It’s Not Whether You Win or Lose, But How You Tell Your Story

Redefining What It Means to Have a Happy Ending

When I was young, one of my favorite books was Sugarcane Island, which was the first “choose your own adventure” type of interactive book. The premise was fairly simple: You had been shipwrecked on a deserted island. The goal was survival and finding your way home. At the end of each chapter was a list of possible choices; whichever one you chose determined your fate in the next chapter.

The problem with this kind of “choose your own adventure” story was that although it could end in one of many possible scenarios, I always felt a lot of anxiety. In Sugarcane Island, I could make “good” choices, leading me back to civilization, or “bad” choices, where I’d be swallowed by quicksand or eaten by cannibals. Obsessed with making the “right” choice so I wouldn’t wind up on an island native’s dinner plate, I read ahead and memorized all the decisions that would lead me to safety.

Many people live their lives with a similarly anxious, right-wrong mindset. To read more, click on…

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Psychotherapist and freelance journalist Kim Schneiderman utilizes research-based methods to help people who are stuck – in a dead-end job, relationship, of life stage – imagine themselves as the star of their own stories with the power to reclaim their personal narratives. Drawing on the elements of a story that many of us learned in high school (premise, scene, plot, conflict, climax, resolution), readers will assign titles to different chapters of their lives, observe recurring themes, identify supporting characters, and explore how conflict creates opportunities for personal growth that can lead to a meaningful resolution. They will also be asked to examine how the decisions we make, both big and small, affect our storyline – the relationships we choose, how we spend our day, and how we nourish ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Unlike most self-help writing workbooks, most of the exercises in Step Out of Your Story are framed in the third-person voice, freeing readers to see beyond their usual point of view. Psychological research suggests that people are more likely to view their lives favorably when they see themselves as characters in a story. In a 2005 Columbia University study reported in the Journal of Psychological Science, test subjects who spoke about difficult chapters in their lives in the third person narrative displayed more confidence and optimism than those who recalled bad memories in the first person. By retracing their steps from the perch of the third-person narrative, people were more likely to regard their problems as something outside themselves – challenges they had conquered or adversaries they had defeated - instead of character flaws. Additionally, the perception that they had overcome obstacles left them feeling more confident to face the future.