Why You Should Write Your Biography, Today. (Part 1)
When we think of autobiographies, it is easy to think of notable names like Mandela, Jobs, and Obama.
Not many of us see ourselves as worth having biographies. Maybe sometime in the future, you think. When there is more to my life than ‘trying’. Although the bestselling biographies are about notable personalities, it is not their exclusive right.
In this piece, I will show you why your story is more important than any biography you would ever read. You will also find that no matter how young, inexperienced, or uneventful your life has been, your story is worth telling.
Even better, people are dying to read it.
Identifying Your Target Reader.
When you read the title of this article, you might have assumed that your biography was something for other people to read. Wrong. The most important reader of your story is you.
You may wonder, “Why do I need to read my story when I lived through it?” The reason is simple. Your story is more complicated than you have concluded. The factors at play in your life are more than you assumed. The people you have classified as villains in your story are probably not villains. You may even find that you are more than a victim.
Think back to your favorite movie or series; how much of it can you truly remember? Chances are you are left with bits and pieces of important scenes and characters. That’s exactly right.
Reviewing your life intricately helps you put into perspective major events and their impact on you. Simply put, there is much more to your story you do not know, and the best way to untangle that web is to write about it.
The most important reader of your story is you.
3 Reasons to Write Your Biography
Here are three reasons to write your story you may not have thought about.
- To Recognize Patterns
Back to our film analogy.
Have you ever watched a series where you know a character so much and you can predict what they would say or do? Sometimes you can even predict their opinions on certain issues. We can do this because you have studied the character’s pattern of behaviour and can forecast their next move with near certainty.
The same is true for you.
Regardless of your age, there are common themes in your life that you are unaware of. These patterns may be major life-altering behaviors or mundane thoughts. Patterns manifest in every area of our lives and are not just nature’s way of dealing with us. When you chronicle your life, you’ll better understand why you are what & where you are.
Unless patterns are identified and dealt with, there is a 99.99% chance of them repeating forever.
2. To recognize people
Our life experiences are simply how we interact with ourselves (the main character) and other people (supporting characters). For better or worse, we are an accumulation of our human interactions.
Writing your story helps to identify people who have played major roles in your life. These may include supporting actors like family members and close relationships who play a major role. Others may be extras who just helped to make a part of your life bearable.
At the major positive (or negative) turn in your life, who were the people present (or absent), and how did they help make your life better (or worse)?
Carrying out this audit requires a lot of courage, especially for people with traumatic experiences. You may encounter things you wished we forgotten. However, the benefits far outweigh the present cost.
3. To recognize origins
Whether we admit it or not, our preferences, ideologies, and philosophies have origins. If we all came to the world as a clean slate, where did we get the ideologies we hold dear? This shows that many things we believe were programmed into us by people or experiences.
Many people are battling with issues rooted in abandonment, abuse, or utterances. Some people are fighting ghosts inherited from their parents. Others are running on the software installed by people who shouldn’t have had access to their motherboard.
Taking time to chronicle your story helps you identify the possible sources and reasons why you are who you are. In that way, you can increase the probability of positive patterns and minimize negative patterns.
In the second part of this article, I will walk you through easy steps to tell your story in a few weeks. We will also discuss the many benefits to your future self when you are empowered by your story.
Before then, think about the following questions:
- If you were to write the story of your life today, would it be a tragedy or comedy?
- If your life was written into a book today, how many people would you stop from reading it?
*Remember you can clap up to 50 times if you really enjoyed reading this*
