I’ve written my goals for the year: to eat healthy and exercise, to pay down my home, and to dig deeper into friendships. But while those are great ambitions, if I left them as just ambitions, or resolutions, chances are I wouldn’t get them done. Most people don’t stick with their new-years resolutions. But it’s not because they lack the resolve. It’s because their goals aren’t embedded in the context of a narrative.
I’ve discovered something better than resolutions. If you’ve read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, you know I’ve reorganized my life into stories rather than goals. I don’t have any problem with goals. I like goals and still set them. But without an overarching plot, goals don’t make sense and are hard to achieve. A story gives a goal a narrative context that forces you to engage and follow through. People who are in great shape and have their finances in order probably don’t set goals to be in good shape or get their finances in order. They probably set goals of running a marathon or paying off their house. In other words, they think in narrative rather than goals. The goals get met in the journey of the story.
A story involves a person that wants something and is willing to overcome conflict to get it. If you plan a story this year, instead of just simple goals, your life will be more exciting, more meaningful and more memorable. And you are much more likely to stick to your goals. For instance, rather than saying I want to finish getting into shape this year, I’ve written down that I want to climb Mt. Hood with a couple friends. I have a vision of standing on top of the mountain in May, taking pictures and all that. Now my goal has a narrative context. That’s just a simple story, and I’ve planned some stories that are far more difficult but I only use that as an example. If my goal were to lose twenty pounds, I doubt I’d stick with it. But when you have friends flying up from Texas to summit the mountain with you, you’d better believe you are going to be hitting the stairs. I have to, because it I don’t, my story will be a tragedy. Again, stories give goals context.
So here are a few tips on planning a story for 2010:
1.Want something. In a story, the character wants something. Rudy wants to play football at Notre Dame, Harry wants Sally, Frodo wants to destroy the ring and so on. It’s true in every story, or else a story doesn’t make sense. If we don’t want something in our lives, our stories feel boring, long, meaningless and tired. We feel this way because we are sitting in the theater of our mind watching a story that isn’t getting started. Or worse, we are praying and asking God to give us a story while the entire time God is handing us a pen, telling us to write it ourselves. That’s why he gave us a will. So spend some time thinking about what you want with the year. Do you want to pay down the house, get into shape, deepen a relationship? Make your ambition clear and focussed. Choose two or three dominant desires and write them down.
2. Envision a climactic scene. Screenwriters often begin their story with the end in mind. They know their entire movie is heading toward that scene where Frodo throws the ring into the fire. And they write the movie to get him there. My climactic scene will be (God willing) standing on top of Mt. Hood. So I automatically know the hundreds of scenes that are going to lead up to that climax. I know there will have to be scenes hiking in the gorge, riding my bike, eating well, spending time at high altitude, accumulating gear and so forth. If you’re goals are relational (I highly recommend half your goals be relational, because relational stories are the most fulfilling) you might envision you and your wife renewing your vows, or you and your son refurbishing a car together. Once you have that climactic scene in mind, you’ll know the scenes it takes to get there. Also, write this stuff down. Even if you just throw it away, write down what that climactic scene looks like, smells like and feels like. It will get in your brain and like a good protagonist in a great movie, you’ll wake every day knowing what you are supposed to do with your time.
3. Create an Inciting Incident. Characters don’t want to change. That’s why so many new-years resolutions fail. We write down that we want to lose twenty pounds and end up gaining ten. It happens every year. What we are overlooking is a principle that every good screenwriter knows: Characters don’t change without being forced to change. An inciting incident is the event in a movie that causes upheaval in the protagonist life. The protagonist, then, naturally seeks to return to stability. And in order to do that, he HAS to solve his new problem. In Taken, Liam Neeson’s daughter is kidnapped and he MUST find her. In The Grapes of Wrath, the dust bowl forces the Joad family west. Characters must be pressured to change, or they won’t. And a narrative context can help. For instance, with my wrapping up my fitness goals (I’ve now lost well over 100 pounds, but have definitely taken the year off to just have fun, so it’s time to get back on it) I decided to climb Mt. Hood. But that isn’t enough. An inciting incident has to force me to climb Mt. Hood, so I contacted my friend Brandon Bargo in Austin and for the last couple months we’ve been talking about what it will take. We will also, hopefully, be climbing St. Helens and Adams that same month, so I’m going to have to be in really great shape. If I don’t, there’s a social consequence. I will let my buddy down, and I’ll also look like an idiot in front of all of you guys. So bringing a friend into the mix, and going public with my ambition serves as an inciting incident. Other inciting incidents might be signing up with friends for a marathon, joining a kick-boxing class, inviting friends to dinner every Sunday, writing an I’m Sorry letter to an old friend, buying an engagement ring, writing a check to a ministry, whatever…just something that forces you to move.
