Why your story is important.

Do you ever feel like the star of your own movie? Like your life is unfolding like linear pages of a book?

That’s because they are. It’s how your mind works.

Our brains were formed in the Pleistocene when our tribal ancestors used stories to make sense of the world — to pass down essential knowledge and a sense of purpose in addition to their legacy. Thanks to 10s of 1,000s of years of storytelling and evolution, we are drawn to stories like we’re drawn to sugar.

And while we like to think we’re strong enough to resist the morning doughnut, the truth is our brain mostly works on autopilot. In other words, you can’t help that your brain craves meaning any more than your craving for that second bite of frosted doughy goodness.

For context, let’s look at each of these responses to the same life event (failing a test). Each response differs only by what kind of student you think you are and your assumptions about the world (i.e., the story you tell yourself) and subsequently affects your narrative.

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