These are the first steps to seeing your life as a story.

1.     A story is what happens over a period of time. Every story has a beginning and an end. When you’re born, you begin telling a story with your life; your life is the story, and you don’t know when it will end. What happens in your life is what happens in your story. Your story will have highs and lows; you won’t know where your story is going—you just know it will end.

2.     A story is a living thing that wants to be told. Every story needs someone who will tell it. You’re both the one telling your story, and the one living it. Seeing your life as a story means seeing the story you’re telling with your life. When you see yourself as the one telling this story (as well as the one living it), you see what happens to you, differently.

3.     A story isn’t right, or wrong—it’s just a story. When something happens, you tell yourself a story about what is happening. The story you tell yourself is the story you see. Telling yourself a different story means you see things, differently. You can choose the story you tell yourself about what is happening.

4.     Everything that happens in a story means something. Everything that happens in your life is a part of your story. When you choose to tell yourself, life is a story, everything that happens in your life means something. This means seeing your life as a story gives your life more meaning. When your life has more meaning, you live it, differently.