Why We Hesitate to Tell Our Own Stories (and How to Start)
My grandmother can tell you in detail about the sandwich her mother would make her when she came home from school; a peanut butter and onion sandwich, served with orange juice in a chipped glass. As a young girl she kept a journal growing up, in it she stuffed scribbled down recipes and grocery lists, an occasional photo that she would find from lazy days at the lake. She wrote about school dances and dresses and boys, but she also wrote about sunrises and morning rituals that she still remembers as she makes her coffee nearly 80 years later. She occasionally finds these old scraps of her life and memories come flooding back. I find that both her and I are most often caught up in remembering the ordinary things, the things that happened everyday for a season in her life, when those rituals changed, the season had too, and she had become a slightly different person living a slightly different life. I could listen to her for hours.
But when the time comes in our visit when she asks me about my life, I freeze. There is nothing particularly special about my days. Nothing note worthy enough to remember or to share. My mornings don’t feel like they are nearly as magical as the ones she recorded in her diaries.
Her stories are vivid, mine just feel… ordinary.
But that is the thing isnt it. It is the ordinary things from the lives of others that we are most interested in, and yet, it is the ordinary of our own lives that we don’t feel is worth recording.
I conducted my own research on the values and beliefs that surround the practice of recording life stories. I asked why people record their stories, or why don’t they. Nearly every participant said the same thing when asked why they don’t record their own day-to-day lives:
“I just feel like I’m a regular person going through regular person things,” one told me. “And I don’t feel like my stories would actually help anyone out.”
Yet, by the end of the interview, when asked why should others record their stories, nearly all participants gave some version of the following:
“Honestly, I can’t think of anyone whose story isn’t worth sharing… All of it is useful. Whether it’s funny, enlightening, sad — all of it’s important.”
We are, it seems, at a paradox:
Most people do not believe that their story is worth recording, that there lives are not interesting enough to be remembered. Yet almost everyone believes that everyone should record their story because it is important and significant, and therefore worth recording and sharing.
Why Do We Hold Back?
From this research, four recurring themes emerged that keep people from recording the events in their lives.
- They didn't believe their story mattered.
- They worried that others would judge them saying that their story wasn’t worth recording.
- They felt the process was too hard or time consuming.
- They’re afraid of getting the story “wrong”.
These barriers often showed up together, affecting each other. For example, while participants at first often said that they just don’t have the time to record, often they revealed that even if they did have the time, they wouldn’t because they don’t feel that their story is important. The more you think that your story isn’t that important, the more you will over think and think that someone may judge you for recording a story that they don’t perceive is “worth it”, or someone may think you recorded it wrong.
One participant told me, “I still feel like I’m not in a position to record my story… which is counterproductive, because during the pandemic I thought, maybe I should keep a journal, because this is going to be interesting someday. And of course… I didn’t.”
For many, the act of recording feels like a performance for strangers instead of an offering to themselves and the people who come after them. The more widely available and public one perceives the audience to be, the higher the fear of judgment, and the lower the perceived value of our own experiences.
Conversely, those who regularly consumed others’ life stories, through social media, books, conversations with friends and family, often felt more confident that their own story had value.
What Actually Gets Someone to Start?
Some of the participants had already had this realization and had begun the process of recording life stories. When asked about what they think helps someone to start, they said this:
“It’s just kind of that first moment of encouragement, that one person thinks your story matters enough to record it and then you start and it’s hard to stop.”
This reflects a phenomenon Stanford psychologist Gregory Walton discusses in his book Ordinary magic, that the small moments of reframe are what truly shift the way we see ourselves and can have life altering implications. For example, when someone sees something in you, when they reflect your worth back to you, clearly and gently, they can completely change how you see yourself and that can shape your future. Walton describes moments that occur in everyone's life that bring up questions like “Do I belong here?”, “Can I do it?”, “Am I good enough?”. How a person answers these questions can shape their life. The ordinary magic, is when someone helps with that reframe.
In the case of recording life stories, it is an experience that is co-created. You record your stories, you record others stories, you consume others stories, they consume yours, this cycle is what brings significance to our lives. We have all experienced an older relative sharing a story prompted by a some artifact from when they were growing up, it may have seemed insignificant to them at the time, but now it prompts nostalgia, reflection, gratitude and a story about meaning in every day life.
Once you start consuming these stories from the people in your life, once you see how the small moments of their life have contributed to the tapestry that lead to you, it can change yours as well. Simply letting someone know that their story is worth sharing, and that you care to hear it, can change lives.
The easiest way then to begin recording your own story, is to ask someone else to share theirs.
Recording our lives isn’t about proving something extraordinary happened. It’s about making meaning from what already has. It’s about remembrance, reflection, and offering others and ourselves a way to make sense of it all.
As one participant told me:
“Revisiting those posts helps me relive the excitement of that time… and also see how I’ve changed.”
Another said she envisioned her stories as “little clusters of happiness” to return to. Not for performance. For preservation.
Research has shown that expressive writing can improve mental and physical health, reduce stress, and even reshape our sense of self. But beyond the science, there’s a simple truth:
Telling your story is an act of belonging.
It affirms: I was here. This happened. It mattered.
Seeing The Shift in Real Time
In the research, I saw this ordinary magic happen in real time. Something really fascinating happened as I spoke with participants about their perceptions of life stories. As they spoke about the value of having stories recorded about the people closest to them, and how they wish those people had recorded more of their own stories so that they remembered more, they began to reconsider their own hesitations. Through the interviews, all participants experienced some shift in the perception of why they should record more of their life.
One participant, in the early stages of her interview, expressed skepticism about the act of self-recording:
“I don't know why people record their own stories. That, there's like a weird element of confidence, or, I don't know a different word to describe it, that they must have, that I don't know that I have…but I know why I want to hear other people's stories.”
Yet, by the end of the interviews, nearly all participants came to the conclusion that they should at least start recording more actively the lives of the people around them in the moment so that there is more to look back on and to prompt memories in the future. And those already recording others’ stories began to see their own stories differently, as gifts to their future selves and future generations, full of the scribbled notes from moments we forgot that help us remember who we are, and how we got here.
“The accessibility for my children and children's children to learn about their roots, my legacy and contribution to the world. In hopes they carry out the same values with a personal reference point.”
Just talking with people about their stories and the ones that they are interested in learning about from others, helped convince them that maybe they should start.
How to Start (Even If You Don’t Know What to Say)
You don’t need a memoir or a milestone. Just a moment.
Start with a note to yourself. Or a voice recording. Or a picture that made you pause. Share a detail with someone who matters to you. Ask someone about a memory of theirs. Follow curiosity. Follow warmth.
And if you're looking for a place to begin or a community that welcomes you Aatlas was created for just this. We want to know your story! We are interested and are building a community where it is safe to do so. We also want to make it really easy for you to share that you are interested in another persons story. We want to help you be the reason that someone decides to record their life stories. We’re building a safe space where you can record stories privately or share them with those you choose and where every story is treated with dignity. Where you’re invited to say, “This is who I am. This is what I’ve seen.”
Because while you may feel insignificant to the world, you are the most significant thing in the world to someone.
And your story is more than worth telling.