How to Use the Hero's Journey as a Framework for Personal Growth (34 Journal Prompts)
Your favorite book or movie may follow the Hero's Journey, even if you've never heard of it before. Most stories and well-known books follow a similar pattern, as much as we love to claim that our favorite story is different! In this post, I'll share how you can use the Hero's Journey as a framework for personal growth!
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A few weeks ago, I was reading the book Best Story Wins by Mark Edwards. It's a book about business communication, and it mentioned the Hero's Journey framework.
As I read, I was thinking about how it applied to branding for businesses and had the thought that this framework could be applied to personal growth as well.
Over the past year, the Hero's Journey has been mentioned multiple times in my business classes. As a marketing student, I like to think about how marketing, communications, and everyday life intersect.
If you have no idea what the Hero's Journey is, we'll cover that first. Then, I'll share how you can use the Hero's Journey for personal growth!
If you enjoy journaling, this post includes prompts you can consider and write about as you read!
What is the Hero's Journey Framework?
In a nutshell, the Hero's Journey is a popular framework that Joseph Campbell created after studying myths and stories across cultures. Many books, movies, and TV series follow the Hero's Journey because it creates an exciting and compelling storyline.
Many businesses are also now adding storytelling to their brands because people naturally connect with stories.
The hero of the story sets out on an adventure, faces trials, overcomes their adversity, and then returns home having learned something.
Here are the basic steps in the Hero's Journey:
- The ordinary world
- The call to adventure
- The refusal of the call
- Finding a mentor
- Crossing the threshold
- Facing trials and challenges
- The transformation
- The return
There are some additional steps, but for the purposes of this post, this is what we'll work with.
Now, how does this apply to you?
Stories often resonate because the experiences portrayed often follow patterns that we experience too! We all try new things, experience setbacks, and grow from our challenges.
You can use the Hero's Journey to map out where your life is now, and where you want to be. Even though the Hero's Journey is a storytelling technique for books and movies and life isn't the movies, the Hero's Journey can help you reframe your life to see setbacks as helpful for growth.
Next, we'll explore how you can apply the Hero's Journey framework to your own life!
How to Use the Hero's Journey as a Framework for Personal Growth
1. The Ordinary World: Figure Out Your Starting Point
The first step in using the Hero's Journey as a framework for personal growth is identifying where you currently are. This is your starting point for making changes to your life.
- What does your life look like today?
- What areas of your life are stagnant?
- What is your current environment like?
- What was your life like in the past?
- How happy are you with your current life?
- Who are you as a person and what are your values?
Reflecting on where you are in life right now will help you decide where you want to go and help you identify areas where you can grow.
2. The Call to Adventure: Decide on Your Goals + New Opportunities
Usually, in stories, the main character sets out on an adventure. In Harry Potter, Harry receives a letter from Hogwarts.
Your call to adventure may not be as momentous as five hundred letters coming through your chimney, but whatever it is, it's an invitation for embarking on a new journey.
This might look like starting a new job, a new semester at school, or moving somewhere new.
- What are the adventures you've embarked on in life?
- What experiences would you like to have?
- What new things do you want to try?
- What are your main goals in life?
Thinking about your life in terms of the Hero's Journey framework can help you think outside of the box when identifying what you want out of life.
3. The Refusal of the Call: Identify What is Holding You Back
With large changes comes a lot of uncertainty and unknowns. I was very nervous about moving away to college because it was such a big change, and that's normal!
- What fears do you have about experiencing new things?
- What fears and anxieties have you had in the past?
- What opportunities have you turned down and why? Do you have any regrets?
- What is stopping you from working toward your goals?
When you pinpoint what's holding you back from working toward your goals, you'll be able to identify your next or first step forward. It may not be a physical roadblock.
It may be a mental barrier such as staying in the research phase for too long, decision fatigue, self-doubt, overwhelm, or procrastination.
4. Finding a Mentor: Build a Support System
Having mentors, friends, and people you can look up to in life is so important! They can help guide and support you throughout life.
Here are a few questions you can think about when it comes to finding mentors.
- Who do you usually turn to for advice?