That should get you started, at least. Want something, imagine a climactic scene and create an inciting incident. And do it this week. Don’t wait. I created mine in November so I could get an early start.
I don’t know very many writers who love the actual act of writing. We will do anything to avoid work. But because we have to pay our bills, at some point every day a good writer sits down to do his/her work. And it’s no different when you’re living a good story. I doubt I am going to want to run stairs every day, but the truth is I have to. And I’m not going to want to eat right, either. But I have to. I’m not trying to make the whole thing sound grim. Living a good story is a lot of fun, but it can also be difficult and boring. But when it’s done, when you’ve renewed your vows or climbed a mountain, you’ll look back on one of the most rich and fulfilling years of your life, filled with scenes of difficulty and conflict, of beauty and sacrifice. The year will feel twice as long, because anything that isn’t a story is quickly forgotten by the brain, and your entire year will have been a story.
There’s a lot more to telling a good story with your life. I explore these ideas in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The book is available at your local bookstore, or your favorite online vendor. Good luck living a great story in 2010!
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Love this, Don. Thanks for inspiring me and so many others to live a better story with our lives.
Loving the book Don. Tripped me out when I read the paragraph about my sister-in-law Kim. Workin on my inciting incidents. Thankyou Don.
I like Fran’s word GUTS!
I just found you from Twitter. I’m going to hike the Grand Canyon this years so I’m going to make my story as well. What a great idea. Love your blog.
Great ideas and of course well written too. Thanks for the inspiration. Maybe I can now get through a year and actually check off something that I wrote in the beginning.
I took the LSAT and am now forcing myself to apply to law school. My score is good enough to get me in… I just have to do it.
In 9 months, I’ll be standing on a campus…somewhere…already involved in classes.
Thanks for making me imagine it.
Thanks for these practical suggestions for applying the brilliant concepts in your book, Don. Very helpful to me.
Thanks again, Don.
Donald Miller. I just want you to know that thousands of girls in the Portland area are going to be hiking up and down Mt. Hood for the entire month of May in the hopes that you will see them and fall in love with them. Hopefully this does not affect your ability to sleep at night.
Well Played.
Erin
Beautifully written as always Don…
hopeful 2010…
Thanks, Don for inspiring me to write my own story. Graduate school application deadlines are fast approaching and I am trying to imagine where I will be in the fall of 2010. Kind of scary, yet exciting.
This is a novel idea (pun intended). We are hard-wired for story-telling so it makes sense. Thanks for sharing!
Stumbled here via someone’s tweet and have fallen in love. Yes! A story! That’s the whole point of everything, isn’t it? At least, it should be.
I think you just defined the whole impetus of blogging. People don’t just want to do things and think things… They want to share these things with other people and make them into a story.
I started a blog when my husband and I decided to get out of debt. Now it’s not just a goal; it’s become a story to share with whoever wants to read about it and share the journey with us — and share their own. Talk about an accountability partner!
Great way to think about moving ahead in 2010 without the downfall of resolutions.
I’m devouring your new book. It’s been awesome! I’ve need to encounter these thoughts on living a good story. Thanks so much!
Dharma Bums.
Did I do it right? http://timetraveler83.tumblr.com/post/313452548/my-2010-story
I had already determined to do this instead of NY resolutions since I read the book between Christmas and now.
http://sizzledowski.blogspot.com/2009/12/writing-my-own-story.html
“Facing Up” is a great book to read for any future summit seeker…all the best!
What an inspiration!!! After FINALLY joining the blogging world a couple weeks ago, this aspiring writer is now thinking of my New Year’s post I’m going to write tomorrow. I’m now looking forward to planning out my “story” instead of a bullet list I may or may not achieve. Looking forward to reading your book too… got it for Christmas this year.
I love this idea — especially the part about creating an inciting incident for oneself. Gotta get the plot going somehow, right? Terrific post.
Donald Miller, I say you make a date with the girl named Erin. She sounds spunky.
As a Toastmaster, I’ve always lived by the simple motto if I want to communicate with an audience… Tell a Story, Make a Point.
I’ve always believed the same with goals… you need to have the screenplay in your head. Great Post!
