From epic poets onward, storytellers have understood their art’s clarifying function as boiling events down to their essence and underscoring what’s most vital. Narratives “connect certain elements. They go, ‘That thing I did five years ago led me to who I am today,’” says Boston College management professor Benjamin Rogers. “That’s the power of the way we tell our stories.”
Tracing our own personal narratives, Rogers has found, not only adds meaning to our lives — it helps us align our day-to-day choices with clear guiding principles when life gets tough.
Rogers has spent years studying the role life narratives play in helping people understand not just what matters to them, but how their guiding focus came to be. He’s discovered that the “hero’s journey” story structure is especially good at revealing the central themes that animate people’s lives.
Sometimes known as a “monomyth,” a hero’s journey story features a character who sets out on an adventure, triumphs over obstacles along the way, and comes back transformed, bringing something valuable back to the community. Classic stories from around the world, from Homer’s Odyssey to the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, closely follow this basic template.
Rogers suspected that hero’s journey–style storytelling might be a powerful vehicle for helping people understand their experiences and clarify their ultimate goals. To test this theory, he and his colleagues enrolled hundreds of people in a re-storying exercise in which they rewrote their own life stories to parallel the phases of the classic hero’s journey.
The study’s version of the hero’s journey involved several basic elements, including a shift that drives protagonists to set an important goal; the onset of challenges as they pursue that goal; personal growth or transformation along the journey; enlisting allies along the way; and a triumphant return with some insight or contribution that serves the community.
After people completed this exercise—which you can try for yourself on Rogers’ website—they reported that they found their lives more meaningful than they had beforehand. Control participants, who simply wrote about different aspects of their lives, did not report this change. That suggested that the re-storying exercise was indeed responsible for the meaning boost.
Rogers’s most striking finding, though, wasn’t just that the exercise helped people find meaning. It was that this deeper meaning influenced the everyday choices people made in challenging moments.
At one point, Rogers asked people in his re-storying trial how they planned to handle a major problem in their lives. Those who had completed the re-storying process were more likely to say they would look for direct ways to address the issue—say, by speaking to a supervisor to resolve a conflict, rather than remaining passive. They also looked at the problem itself more positively, seeing it as a chance to learn and correct course.
The clarifying function of the re-storying process seems to bolster focus and resolve in the face of challenge. These traits are integral to a well-paced life, helping you channel your energy more directly toward pursuits that will strengthen and fulfill you. And when you want to restore the focus re-storying supplies, you can revisit or repeat the process, integrating fresh insights into your guiding narrative.
This is an adapted excerpt from my new Simon & Schuster book The Art of Pacing.
