Lesson #30: Find (or create) your story

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

— George Bernard Shaw

Right now I’m deep diving into Donald Miller’s Hero on a Mission book and concept. One of the foundations of his approach to living a meaningful life is to be living into a story that interests and inspires you. The alternative to this, something I’ve experienced myself and which is incredibly painful, he calls a ‘narrative void’ .. where our lives are just old patterns with no sense of moving towards anything but rather being like a leaf tossed on a stream — at the whims of fate rather than directing our own fate.

Creating a story for your life that interests you and pulls you forward gives you ‘narrative traction’.

Traction, as I see it, is the opposite of being stuck, or spinning your wheels but not moving anywhere — an experience I’m way too familiar with.

By writing your own story, a story that is interesting to you, you get to experience a sense of agency in your life. YOU decide what meaning you want to give to past events in your life while you move boldly towards a bigger and brighter future. You get to create a story with meaning, contribution and growth.

As you do this you are living with a growth mindset — a mindset that allows for growth and change, rather than a fixed mindset — where who you are is already determined.

And this narrative for your life .. can always change, expand, grow.

As humans we are amazing, creative, industrious creatures.

Join me in creating your best life!