This is a nice article on the power of personal narrative. It gets me thinking about how life coaches help clients access their stories.
Life coaching is very forward focused, but that doesn’t mean that life coaches don’t acknowledge or think about the past – or that they encourage their clients to forget the past. In fact, the past (and what we tell ourselves about our history) is essential to looking forward. From birth through old age, we’re constantly assimilating past experiences to help us better understand what’s next.
I ask my clients to complete a “My Life Story” exercise. While this helps me get to know the people I’m working with better, I also believe it’s important for creating the next steps in a path towards reaching one’s dreams. It can help you develop closure, recognize that it’s time to move on, remind you of the dreams you left behind or enable you to take the first steps towards change.
Are you finding your visions for the future a bit nebulous? If so, try writing down your life story. You don’t have to be the next Shakespeare. It’s not even essential that anyone else ever see it. And I’m not talking autobiography, just a page or two of the highlights. But, it should be your voice, your take on the way things have been.
Then read what you’ve written. What feelings come up about the past? What language do you use to describe your life? Do the changes you might want to make get clearer? Do things look completely different on paper? Do you see patterns that you want to repeat in order to reach your dreams? Or, do you see habits you might want to get rid of?
It could be you see your needs, your wants or your values where before you simply saw a series of events. Maybe you see your blessings. Perhaps your strengths become more apparent. Or, it could be simply a nice reminder of where you’ve come from. And it might be there’s no better place to start when you’re thinking about where you want to go.
