how to craft your unique story.

If there’s one thing that requires some major thought and consideration in the process of branding yourself and your business, it’s your story.

Who are you? How did you land in the wellness world? What led you to this work? Why do you feel called to help others? And so on.

When I start working with a client, this is step one in getting her not only clear about how to position herself, but also clear on what makes her unique.

Together, we go back in time and identify the pivotal moments in her life and how they helped shape her journey to the present. We investigate the challenges, the triumphs, the dreams, the emotional twists and turns, and we link them all up to create a compelling narrative that will feed into her website’s about page, her professional bio, and most of all the look, feel, voice, and vibe or her brand online.

Diving deep and uncovering your unique story is foundational to setting your entire wellness business and brand apart from everyone else in the industry. So while it may feel like a chore, it should always come first. Because it will inform everything you do—from your business’s mission to your website aesthetic to your social media feed.

So, how do you go about this?

Here are three simple steps to clarifying and crafting your story.

1. Create a pivotal moment outline. Take out a piece of paper and bullet out each experience in your life that led you to find your passion for health and wellness. Think back to your childhood, your teenage years, your college years, your first job, your first love, or your first health issue. How did those experiences make you feel? What did you learn? What did you believe? How did you transform or grow? Also include the actions you took, the books you read, the people that inspired you to take a course or cook a healthy meal, who in your life introduced you to kale, and where you were the moment you decided to take the leap an invest in a holistic nutrition education or wellness course or integrative doctor. Note all of the shifts in your life that resulted from these small and big decisions you made. Put it all on paper as you remember it. Don’t worry about neatness or order.
2. Craft a Narrative. At this point, you should have identified your unique pathway to the present moment with the collection of experiences throughout your life. Now is the time to go through and create your “highlight reel,” meaning the moments, happenings, decisions that are the most important to your journey. That will help you shape and simplify your notes to create a narrative. When you have your finalized notes and are getting ready to write, take the approach of telling a story from the first person. 1) Start with a compelling opening that encompasses your biggest lesson or transformation on your journey. For example: “Most people are surprised to know this, but I’ve been living with a chronic condition for 10 years,” or “My favorite food wasn’t always gluten-free avocado toast. It was Captain Crunch,” or “It wasn’t until I was 25 years old that I understood how important having a healthy relationship with my body would change my life.” 2) And then, tell the “how” part from there. How did you change, what inspired you to awaken, etc.? 3) Finish up with where you are today and what your mission is.
3. Edit, edit, edit. Writing your story can easily get lengthy and bogged down with details. So once you get your entire narrative written, go back and start to simplify. As you begin this process, keep your business in mind. What area of health and wellness is your specialty? Who is your audience? How does your story connect to dots? You want to make sure that your story is written in a way that not only makes you relatable but also connects with the challenges that your ideal clients may be facing. So as your story comes to light, and you recognize where you can bring the most value to someone else’s life, be sure that value is clear in your narrative. For example, if you healed your acne naturally and you want to help other women heal their acne, be sure your story shares the details of that specific journey. Or if cooking your own meals helped you cultivate feelings of self-love and you want to help other women love themselves too, be sure those aspects are shared in detail too.

As your story comes to life, you will notice that you feel way more solid in what direction you want to take your business, who you want to support, and how you want to do it. Best of all, you will have content to use on your website and a whole list of experiences to use for blog and social media post inspiration.

If you’re someone who struggles with writing, I highly recommend recording a voice memo of your journey first. With your outline in front of you, start to tell your story out loud and record it as many times as you need to feel like you’ve got it down. Then transcribe your memo into written form and edit from there.

Using voice memo allows you to get familiar with how you talk, which is a great way to get comfortable with writing in your own voice too, instead of writing in a professional, grammatically correct tone. Know what I mean?

Now, I’d love to hear from you!! Was this helpful? Have you struggled with writing your story or bio? Tell me in the comments below.