I have gotten some feedback that what I have been writing has been too dense and not actionable enough. This week, I am going to try something different.
Please share your thoughts by replying to this email. I don’t want to lose the depth of the thinkers I borrow from, but I also want to make sure it is helping people.
In this post, we will examine material covered in the newsletters (here and here) on Mythocracy, to make it practical for individuals seeking to implement changes in their own lives.
Change is hard and constant
Change is constant and ongoing; whether we try to change or not, we will be a different person a year from now than we are now. Certainly, certain things will remain the same, but our experiences will change us; some of our beliefs, values, and behaviors will shift without us doing anything. From that perspective, change is easy. However, changing in a more directed and purposeful fashion can be hard. While who we are can and does change naturally over time, we don’t perceive that, and we often have a view that sees how much we have changed in the past, but have a more static view of how we will be in the future.
Purposeful change challenges our very identity and our stable sense of who we are. That sense that even though we are different from what we were 10 years ago, we believe that in 10 years we will be essentially the same.
In other posts, I have looked at the theoretical and ontological underpinnings of the transindividual, which is important for this approach, so we won’t go into it in any real detail here except to say that. We don’t change in isolation; we are connected to social groups at all times, and we mutually change as well.
The stories we tell are what I would consider transindividual, they are collective as much as they are individual. How we think about stories is connected to our own unique experience as well as the themes and tropes that are common in our social group.
Narratives can therefore be an effective approach to change. Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a mindset shift, it isn’t the case where you can flip a switch and suddenly view the hole world differently because you are telling a different story, and we will explore why that is, but you can gain more power over how you relate in context and make larger shifts over time.
Narratives shape desire and belief.
Power, and with it the power to change, is the ability to give attention to different desires and beliefs. Stories are all around us, we are constantly absorbing stories, and those stories that capture our attention already shape what we believe and desire.
Emotions and feelings drive desires, whereas beliefs are driven by knowledge and information. There is undoubtedly a range of desires and beliefs: some are stronger than others, for desires, that strength is more related to intensity. Beliefs vary according to the degree of criticality and absoluteness of the knowledge. 1
And beliefs and desires are self-reinforcing. The more we have come to desire or believe a certain thing, the more we are likely to continue to believe and desire it. And beliefs and desires are interconnected. We desire a new car because of the things we believe the car represents to us, and because we feel drawn to it, we then form certain beliefs about it. As Spinoza said, “We neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and desire it.” 2
There is an additional important point to make which is that there are three forms of memory: the memories that we retain in the moment what we notice and don’t notice in the flow of experience, the memories from the experiences we have had in the past and can recall, and the memories of things that have happened outside of you directly which come in the form of stories.
What is a narrative
Before we can talk about narratives and how we can change them, we need to look at what a narrative is. There are six characteristics of narratives:
- “[A] narrative must describe a story that unfolds over time, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.” 3 A narrative is about transformation over time and takes place in time. A narrative has to be more than a description of how things are.
- There has to be “at least one main character (the protagonist)” and the narrative must be told from one or more specific points of view. 4
- There needs to be at least an implied “causal consistency (which may be different from that of our actual world).” 5 That is, there needs to be some implication in the narrative about what caused specific events or changes to occur.
- There needs to be an implication of values upon the conditions of the transformation. Someone following the narrative will need to be able to invest “their desires and beliefs in terms of the supposed desires and beliefs of the story’s subject”. 6
- “A narrative must both respect certain canonical norms that define its place within social discourses and institutions, and – at least for us modern adults – it must simultaneously provide an element of surprise, meaning that it cannot be entirely predictable just on the basis of these canonical norms.”7 That is, it must be both relatable and understandable based on other things we have seen, heard, or read, and it must be different enough to have an element of surprise.
- Finally, a narrative must have “the ability to distill the hypercomplexity of reality into a schematic, unifying imaginary model.” 8 In other words, a narrative needs to have enough complexity to feel like a glimpse into a real world, but also must be in a model that is coherent and makes sense.
In practice, what this means is that to tell a story, it needs to connect events in time in a way that implies what caused other things to happen and is about at least one person. It also needs to make sense as a form, the story needs to follow the model of other stories that we know and understand, and it needs to be coherent.
This means we can’t just make up some wonderful thing we want to be true and have it function as a narrative. We need to make connections and arrange different ideas, desires, and beliefs into new patterns. We need to connect things in new ways to tell new stories. 9 And from there, the critical question to ask is “What is the story doing for us?” 10
Purposeful Stories
People always tell stories for a purpose; it could be simply to entertain, but it might also be to elicit some action. And while stories themselves may not always be true, their purpose is often rooted in something real.
Here, it is essential to introduce the idea of scripting. Or telling stories in such a way to try to create a reality. It imagines other real people as fictional characters and attempts to have them behave in a specific way. 11
This works, in part, because there are pre-existing social and individual desires and beliefs, as Citton states.
