (e.g., in a day, within a week, or
possibly within a few months).
Long term goals: are ones that you will achieve over a longer period of time (e.g. one year, five years,
or twenty years).
If yes, please list them on a piece of paper.
13. Can you easily explain your skills and strengths to other people? If yes, what are they?
14. What makes you feel proud of yourself?
15. Do you tell other people about your disability to others? How do you feel when you share that information?
16. Do you describe your condition differently depending on the setting or the people? (Yes/no/sometimes). If yes, how so?
17. Are there times you choose not to tell someone about your condition? Why or why not?
18. If you have a problem, who do you usually talk to?
19. List people who you consider to be your friends:
If you ever worked/volunteered or are planning to work in the near future please complete the following questions.
20. If I could pick any career or job, what would be?
21. What will I need to do to get a job in that career area?
22. Would you inform your employer how you learn best? What would you share?
23. Do you know what accommodations you might need on the job in order to be successful? An example of job accommodation is having a desk that is the right height if you use a wheelchair or more time for breaks and lunch for bathroom routines or modified working hours. Would you ask for job accommodation?
24. Do you ask for help when you need it (yes/no/sometimes)? If no, what is preventing you from asking for help?
List 3 dreams/ goals that you would like to accomplish. These dreams/goals can come from your Who am I activity sheet. Once you have identified 3 dreams/goals, then you can complete the following activity questions:
1. Why is this dream important to you? (This will help you to understand the reason you chose such a dream for yourself)
2. Who can help you to realize this dream? (This will identify the people who can assist you with achieving your dream)
3. How are you going to do it? (This will help you to figure out how you want to pursue your dream)
Once you are clear on your dreams/goals, you can use a tool called Action Plans to achieve them or even use them to further break down each step you take towards your goals. Use the following activities to create your Action Plan which is nothing more than a series of steps towards your goal.
1. Break it into small steps: This will help you to achieve your dream /goal. Make a list of steps that will help you to reach your goal. For example if your goal is to improve fitness, you can break it into deciding on what type of exercise to do, deciding to join a gym, reading about exercise and so on.
2. Decide: Choose which step of your Action Plan you will work on first.
3. Achievable: Is this step something you can expect to be able to do this week?
a. Action –Specific: Is the step that you have chosen action specific? For example, thinking about joining a gym is not a action specific but lifting weights is an action.
b. What will you do? For example I will be lifting weights at the gym
c. How much will you do? I will be doing the weights 30 minutes per day
d. When will you do it? After dinner on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday
e. How often? For example 4 times a week
4. Confidence level: Ask yourself, “On a scale of 0= no confidence to 10=total confidence, how confident am I that I will complete the ENTIRE action plan for each step.” If you rate your confidence below a "7" you might want to look at the barriers and consider reworking your action plan so that it is something you are confident that you can accomplish. It is important that you succeed.
5. Repeat: Once you make the action plan for one of the steps, you can create action plans for all the other steps from the list you created in #1. You can make several action plans for each step you created to reach your goal/dream.