Thank you for the visuals! Looking forward to all that the Lord has in store in 2010~
Jen
I read A Million Miles in one day. I can’t wait to re-read it. This year has been a tough story for me, full of inciting incidents that forced me to change. But at the end of it, I realized it was one of the best of my life. And certainly one of the most memorable. I’m looking forward to crafting 2010.
I want to marry you, Donald Miller. You are just fantastic. I do not know many who love Mondays as much as I do, for the very same reason.
Please keep doing what you do so well – writing about life and God and the in between spaces.
Warm regards,
a gal on the east coast named Sara
great thoughts on how to change our thinking about mindless traditions
So my wife started reading you and couldn’t stop talking about your books. I wondered if maybe she had a crush on you so I thought I should look a the books too. Now, I’m part of the way thru A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and i understand and she’s off the hook.
Great post too. Because of the story about your friend who course corrected his family by going after building an orphanage, I’m was already thinking of 2010 in terms of how we might build a more memorable family story before I even read this post. Thanks for the reinforcement
Great thoughts, now if we can only apply them!
Thanks for this…here’s a response at my blog if’n you’re interested.
http://cwhitler.blogspot.com/2010/01/fear-embarrasment-dry-wall-compound.html
2009 was a chapter in my story that was written with clenched fists, my hands tried to keep a white knuckle grip on my life, control was the underlying theme, and it has been the darkest year of my life. This year I want to release my grip, to put the pen in the hands of the one who so desires to author my story. No resolutions, just surrender.
Don, one of the coolest things I did in 2009 was to follow a reading of “A Million Miles” with a viewing of “Stranger Than Fiction”. I highly recommend it.
This is fantastic! Thrilled and nervous about what my story will look like this year. Done with asking God for a story and off to live mine.
Thanks for this.
Six years ago on the first of January I was at a turning point in my life. I was also going to be celebrating ten years of sobriety that February. What I wanted to do was to take a pilgrimage of some kind even though my religious days are decades behind me and my spiritual life devoted to a Higher Power my agnosticism cannot deny exists.
I decided to do something I had never before done — attend ninety AA meetings in ninety days – a prescription often given by old-timers to newcomers. To do ANYTHING every day EVERY day for any length of time would be a huge challenge for me; I knew that. I also knew I needed “something to do” other than just attend meetings. What I decided to do was to take a photograph of each meeting I attended (making sure that no one in attendance could be identified by looking at the photograph). And that’s precisely what I did.
My husband kept asking me “what are you doing” and “what do you mean to accomplish” and “how are you going to use the photographs” and I just kept saying to him, “I’ll know that on the 90th day.”
On the 87th day, my husband had a stroke and a heart attack. On the 90th day, he had open heart surgery.
On January 1, 2004, I had about 2/3rds of the emotional and spiritual resources and half the loyal friends necessary to be completely present for my husband and our family as he weathered the surgery and quickly recovered from both the (small) stroke and heart attack (caused by a “rare but well-described” and fortunately benign tumor).
By April when my “pilgrimage” was complete, I’d also decided to make some major changes in my life – changes that required the deep and lasting education provided by those ninety meetings. Today, when people learn of my drug and alcohol history, they are shocked, and invariably ask me how I got from there to here.
It all rolled out from 90 meetings in 90 days, I say. And if they’re interested, and patient, I tell them the story of my pilgrimage.
I like the idea of creating a story, rather than just goals, however I am struggling a bit – So, paint me a story for a goal like getting rid of my daily Starbucks habit, or spending less money on groceries, eating out and frivolous things . . . .
Just finished the book and decided to just that. I decided to write 5 specific stories for 2010, so far. Time will tell what other stories I decide to write.
Hi Donald–
Happy New Year. (By the way I like Fridays–the anticipation and curiosity about what the wknd holds!)
I have been reading A Million Miles and it’s really blessed me the last week. Then reading your book, reacquainted me with your blog. Good stuff. Set things in perspective for my new year. I think it’s rather serendipitous of the Lord for where I am in my journey.
I am working on some writing as well and so much of what you shared is bringing things into focus for me. Not just in my book, but where I find myself in my life. Making me want to take more risks this year, follow the Lord more deeply, live more fully. Thanks!
I’d love to talk with you more about some of this stuff. I think we’d have a lot to talk about. We actually met back in ‘04(?) at Campus Crusade’s San Diego Christmas Conference. I was on staff then and we talked briefly about story and the impact of movies. You: Romeo and Juliet Me: Moulin Rouge. Did you ever watch it? What’d you think?
I guess this year I’m just wanting to be more intentional about my life. And you seem like a good guy to get to know and be intentional about.
