From the past, Myths has influenced human history. They can offer insight into personal struggles, growth, and self-discovery by reflecting universal human experiences. Myths have inspired countless works of art, literature, and philosophy. They fuel creative exploration, allowing artists, writers, and thinkers to reinterpret traditional stories and address contemporary issues through timeless symbols and themes. Ultimately, myth is valuable for its ability to provide meaning, connect people across generations, and offer a framework through which individuals and societies explore their place in the world. This is because Stories stick deep in our hearts. They inspire us toward action and are vehicles for spreading ideas. Storytelling is one of the longest-standing human traditions. However, not every story will resonate with every person. In this article, we’ll explore the qualities of a good story that inspire change.
- Myths and the heros journey
The American mythologist, Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion has focused on universal patterns and structures in myth, exploring how this shape human experience and understanding. Campbell described in his influential book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) a common narrative structure that appears in myths, legends, and stories across cultures. This structure follows a hero who embarks on a transformative journey, faces trials, and ultimately returns transformed with new insights or powers.
Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, outlined in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), is a 12-step structure found in myths and stories across cultures. This model maps the universal stages a hero undergoes, reflecting growth, transformation, and self-discovery. Here’s a breakdown of each step:
- Ordinary World: The hero exists in a familiar setting, living an ordinary life. This setting allows us to see the hero’s everyday routine, limitations, and potential struggles, grounding them in a relatable context.
- Call to Adventure: The hero encounters a challenge or problem that disrupts their ordinary world. This may be an opportunity, message, or a person that hints at a journey or calls the hero to action, sparking curiosity or dread.
- Refusal of the Call: The hero hesitates or refuses the call, often due to fear, self-doubt, or obligations. This reluctance highlights the hero’s inner conflict and establishes the stakes of the journey.
- Meeting the Mentor: A mentor figure provides guidance, support, or training, equipping the hero with knowledge or tools to face the journey ahead. This mentor can be a wise person, an object, or a spiritual guide.
- Crossing the Threshold: The hero commits to the journey, leaving the known world and entering an unfamiliar realm. This crossing signifies the hero’s decision to face the unknown and confront the challenges ahead.
- Tests, Allies, and Enemies: In this new world, the hero encounters obstacles, meets allies, and confronts enemies. These interactions test the hero’s skills, forming alliances and rivalries that provide essential learning experiences.
- Approach to the Inmost Cave: The hero nears the journey’s heart, often a dangerous or emotional confrontation. This stage is a preparation for the final ordeal, where the hero gathers strength, formulates a plan, or faces inner doubts.
- Ordeal: The hero faces a major challenge or crisis, often confronting their greatest fear. This ordeal is the most intense moment in the journey, where the hero must prove their courage, resolve, or skill to survive or achieve victory.
- Reward (Seizing the Sword): Having overcome the ordeal, the hero receives a reward or accomplishment. This “boon” could be a physical prize, insight, or new strength, symbolizing the journey’s success and the hero’s transformation.
- The Road Back: The hero begins the journey home but often faces challenges on the return. This phase tests whether the hero can retain their wisdom or power in their ordinary life, reinforcing their growth and resolve.
- Resurrection: A final test awaits, often the journey’s climactic moment, where the hero faces a last obstacle that threatens their newfound wisdom, sense of self, or goal. Emerging victorious, they are “reborn” with greater insight or mastery.
- Return with the Elixir: The hero returns to the ordinary world, transformed, with the “elixir” or reward that can benefit others. This gift, whether knowledge, wisdom, or a tangible object, represents the hero’s completed journey and the impact of their transformation on the world around them.
12-step structure of the Hero Journey (Joseph Cambell)
This structure has influenced countless stories, from ancient myths to modern storytelling, as it encapsulates universal aspects of human experience and growth. This structure has influenced many authors; .R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings; J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series and film makers. Star Wars (1977) – Directed by George Lucas; The Matrix (1999) – Directed by the Wachowskis;
- Storytelling, memory and emotion
Storytelling and memory are deeply interwoven, with each reinforcing and shaping the other in significant ways. Storytelling enhances memory retention by transforming facts, ideas, or events into narrative structures, which are easier to recall than isolated data. Stories provide context, sequence, and emotional engagement, making details more memorable. Through storytelling, communities pass down shared histories, values, and traditions. These stories form a collective memory that preserves cultural identity and continuity which is a power tool for influencing. Oral histories allow communities to maintain a sense of belonging and shared heritage.
Stories often evoke strong emotions, and emotions are powerful memory triggers. When stories elicit emotions, they forge a deeper memory connection, allowing listeners to retain details more vividly and personally. Memory itself is a form of storytelling, as we often remember events in a narrative format, linking moments into a cohesive story. This storytelling process shapes our sense of self and personal identity, as we narrate our experiences to ourselves and others. Storytelling allows us to interpret and make sense of events, organizing memories around themes or life lessons. This meaning-making process helps us recall events not just as isolated moments but as parts of a larger personal story. Repeated storytelling reinforces memories but can also adapt them. Each time a story is told, it may be altered slightly, which can shape how memories are stored and later recalled, leading to a blend of fact, interpretation, and imagination. Through storytelling, memory becomes more than just the retention of facts; it transforms into a powerful tool for understanding and connecting with others, ourselves, and our shared histories. Useless to say that leading change to success could be done without storytelling.
- How to enhance Story Impact
If a story is about a person with a problem, then you need to motivate others to help solve that problem. You’ve got to get people excited about what you’re saying. They have to feel it, see it, and believe it in order to create impact. To do so, story needs to be personal. Personal stories resonate with us and move us as human beings. Everyone has a story to share. Needless to say, that in order to have intense impact, the story has to convey emotion. Emotion could be transmitted by making characters vulnerable. Reflection is the part of the story where you help the audience make sense of what they just heard. Anecdotes could help on that. If you need that your audience remember, relate to, and respond to your story, choose to vividly paint a picture for your audience. In story that helps to mobilize people, you need to Highlight “next steps,” “what to remember,” or “the one thing you want them to do.” To do so, you need to include What do you want people to do after hearing your story? A Call to action.
Don’t forget that the Change is a journey. In a context where complexity is everywhere and systemic approach is needed to structure the system in order to understand it, design and redesign it. But before, we need to humanize it in order to motivate ourselves and others. we need to be careful about what stories do we tell ourselves about the current system? It’s the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others that set the tone and norms for how we operate.