When Jaron and I lead story development workshops, participants often tell us variations on this sentiment: “I’ve had a number of things happen in my life but I don’t think that they’re a story.” I can understand this mentality. When self-reflecting on life events, it is easy to look at the each moment as its own individual experience. It is when we look at the big picture that we begin to see the story.
Everyone has a story.
It helps to think of your story using the three elements that all stories share: Character, Conflict, and Goal. No matter what story you’re experiencing, it can be broken down to these three elements.
We produced this video to explain the breakdown of how to analyze your experiences using this method:
If you’d like to learn more about the Character/Conflict/Goal story structure, we also recorded an extra video where we explain the concepts in greater depth:
If you have any questions about how to think about your experiences as a story, reach out to us in the comments or send us an email. You have a story, and your story matters!