4 Ways to Easily Share Your Story
Picture this: You wake up one morning and realize it’s your 100th birthday. You get out of bed, get ready for the day and walk into the kitchen to eat breakfast. When you get there, you’re surprised to see the faces of everyone you love staring back at you. They’re thrilled to see you and excited to celebrate with you.
Your great-granddaughter stands up and tells everyone that she made you a video highlighting all the best moments of your life. Everyone gathers around to watch. As 100 years of memories fill the screen, your eyes fill with tears as you realize how special this gift is. You can’t help but feel immensely grateful that you took the time to record the important stories of your life that made this video possible.
If this person really was you, how many stories would your great-granddaughter be able to tell about your life? Would the video be five minutes long… or fifty?
We love stories. We especially love them when we know the people they’re about. Stories can help us connect with others and can even help us get to know people that we’ll never be able to meet personally. What are you doing to record your life story? Maybe you’re keeping a journal, or maybe you’re creating voice memos of your experiences. Maybe you’re not doing anything at this point.
No matter where you’re at or what your situation is, it’s not too late to share your story. Here are four simple ways to get started:
Write It
This is probably the most common way to record your history. You can do it through a journal, = a blog or a collection of random notes and to-do lists. Writing things down is special in the sense that your posterity can see your handwriting. They can learn things about you just by the way you write. By reading your words, they will know if you were organized or messy, whether you are a good speller and what your grammar is like. By reading the stories you choose to write down, they will learn about the things that are most important to you.
Sometimes it can be daunting to start a task like this because you don’t know what to say. A good rule of thumb is to say anything that you want to remember, anything you learned from, anything that changed you or anything that made you happy. If writing with no guidance still sounds hard to you, keep reading. There are other great ways to record your history.
Record It
If you’re not one for writing but you love to talk, recording your history as an audio or video recording may be a good option. Once you learn how to do this, it is very simple. If you have a smartphone, you can use it to make the audio or video recordings. If not, you can record your stories on a separate video camera or audio recorder. Also, if you know anyone who has a knack for podcasting that could be a great way to record the story of your life.
If you decide that recording your story digitally is the best method for you, ask a friend or family member to help you save your recordings to a CD, DVD or flash drive periodically so they don’t get lost.
App It
StoryWorth is a great way to share your life history with loved ones. If you’re not familiar with StoryWorth, it is a program that helps you write your life story week by week, one step at a time. Once a week — or more often if you’d like — StoryWorth will email you a question. These questions can be selected by you, or they can be random. Your job is to respond to the email by answering the question with a story or experience from your life.
After one year has passed, StoryWorth will combine all of your responses and bind them into a beautiful hardcover book. Once your book is complete, you will receive one copy for yourself with additional copies available for purchase. StoryWorth is a great solution for anyone who wants to record their life story but isn’t sure what to say. You can learn more about StoryWorth here.
Picture It
Last but not least, we have Chatbooks. Chatbooks are the perfect option for people who love pictures. If you are someone who wants to tell your story visually, this is a great tool for you to use. When you share your story using Chatbooks, you are able to put in your photos and add short stories or captions to go with them. This tool doesn’t leave as much room for long stories, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Learn more about Chatbooks here.
As you can see, there are many ways to record your history and share your story. What often sounds extremely difficult and overwhelming can actually be very enjoyable if you go about it in a way that’s interesting and exciting to you.
Take a few minutes each day to share your story so your posterity can learn from you whenever they want. Record your memories so that you can look back and celebrate each moment of the meaningful life you’ve lived.
Many senior adults are jumping at the chance to make Life Plan Communities their home for life, thanks in large part to the safety and security they provide. It also doesn’t hurt that these communities provide residents with countless opportunities, like these, to live life to the fullest — and have a little fun in the process. For more information about the benefits of moving into a Life Plan Community, speak with one of our Summit Vista retirement counselors today.