Why You Should Write Your Biography, Today. (Part 2)
*Dearest Reader, this is the continuation to a previous article. Click here to read the first part before proceeding**
Last time we discussed the utility of telling your story to yourself and why it is important that you do.
I know you are thinking to yourself, “I neither have the time nor discipline to write an autobiography.” Why should I write a 30,000-word book when I hate writing and have never written so much ever in my life? Who cares anyway?
How to Self-author
It is true that writing an entire book may sound like an impossible task, but it doesn't have to be. Here are two simple steps to get started almost immediately.
Journal
Many people see journaling as something fancy people do to feel fancy, but journaling is one of the best ways to untangle your daily life. It is also a more efficient way to overcome the herculean task of summarizing your entire life in retrospect.
Instead of writing your entire story, write it in real-time.
Many people don’t know that one of the many functions of our brain is to journal our daily experiences. When we sleep, our brains catalog the day’s experiences and decides what goes into long and short-term memory. Essentially clearing out the disc so that you can wake up refreshed with a new clean memory card. This is why we don’t wake up with the previous day’s stress.
However, in doing this, our brain discards valuable experiences for memory’s sake and leaves us with foggy stories and solid lessons. Journaling clears out your brain, makes this process easier, and leaves you with the stories that give context to your resolutions.
Mental Dump
Writing an autobiography does not mean sitting at your system for 6 hours daily. You’re probably too busy or indisciplined to follow through with that plan. However, you can take 10–15 minutes daily to jot down important life experiences. They can be fond memories, a trip, a decision, or other things you may be unwilling to relive.
This might be one of the hardest things you have ever done. But when you sit to write for 10 minutes, you will find that every story has a backstory, and the backstory has another backstory. This just shows that your life today and your actions tomorrow are built on a thousand backstories.
Just like flashbacks help us to understand our favorite movie characters, writing your story helps you to understand yourself.
3 Benefits of Writing your Autobiography
If you’re not a sentimental person, you find satisfaction always pushing forward for new experiences. However, the clues to understand and face future challenges may be located in the past.
Here are 3 benefits of writing your Autobiography:
1. Nostalgia
Have you ever gone through a friend’s photo album, and they started telling you about what led up to the picture? or what happened after? This shows that although pictures are physical snapshots of special experiences, the stories themselves are the most important aspect.
Reading your past can have emotional benefits. Reading about the time you had your life in order or were in love can help to relieve the joy of the moment. Reading about bad experiences is also a great way to check if you have truly healed from them.
2. Catharsis
Autobiography is cheaper than therapy.
A blank sheet acts like a good therapist. Non-judgmental and silent. Unpeeling you one question at a time. Just like a good therapist helps you to untangle yourself, never underestimate the power of a blank page.
Sometimes, you get closure; other times, you get perspective. Either one is beneficial.
3. Future authoring
If you know better, you will do better.
The formula for biographies is simple. Learn about a person’s life. Distill the lessons that may be helpful to you. Use the lessons to live a better life. Who says that your story cannot do the same for you?
No, your story is not too short or insignificant to inspire you into the future.
In the final analysis, if you eventually succeed in life, you will have enough content to become an author — another achievement. And if you fail, well, you’d know exactly why, and hopefully, you can find out where it all went wrong.
Either way, understanding your story empowers you to live like a main character, not a cameo.
*Remember you can clap up to 50 times if you really enjoyed reading this*
