Map your life's turning points and see the story you've been telling

A life timeline exercise asks you to plot the moments that shaped you, such as turning points, achievements, setbacks, relationships and decisions, and then step back and look at the shape they make together. It comes from research on narrative identity, led by Dan McAdams at Northwestern University, which found that we hold our lives as stories and that the shape of the story we tell is linked to how well we feel.

Why do some old memories still steer your decisions?

Most of us carry a handful of moments around with us. It might be a sentence someone said to you at fifteen, a job you didn't get, a move to a new town, or a loss you still think about on certain days of the year. They happened a long time ago, and yet they keep turning up in the way you make choices today.

Often you won't even notice it happening. You simply find yourself steering away from certain kinds of decision, or drawn towards others, without being entirely sure why. It can feel as though some of your life is being decided by a younger version of you who didn't have all the facts.

The moments themselves can't be changed, of course. What you've made of them, and the story you've woven around them, is a different matter, and that's where there's room for hope.

What is narrative identity, and where does it come from?

Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern University, has spent decades studying how people tell the story of their own lives. In a 2013 summary of the research with Kate McLean, he described how we each hold our lives as a story, with themes, turning points and a sense of where it's all heading.

What's striking is that the shape of that story matters. People who tell what McAdams calls "redemption" stories, where something difficult eventually led somewhere good, tend to report higher wellbeing than people who tell similar events as a story of decline. The facts can be much the same; it's the telling that differs, and the telling has an effect on how people feel about their lives.

That's encouraging, because while you can't rewrite what happened, you can notice which story you've been telling about it, and ask whether it's the only one the facts allow.

How does My Life's Journey work in PiViva?

My Life's Journey is a timeline that you build at your own pace. You add each moment with a year or a rough age, a short title and a longer reflection, and you can tag it as a turning point, an achievement, a setback, a relationship or a decision if that helps you see the pattern.

There's no minimum, and five entries written with care will tell you far more than thirty dashed off in a hurry. Setbacks belong here just as much as the successes do, and so do the small moments, since a single sentence somebody said to you can earn its place as much as a new job.

When you've added a few, it's worth stepping back and looking at the whole line. What kind of story have you been telling yourself, and is it a fair one? You may find that a moment you've always filed under "failure" was also the start of something you're now rather proud of.

What if looking back brings up difficult things?

It can, and it's important to go gently. Take breaks, come back another day, and stop altogether if it starts to feel like too much.

This tool is for reflection, and some memories deserve more support than an app can give. If something painful comes up, a qualified coach or therapist is the right person to talk to, and Viv will say the same and point you towards people who can help.

For the everyday version of this work, it's often useful to follow your timeline with Limiting Beliefs, since many of the beliefs that hold us back were formed at moments you'll find on your own line. Values Clarification can also help you see what those turning points taught you to care about. Come back to your timeline after something significant happens, because the line keeps going, and the next chapter is still yours to write.