The Life Story Interview
How to Master Life Transitions: Lesson #2
Before turning to life transitions, a reminder that my new book A TIME TO GATHER: How Ritual Created the World—and How It Can Save Us will be published on May 19, 2026 by Penguin Press. Pre-order is available today wherever you get your books. Thank you!
Welcome to Lesson #2 of my ongoing course, How to Master Life Transitions. Last week, we discussed the importance of how we tell the stories of our lives. As we experience difficulties and disruptions, the narratives we tell about ourselves help bridge the gaps between where we are and where we want to go.
They are the tool to repair the breaches in our lives.
This week I want to focus on what a life story is and how you can begin to understand and harness the power of your own. Thirty years ago, a little-known Harvard PhD named Dan McAdams designed a process of interviewing people about their lives as a way to understand how they developed and refined their sense of self.
When I became interested in life stories a quarter of a century later, I reached out to Dan, who generously offered to guide me through my project. He encouraged me to take the template he designed in the 1980s but modify it for the issues I was interested in. As he predicted, what quickly happened was that new and surprising themes began to emerge that I hadn’t read about in the literature on life course, human development, and personal change.
In just under a decade, I have collected and analyzed 500 such stories.
The stories included a mind-boggling array of life experiences: lost limbs, lost jobs, lost homes; changed religions, changed careers, changed countries; those who got sober, got divorced, got out of cults; as well as scores who went through everyday transitions of hope, revival, and renewal.
My goal was to learn how each interviewee thought about their life, and how they turned the ups and downs they experienced into a coherent narrative.
In almost every interview I did, one or both of us cried. At the end, almost everyone asked for a copy of the questions so they could ask them to a friend or loved one. I include the complete set of interview questions in the paperback copy of my NYT bestseller Life Is in the Transitions.
Since we’re approaching the holidays, I thought I would offer some questions that you can ask yourself or a loved one going through a challenging time. Note that these questions are rarely about what the person is experiencing today. They are about the overall arc of the person’s life and what lessons they’ve learned from previous life transitions.
The point is: before going granular into where the person is now, pan out and learn more about how they got here, what they view as the overall themes of their life stories, what they learned about themselves in previous times of change.
Only by learning about yourself as a storyteller can you update the story of your life.
Reflecting back on your life, think of key transitions — these could involve home, work, family, health, or religion. Please identify one such transition that others might have found difficult that you got through, relatively speaking, without too much difficulty.
The next question is the opposite. Of the key transitions in your life, can you identify one that others might have found easy to navigate that really threw you for a loop?
I’d like you to think of the biggest transition in your life. It could be one that you’ve mentioned or one that you have not. I have a series of question about that time:
Was this a voluntary or involuntary transition? Was it easier or harder because of this?
What was greatest emotion you struggled with during this period?
Did you initiate, create, or have any rituals to mark this experience?
Did you mourn the past?
Can you tell me about a habit from the past you had to give up?
Can you tell me three creative activities you did to help rebuild the new you?
Was there a mentor, friend, loved one, or wise outsider who offered advice?
How long did this entire transition take?
Did you have an expression of freedom, joy, or new beginning at the end?
Join us for our next weekly session as we begin to identify what I’ve learned from asking hundreds of people these same questions — and how they can help you get through your own life transitions with less agony and more hope.
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If you liked this week’s lesson, check out the whole How To Master Life Transitions series — available here, on my Substack.
And you might enjoy reading these posts:
My TED Course: How to Master Life Transitions
Let’s Save Reading! My Annual Holiday Book Buying Guide
Or, you can contact me directly.