Let me know if you’d be up for a little banter or if you ever come through San Luis Obispo a meeting. We have grrreat wineries (o;
Cheers! Hope to hear from you soon.
Susie
Great stuff! Thank you!
Don,
I read your book this summer…it really was a memorable read. I heard you speak in Pennsylvania…It was a memorable moment.
As a single mom…I experience conflict often…I have learned not to run from it. I have learned to not fight the conflict…Surviving Breast cancer and being a single mom can do that.
Today, more conflict entered my life. Another abnormal mammogram. However I choose not to run from this conflict but to look for ways to grow through it. I am living a better story.
I’m reading A Million Miles In A Thousand Years. Just finished the part about the Goff family’s New Year’s Day parades. Reminds me of the New Year’s Day parties we had for years…the entire neighborhood crowded into our house, music, laughter, tons of wild hyena kids. Your book resurrected something in my soul. Thank you for the gift of this book. Reading it has prompted a number of interesting doings on my part. Realizing that my cancer survival story was my 17 year old daughter’s story as well–it was the topic of her college essay, I sent it to my friend Doug Ulman, CEO of Lance Armstrong Foundation. I’ve done the Ride for the Roses, now the LiveStrong Challenge, every year since finishing my cancer treatment. Did my first century last August; it was one of the toughest physical tests for me. My first 100 at 50!. My daughter’s story is beautiful, because she and my son and wife lived it with me–pain and joy. Doug wants to publish on LAF’s blog. I am about to write my letter to my daughter for her high school senior Kairos retreat this weekend. Your book has helped me with what I want to say to her, and it has helped me understand that I have buried much of the beauty and richness of the stories I have lived and am living. The resurrection feels good. Thanks.
read the book, knew i was supposed to do something brave (scared the shit out of me), threw up, then i did it. thanks for your challenge to live a better story.
I finished reading your book last month just before the new year, and loved it. My resolution was inspired by it to live a more memorable life. Already I’m making huge steps to do it. I’m naturally a very shy person who likes to stick to simple and familiar things. But the other day, I decided to put into action what I read in your book, got a friend, and went swing dancing. Just on a whim.
This way of living is so much better. Thank you so much for helping to change my life.
Don,
thank you for your CLARITY – first and foremost. I am working at trying to become a better speaker/teacher and I have envisioned certain things , but not yet in the way you said! I think that you have a great and amazing gift. And I also know that it sometimes comes with a burden when you are sharing it with the world. So thank you for making it matter – and for making it crystal clear and compelling for the reader. Something to strive for.
“well done good and faithful servant, I have entrusted you with a few things I will put you in charge of many things.”
Salty Sarah
Salt and clay ministries
I’m almost finished with the book and have been extremely inspired. I’ve signed up for a race in May to help with my health goals and we’ve talked about adoption for years and I’ve finally taken some steps to move ahead. I’m encouraging everyone in my life to read it as well. Just wanted to say thanks!
I feel like I am starting to get all of this after reading the book, but this post was a succinct reminder of the story I need to put myself into. I’m starting now! Nigeria here I come!
I read your blog of January 1 some days ago and was struck speechless by it. What you said about the importance of stories struck me as true, something I knew deeply but had buried in my desire to muffle my emotions, silence my fantasies, act “mature”. It rang true with what I knew at a heart level — that Jesus was a story teller, that the Bible is One Great Love Story, and that people I want to know better, who have spunk and live interesting lives, and who accomplish things and move forward throughout their lives, are those who live a story, not those who live a check list. I tend to be of the check list variety. And my internal, true life feels “boring, long, meaningless and tired,” as you write. “We feel this way because we are sitting in the theater of our mind watching a story that isn’t getting started.” So true. And you are correct that it is because I don’t want anything. I have given up wanting because of disappointment, feeling powerless, mistaking inertia for surrender. I see that I have been wrong. I want to write My Story of 2010 with a joy filled, hope filled pen.
This rocks my face off
I read this on Jan 1st and re-read it today. Still very inspirational and going to give 2010 a story or two to remember. Thanks so much! God Bless.
I wanted to tell my girl I loved her on Valentines day, but I wasn’t sure I could getup the nerve to do it. I knew I loved her, its just that saying is a pretty big step. So you know what I did? I remembered this blog post and I painted “I love You” on the gift I was going to give her so that I had to tell her. I created an “Inciting Incident”.
So I told her before I gave the gift and it ended up being one of the best nights I have ever had.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom and thoughts Don.
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