- Who is in your support system (family, friends)?
- How do these people support you and in what areas of your life?
- How often do you communicate with your "mentors"?
- Are you giving back by mentoring anyone?
- Where do you go to learn new things?
If you don't currently feel like you have a strong support system, this is an area of your life you can work on.
Likewise, your mentors don't all have to be people that you know personally. I'm learning how to improve my writing by reading a lot.
If you aren't actively investing in your own growth, this is a great place to start. To me, personal growth is about making sure that you are constantly seeking to grow as a person in any area that you want.
There are many books, podcasts, and courses you can use to learn and grow!
5. Crossing the Threshold: Identify the First Steps
Crossing the threshold is about taking that first step toward a new experience or toward reaching a new goal.
- Looking at your answers to step #2, what would be the first steps in those journeys?
- What is preventing you from taking those first steps?
- What roadblocks are in the way of you working toward your goals?
When I quit blogging for a few years, a combination of things were holding me back from writing again. When I examined why I stopped writing, I realized that I just needed to take that first step back into the writing world and stop focusing on perfectionism.
It's okay that my writing isn't perfect because that's why I'm practicing!
6. Facing Trials + Challenges: Recognize Your Setbacks
Everyone (no matter who they are) faces trials, setbacks, and challenges.
In the past year, I've faced multiple challenges, and it's just about moving forward with them, even if you don't know how things are going to turn out.
- What challenges or setbacks have you faced in your life?
- What setbacks might you face when working toward reaching your goals?
- What challenges are you currently facing?
- What can you do to overcome your current challenges? Or what would you need to happen to move forward?
Most worthwhile goals involve setbacks and things that are hard. When you do reach the goal, it's often even more fulfilling and you learn more.
7. The Transformation: Identify Your Growth
The transformation part of the Hero's Journey is all about the growth that comes from challenges. This is the part in the movie or book where you see the protagonist in the story overcome their challenges.
- How have your challenges helped you grow as a person?
- How have those experiences shaped you and your views on life?
- Have you learned any new skills from your challenges?
In the middle of challenges, it can be hard to reflect on what you are learning, so if you are currently in the midst of your own battles, you may not yet know what you'll learn from it.
8. The Return: Reflect on Milestones You've Reached
The return is the final step in using the Hero's Journey as a framework for personal growth. This is when the hero returns from the adventure with new growth and lessons learned.
- What goals have you reached?
- Are there any goals that you didn't think you'd reach, but did?
- What unexpected goals or milestones have you reached?
- What challenges have you overcome?
As you write about these prompts, this is your chance to celebrate how far you've come in life, no matter how far you still have to go! Your wins don't have to be large because progress is progress.
Final Notes on How to Use the Hero's Journey as a Framework for Personal Growth
As you reflect on your life, patterns will probably emerge. Real life isn't like the movies, so your life probably won't follow a perfect arc and have that perfect happy ending.
Framing my life as a story helps me recognize that without challenges, life would be boring, and I wouldn't grow as a person.
The Hero's Journey framework can be used to visualize where you want your life to go and see how challenges fit into the bigger picture. It can also help you identify areas of growth!
Here is how you can use the Hero's Journey as a framework for personal growth in a nutshell.
- Write about where you are at in life
- Write about what you want to accomplish in life and what your goals are
- Journal about what is stopping you from reaching your goals, including mental and physical roadblocks
- Write about what your support system is like and how you learn new skills
- Figure out what your first steps are to working toward your goals
- Journal about what challenges and setbacks you've already faced in life
- Write about how your challenges have shaped you and helped you grow
- Journal about how far you've come and reflect on the goals you have reached
If you enjoyed this post about how to use the Hero's Journey as a framework for personal growth, you may enjoy these posts as well!
- How to Effortlessly Start Journaling Daily (Create the Habit Now)
- 183 Journal Prompts to Inspire a Better Life
- 5 Life Rules to Follow This Year for Personal Growth
- Level 10 Life Assessment: My Favorite Annual Life Audit
I hope you liked learning how to use the Hero's Journey as a framework for personal growth!
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