RISK ALERT!
This blog topic renders me at real risk of getting carried away.
Story is the single most exciting and yummy topic to me. I love reading stories, hearing them, writing them. I marvel at people telling them in varying ways. I love people acting them out. I have loved acting them out myself. I admire people sharing them with courageous vulnerability. Story truly is what makes the world an exciting, purposeful place to live and also, let’s face it, it is what separates us from all those other animals. They have speed, massive teeth and fur, sure, but we have opposable thumbs and story. No competition, in my humble opinion.
As we began to tell stories all those years ago, a collective sense of self emerged. We connected deeply through complex stories that were woven into the fabric of our lives to make sense of the messy world around us, helping us to cooperate in big groups.
Today, we are hard-wired for story and I would not be in any other industry but a story-led one. My previous career as an actress had story at its core and likewise, today my work as a coach places story at the centre of all the work that I do.
A client enters my coaching space and tells their story. They tell it to make sense of their experiences and their beliefs. I ask questions to find out more, they explore further and find new answers and sometimes re-evaluate their beliefs and form new ones that are more productive and aligned to their sense of self; their unique character in their unique story.
I encourage clients to use story to join the dots of their lives and to make sense of who they are and everything around them and to define how they would like to think about themselves. This is why coaching is my passion. Marvelling at the richly beautiful tapestry of people’s lives truly is my happy place.
Coaching, much like storytelling, holds a mirror up to ourselves and helps us to question the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. These stories hold the keys to our ability to create purpose and meaning in our lives, to set goals and achieve them, to venture out of the known and into the wilderness of our imaginations.
I was helping to develop a first draft of a new play several years ago. It was my job as an actor, along with the supervision and wisdom of a dramaturg, to develop the play into a second draft. It was this particular dramaturg who introduced me to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Story. His advice was that the play could do with a supreme ordeal of some description and that, by adding one, the audience could further invest into the hero’s plight.
What is this Hero’s Journey?
Now, this is the bit where I brutally abridge Campbell’s years of agonising research.
Campbell’s Hero starts out in an ordinary world, they then hear a call to adventure, cross the threshold into the unknown, are tested along the way on the road of trials, overcome a supreme ordeal, and then are rewarded richly before venturing back to a new world.
This forms the structure of many films, plays, novels and indeed lives. How many times have you travelled a Hero’s Journey? You are inspired to step into something new and, whilst, of course, you are challenged along the way, you find yourself capable of overcoming obstacles, empowering you to keep going and reap the rewards. You sit back and realise, “Sheesh! I did it. Go me!”
If we, story-minded souls, need direction, what better way to set a goal than the hero’s way! And the beauty of this goal-setting paradigm is (aside from the fact that it is not another acronym!) is that it is cyclical. Once you, the hero, have returned from your journey you may well hear a new call to adventure and the process begins again. Likewise, if you stumble a little at the road of trials, you can stick around here for a while and gather more resources, knowing that you are on a journey and all is not lost.
So, finding out who we are and who we need to become means accepting the call to adventure. It means we commit to placing ourselves as the hero of our own story and become as resourceful and capable as possible.
Are you up for the challenge?
If you want a copy of my Hero Goals Worksheet you can grab one by subscribing to my mailing list.
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