Creating Your Career Documentary

Setting the Stage

Visualization is a powerful technique to achieving one’s goals and aspirations. The act of visualizing a possible future life and career provides many benefits. Among these are improving focus, providing inspiration, increasing confidence, setting goals, and promoting a sense of well-being. Brain studies have demonstrated that thoughts can produce the same mental instructions as actions. Visualization prepares the brain for actual performance. It is why athletes use visualization to improve their performance.  

Material & Preparation

• Arrange for computer and internet access for students working in pairs or groups.
• My Career Documentary – Development and Planning Form reproducible [Google doc] [Word doc] [PDF] - 1 per group

What to Do

As an introduction to this activity teachers can explain, or lead students in a discussion that will allow them to recognize, that career development is a lifelong process. It is not a recipe, nor does it begin at a certain age. It is a process that is shaped by the people, places, experiences, life-roles, and self-concepts we have or develop throughout our lifetime.

In this activity, students will progress through a series of questions that will get them thinking about their possible futures. As they answer these questions, they will create an outline for a documentary of their future life. The final stage is the actual creation of a physical project which will help them formalize their thoughts and help them identify necessary steps to be taken to achieve the lives they want as adults. Teachers should clarify that this is not a “what do you want to be” activity. Rather it is more of a “what do you want from life” activity. 

Teachers could provide students with choice on the form their final Documentary Project will take. Options could include a written autobiography, a video documentary, a multimedia or a dramatic presentation.