Have you ever been asked to tell your story?
How did you know where to start? What to include? Which parts to highlight, or to skip, or to tweak?
Did you begin at birth, or later? Did you talk about your school, your best friend, your first dog, a car accident?
All of us have long, complex life stories that can be told in a million ways to focus on different aspects of ourselves. When you’re asked to tell your story, it’s an invitation to curate and create a streamlined version of your journey that spotlights an outcome, a result, or a question.
In order to choose what to include, think about the context you’re in. What interests the questioner? What do you want them to know? What values or qualities of yours do you want to shape your story around?
Not everything can make it into a telling of your story. Choose an organizing principle to help you select what goes in, and what stays out.