Why Your Origin Story Matters and How To Tell Yours

Dr. Ja'Bette Lozupone

You’re probably familiar with the proverb, “It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish.” At the core of this saying is the acknowledgment that where we start is just a shadow of our potential. Moreover, it implies that no matter where you start from on your life’s journey, your choices can determine and lead you to phenomenal places. But you’ve got to commit to making your journey and hang on long enough to see your aspirations through. Further, where you start from (your origin) is arguably just as important—if not more important—than where you finish.

What’s Your Origin Story?

If you’ve never given thought to your origin story, it might be time think about it. No one would disagree that setting and achieving goals is a smart way to go through life. But it can be disappointing when we feel like we are not reaching our goals quickly enough or at all. We’re often so focused on where we want to be that we forget about how far we’ve come. By carving out time to think about and share your origin story, you are gifting yourself and others clarity, wisdom, and hope.

What Is an Origin Story?

An origin story is a simple and digestible background narrative that provides a backstory and context about who you are. Your origin story informs your identity and motivations by revealing how you got started, what you went through to get here, and why it matters. Your origin story can even become a vehicle for developing a personal brand, sharing leadership insights, making you more relatable, and humanizing you.

How To Tell Your Origin Story

Whether you’ve previously dedicated time to think about and capture your origin story or not, there are likely some experiences and lessons that you find yourself reflecting on or sharing with others time and again. This is a great place to start when thinking about the moments in your life that shaped you.

Brainstorming Your Origin Story

To begin brainstorming your origin story, ask yourself these six questions:

What are memorable stories that you find yourself telling over and over again?
What struggles did you confront and how did you face them?
When have you seen a path or solution that others didn’t?
Where have you taken measured leaps of faith that paid off?
What crucible moments have you experienced? (Learn more about crucible moments here)
When was the moment that you knew it was all worth it?

Spend some time thinking about the above six questions and capture your responses. You can do this through journaling or typing your answers on a digital platform. Regardless of the medium you use to document your responses, stick to it by keeping everything in one place.

Key Things To Consider

This is a time for introspection that merits reflection on happy times, difficult times, and epiphanies you’ve had along the way. This self-exploratory process facilitates your story development. There’s no need to sugar coat or exaggerate any portion of your story. Of utmost importance is that you recognize and accept that your experiences and feelings are valid. Just be sure to do the following:

Keep the story real
Tell the truth
Answer tough questions

How To Write Your Origin Story

After you’ve completed a thorough self-examination by answering the questions above and some good old fashioned soul searching, it’s time to write your origin story. You couldn’t possibly incorporate every detail and experience of your life into your origin story. However, the above prompts will help you focus on inflection points on your journey.

Crafting a captivating origin story requires you to you be selective about what you share and leave out. Utilize the following prompts to guide your storytelling and create an outline:

Where does your origin story begin? Set the scene.
When setting your scenes, try to set them at points of drama, turning points, or aha moments
Describe any problems and solutions to your audience.
Ensure that your audience can come along the journey with you by placing them in your shoes.
Provide sufficient details for your audience to empathize with your situation.
Cultivate investment from your audience by inviting them to experience your lows and highs by sharing how what you experienced affected you or made you feel.
Lead your audience by sharing key things that happened next or led you to a critical moment
Summarize the hurdles that you faced by sharing bumps in the road, failure, doubt or other challenges along the way.
Highlight breakthrough moments or transformative experiences that occurred on your journey.
Build a case for your why.
Remember to share where your path led.

The Hero’s Journey

For an outline of how to craft your origin story, you could consider using the story structure known as the Hero’s Journey, introduced by Joseph Campbell in 1949. The structure, shared by cultures worldwide, comprises three parts: a departure, initiation, and return. This method of story telling is consistently used for our beloved and despised movie and storybook protagonists and antagonists. You can learn more about the Hero’s Journey here.

Ideas To End Your Story

When it’s time to end your origin story, think about your transformation and wisdom gained that will help others. If you will focus on how or where you ended up, remember that you are still on your journey. You’re not limited to only talking about what you have achieved so far. You can also talk about accomplishments that are in progress or goals on the horizon that you are committed to completing.

Your transformation makes you a credible source for disseminating wisdom earned and lessons gained. By sharing your wisdom and lessons with others, you can help folks on their own journeys. As an example, your story might inspire others to look at life differently, pursue their dreams, or quell bad habits.

Maybe you focus less on your achievements, and instead on imparting wisdom gained from your journey. This ending works well when you can share an uplifting outcome or lesson as a cautionary tale that averted a close call with dire outcomes that you only discovered after the fact. When you end your origin story in this fashion, you create new opportunities for others that otherwise might not have presented themselves.

Sharing Your Origin Story

It can be scary to share your origin story with others. Disclosing our humble beginnings or emotional, psychological, or even physical wounds can be the ultimate act of vulnerability. No one wants to be judged for our choices, humiliated by embarrassing moments, or re-traumatized by our most painful experiences. When writing and sharing your origin story, be sure you know your audience and proceed accordingly.

While it can be scary to share your origin story, it can also be liberating because of the positive impact it can make. Your origin story just might be the message that inspires someone, changes someone’s life, or delivers hope. In the same vein, someone hearing your story might think, “If they can do it, so can I.” [If you’re interested in my why, you can listen to my origin story in my TEDx talk, Transcending Wishful Thinking To Wishful Doing—it’s on my homepage.]

Ultimately, your origin story can also be just for you. Sometimes, we need a reminder about how far we’ve come. When you frame your life through your origin story or a hero’s journey, you can reignite your passion or find contentment in your accomplishments thus far. Moreover, thinking about and writing your hero’s story is a valuable exercise to assess your progress and the direction you’re traveling in with deeper clarity.

In Summary

Thinking about and writing your origin story is a valuable exercise to assess your progress toward your goals thus far and think about the direction you’re traveling in. Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t reached your goals yet. Life changes on a dime and your success can build momentum much more quickly than you realize. After you’ve written your origin story to date, you can transition to envisioning what comes next for you to complete your hero’s journey. By striving to be the highest optimal version of yourself, you can use this writing exercise to plan your next steps to achieve the goals you have yet to accomplish.