Are you the hero of your own story?

Are you the hero of your own story? 

We hear a lot about “main character energy” on social media; an idea that might be more grounded than it sounds. In multiple studies with over 1,700 participants, researchers Ben Rogers, Kurt Gray, and Mike Christian found that when people have main character energy, they feel an increased sense of meaning in their lives. 

Let’s define what this means. Rogers, Gray, and Christian identified seven elements of the modern hero’s journey: a protagonist, a shift, a quest, allies, a challenge, a transformation, and eventually, a legacy. Next, they reviewed over 1,200 life stories, paired with interviews about participants’ sense of meaning in their lives. 

“We found that people who had more of the elements in their life stories reported more meaning in life, more flourishing and less depression,” the researchers write. “These ‘heroic’ people (men and women were equally likely to see their life as a hero's journey) reported a clearer sense of self than other participants did, as well as more new adventures, strong goals, good friends, and so on.” 

Doesn’t a clear sense of self sound nice? While we’re at it, why not strong goals, more new adventures, and good friends to go along with that? 

Let’s talk about how to achieve this. 

In his book Hero on a Mission, author Donald Miller describes the importance of a morning ritual to maintain what he calls narrative traction. “Once you have created your life plan, you get to review it every day in a morning ritual,” Miller writes. “This will help you maintain the narrative traction necessary to stay interested in your own story.”

Consistency and commitment are necessary for any hero to overcome challenges in their journey. For creative people like you and me, this consistency comes through our art. When we create, we feel free. When we’re in flow state, we conjure meaning out of thin air through our work. We redeem painful experiences, we inspire our communities, e add beauty to the world. 

But when we’re not creating, we “feel like hell.” Steven Pressfield says this in his book The War of Art. “A low-grade misery pervades everything. We’re bored. We’re restless. We can’t get no satisfaction. There’s guilt, but we can’t put our finger on the source.” Pressfield says in artistic terms what Donald Miller describes in physical terms, what researchers Rogers, Gray, and Christian describe in narrative terms: creating art is a heroic act. Doing it consistently is a hero’s journey. Along the way we’ll encounter villains, allies, challenges, transformation, and meaning. If we stick with it long enough, eventually, great meaning. Maybe life’s greatest meaning. 

P.S. Learn to achieve consistency with your creativity. Join the 15-Day Creative Consistency Challenge here.