Okay so we have an online writing program
called “self-authoring” and that helps
people construct the narrative of their life.
That’s a good way of thinking about it.
And so part of the narrative of your life
is what happened to you in the past that made
you who you are now – good and bad.
And part of what you want to do— think about
the purpose of memory.
“Well the purpose of memory is to remember
the past.”
It’s like “No, that’s wrong!”
The purpose of memory is so that you take
from the past what you need not to do stupid
things again in the future.
So the purpose of memory is to learn from
the past so that you can construct the future
more effectively.
So now if you’ve had terrible things happen
to you in the past and you don’t understand
them, what that means is that you’re insufficiently
prepared for the future.
And that means you’re going to be in a constant
state of anxiety and stress.
And so if you write about your past and you
do a causal analysis of the good and the bad
things that happen to you, then that arms
you more effectively for operation in the
present and the future.
And that produces an increment in physical
health by the way.
Okay, so that’s the past-authoring program.
It asks you to divide your life into epochs
and to outline the emotionally significant
events and to essentially do a causal analysis
of them.
So it’s like you’re getting the gist of
the story of your life down.
You’re articulating yourself.
So the present-authoring program uses a personality
model to help you identify your faults (so
that you can improve them) and your virtues
(so that you can continue to capitalize on
them).
It’s the simplest of the three subprograms.
And the future-authoring program, which is
the one we’ve done the most research on,
helps you first of all formulate a vision
for your life.
So the idea is okay, imagine that you’re
charged with your own care and that you’ve
determined to do a good job of it.
Okay, and then it asks you specific questions
about your life.
If you could have what you wanted three to
five years down the road, what would be good
for you?
What do you want from your friends?
What do you want from your career?
Are you going to educate yourself?
What do you want from your family?
What do you want from an intimate relationship?
How are you going to handle pitfalls like
drug and alcohol use and other sorts of temptations?
How are you going to take care of yourself
mentally and physically?
What are you going to do with your time outside
of work that’s productive and meaningful?
If you could have what you wanted and that
would be good for you, what would that look
like?
And then it asks you to write for 15 minutes
about what your life could be like if those
conditions were met three to five years in
the future.
Then it asks you to do the reverse.
Take stock of your failings.
Imagine they get out of hand and things aren’t
so good for you three to five years down the
road.
What does that look like?
Okay, now you’ve established two points:
Something to strive for and something to stay
the hell away from.
And that’s maximally motivating, because
if you want to be motivated to do something,
you can’t just be hopeful about it.
You have to be hopeful about doing it and
afraid of not doing it.
And that way your anxiety is behind you pushing
you forward instead of in front of you stopping
you.
Because like imagine you wanted to undertake
a new enterprise.
You might say “Oh my god, look at all the
risks!
Look at all the threat!”
And that could paralyze you.
But if you can say simultaneously “Yeah,
fair enough, but look where I might end up
if I don’t do it.”
Like “Oh!
Well, that’s a whole different issue.”
It’s like, “Well there’s dangers ahead
of you, but there’s dangers behind you too.”
So maybe it’s worthwhile taking the risk.
So anyway you want to have both your negative
and your positive emotion systems working
for you.
Then in the future-authoring program you take
your positive vision and you develop an implementable
plan which includes philosophical justifications.
So one question would be all right, break
your vision up into nine practical steps.
Develop an implementation strategy.
And then articulate why, if you accomplish
goal one your life would be better, your family’s
life would be better, your society would function
better.
Because you need deep reasons to keep you
on track, because otherwise your own doubts
will undo you let alone other people’s opposition.
You have to articulate your rationale so that
you can quell your doubts and move forward
powerfully.
And so those programs, that program in particular
has a very salutary effect on people.
So we’ve given it to thousands of university
students now in business schools in particular.
Thirty percent improvement in overall retention.
