How to uncover, structure & tell your personal story
Sharing your personal life story is one of the most powerful ways to develop self-awareness, think clearly, and build connections and trust. But before you can begin telling your story to others, you must first understand it yourself.
Uncovering your life story
Understanding your personal story requires intention because, let’s be honest, how many of us find the time to reflect on how we ended up where we are today?
To rectify that, carve out some diary time, and start by asking yourself these two questions:
What have the key influencing moments in your life been (highs and lows)?
Who have been/are the influential people?
Think about those crucial moments and comments that have shaped you and jot them down.
Did you move when you were young, having to navigate a new city and school? Did your aunt give you a book about space, igniting your passion for science? Did something a teacher, parent, mentor, friend, or boss say cut through to shape or influence your life either for better or worse?
Big or small, seemingly insignificant or stand out, list everything that comes to mind.
What do you notice? Not only about an individual event, but about any emerging themes between them?
“Done well, this exercise will tell you a lot about your values, how they’ve been shaped and changed. It’s particularly useful for better understanding your reactions and triggers, and why you find some situations difficult.” says Karin Mueller, Liebfrog’s founder and Managing Director.
To help you, download our free Life Map workbook. It provides a way to capture, plot and map all those crucial events across every decade of your life.
Structuring your life story
The older you are, the greater your life experience and the more events you’ll have to draw upon.
But your personal story isn’t a chronology, nor can or should you share everything with everyone all the time. So, this is where you’ll need to start being selective.
Think about your audience. What do you want them to know about who you really are? And what events, people or anecdotes do you need to select (and in which order) to make sense of them, engage, and emotionally connect?
Once you’ve selected what you want to include, you need to apply the ‘so what’ test. Just because it happened to you doesn’t necessarily make it interesting or relevant to others.
So what impact did that event have on you?
So what was your response to that event?
So what perspective does that give you now – perhaps that you couldn’t see at the time - that is relevant right now?
Your personal story isn’t a series of ‘what happened’ events, moments or comments, but rather what happened to you as a result – it’s your perspective on your story that’s interesting.
“It’s stories about your moments of challenge, insight, and transition that help people understand and connect with who you are, what you believe, and what you are ultimately striving to achieve in your life.”
Karin Mueller, Liebfrog’s founder and Managing Director
Three pitfalls when telling your life story
Pitfall 1: You need more than one expression of your story
Telling your story neither means sharing your whole story nor a single version of it irrespective of context.
You aren’t going to tell your story in the boardroom as you would on a first date. You’ll have different expressions of it and that’s fine, as long as those differing expressions remain authentic - true to the core story of you, which lies at its heart.
Pitfall 2: Your story needs to evolve
Your story isn’t static. As you evolve, so too does your story.
It’s not like writing a book - when it’s done it’s done. It’s far more akin to re-reading a great book. Each time you revisit, your life experiences shape what you think, feel and take away from it.
Your learning advances, your perspective changes, and your life evolves. So too then should your story and how you tell it.
Don’t be afraid to rethink, reframe, and retell.
Pitfall 3: Your story must be true
And the final watchout is to ensure you are honest with your story and your expressions of it.
Your personal story shouldn’t be a work of fiction – it’s not an opportunity to tell tall tales.
Stories are the best tool we have to connect with one another. They have the power to hold attention and generate empathy by allowing us to walk in someone else’s shoes. Yet while powerful, used dishonestly, your story can bring about disconnection and distrust.
As literary scholar, Jonathan Gottschall, points out, ‘we are good at poking holes in other people’s stories. It’s much harder to pay attention to our own and be suspicious of it. It’s important to turn our scepticism around on ourselves and challenge our own story’. (Talking about ‘the positives and perils of storytelling’ on HBR IdeaCast, episode 840.)
And a great way to do that?
Revisit your story. We never fully understand our story, so the deeper we dig, the deeper our discovery.
Test any evolving expressions of your story with those who know you best. Watch their reactions and seek their feedback.
Then, gradually widen the circle. An authentic version of your story, that feels natural to tell, will emerge with practice.
Your personal story can build or burn bridges, it’s foundational to your personal brand and your career success… tell it wisely.
February 2023
This blogpost is part of a three-part series on telling our personal story. Head over to the other parts:
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