Adapted from Dan McAdams' Life Story Interview
Your life is a book. It has chapters — some short, some long, some you'd rather skip. But every chapter brought you here. And here is not the end.
This exercise asks you to see your life as a whole story with a structure, a flow, and — most importantly — a future.
Think of your life as a book divided into chapters. There's no right number — some women write four, some write twelve. Each chapter covers a distinct period of your life — not necessarily by years, but by who you were during that time. Give each chapter a title, the way a novelist would.
For example:
Now write one paragraph about the chapter you're in right now. Not the whole story — just: what is this chapter about? What is its theme? What is it asking of you?
And now — the part that changes everything — write about the chapter you want to open next. Give it a title. Write one paragraph about what happens in it. Be specific. Be hopeful. Be honest about what scares you and what excites you.
This is not prediction. It's intention. When you name the next chapter, you are telling your brain — and your body — that there is a future. That the story keeps going. That the current chapter, no matter how painful, is not the final one.
You've just done some of the deepest work this room offers. You've looked at where you are, examined the rules that shaped you, discovered what you're learning, imagined the life you want, heard from the woman you're becoming, confronted your own narrative, and placed yourself inside a larger story.
That's not small. Please don't treat it like it's small.
Some women do all of these exercises in a weekend. Some take one prompt per week and sit with it for days. Some come back months later and do them again, and are astonished at how different their answers are. All of those approaches are right.
If something surfaced that you want to explore further, you have two paths: go to The Shift to work with mental rehearsal and start becoming the woman who emerged in your writing. Or talk to Alma — she's read the research behind every exercise in this section, and she's very good at asking the next question when you don't know where to go.
The story you've been telling yourself about your life got you here. The story you write next gets you home.
With love and honesty,
Lada
Founder, Inner Rooms