The art of storytelling is all about capturing (pre-existing) desires and beliefs in order to attach them to oneself and bend them to one’s own advantage. The whole focus of storytelling, then, is to invent what the reader wants to hear 12
It is a way of conducting the conduct of another person, even if that person is you. Now, any attempt to shift the conduct of anyone (including yourself) is based on the context.
Our circumstances and context limit our choices. The things (or people) that have power have influenced how we and others make those choices. Just because we are telling a new narrative doesn’t mean we are separated from everything else that drives our attention and shapes our desires and beliefs.
Citton gives a great example comparing classical music with free jazz. There is a belief that classical music is entirely scripted. Every detail is written in the score, and a great classical musician can perfectly and flawlessly recreate the music as the composer intended. Free jazz is believed to be completely free, with each musician able to do whatever they want. The truth is more nuanced. Classical musicians do need to interpret the score, and free jazz performers are limited and influenced by previous performers, other group members, and even the audience’s expectations (there are even more levels to this when considering that both the classical and free jazz performers need to make a living). As we think about each of these levels, each actor is trying to influence the desires and beliefs of those they are interacting with. 13
Even as you tell your own story to shift your own desires and beliefs, you will be limited in many ways by the other stories that guide your choices. The more of those other stories that can be woven into the complexity of the story, the more you can direct attention around them; however, there is a risk with too complex a story of losing attention altogether.
Grabbing Attention
We capture people’s attention through attractors, which take the form of hooks and the plot.
Most of us are familiar with hooks. It often can refer to the catchy part of a song, or the initial part of a headline or social media post designed to get our attention, but it can also be the cover of a book, the poster, or trailer for a movie. But how do those work? If you see any influencers on LinkedIn, you will notice some common patterns, and those patterns do work. The reason they grab our attention is not really the content, but that we identify the “styles of expression and communication.” 14
When we see “Here are the five keys to mastering product management,” we know the genre of that post; it is going to be a simple, step-by-step guide to understanding a complex topic. What makes it sticky is that we recognize the form.
The second type of attractor is the plot, which is how the parts of the story are tied together to form a whole. The plot needs to match the genre expectations set up by the hook. If the five-step guide mentioned above were to present five keys in their full complexity with a ton of nuance, it would likely lose the reader, as the plot wouldn’t match the hook.
What makes attractors, both hooks and plots, work is that we recognize them in relation to patterns that we have seen before. And so when we are trying to do something new, we often need to lean on common patterns where we can so that we can push the envelope in other ways.
There are two types of plots: those that reiterate what is already known and those that reconfigure what is known into something new. But we shouldn’t look at just whether the plot reiterates what we know or challenges us. We should also see the nature of the conflict it draws us into. When our attention is captured, we usually take sides in the conflict. 15
There are five key ways that we are led to take sides:
- The transition that structures the narrative may portray the change as positive or negative based on what is gained or lost through that transition. This can lead us to see one state, either the prior or latter, as better preferred and determine how we feel about the subject.
- There is usually a polarization between the subject of a narrative and an opponent, which can lead us to take sides.
- Different sets of values conflict in the narrative, prompting us to take sides.
- The way the story is narrated can also sway our allegiance from one side to the other.
- The belief system we carry into the engagement with a story will also determine which side we take. 16
That is how we tell the story, which can determine which “side” we feel emotionally drawn towards. When trying to make a change for yourself, consider the side as play and recognize the essential role of opposition.
A narrative for self-change
Let’s put these ideas together into a few key steps that you can use to help craft a narrative for yourself.
- Is there a clear beginning, middle, and end structure? Is there a transformation that is part of the narrative?
- Is there a main character? (It can be, but doesn’t have to be, you.)
- Is there an implied causal structure? Do things seem to follow naturally with an idea of what caused things to happen?
- Is it clear whether the transformation is considered good or bad?
- Would someone else reading it see it as a story?
- Does it all make sense together?
- Is there a clear opposition?
Here is an example. Sarah remembered when their CEO could code alongside the team and make decisive calls, but now, at 200 employees, he fumbled through buzzword-heavy presentations while avoiding any real decisions. Watching him avoid giving feedback to his executive team made it clear that the CEO was no longer capable of leading the company.
Now construct a new narrative. Ensure the form is similar to the original, but tell a distinct story. Link the parts together differently. And change what is seen as positive and not.
Here is an example of a revised version of the previous one.
Sarah remembered when their CEO could code alongside the team and make decisive calls, but now, at 200 employees, he seemed to hesitate. What made him successful before was holding him back. Sarah knew that he needed more support than ever, and decided it was time to step up and support him and the employees in a new way.
- Citton, Yves Translated by David Broder. Mythocracy: How Stories Shape Our Worlds London: Verso, 2025. p 31 ↩
- Spinoza, Benedict de. Ethics. Translated by Edwin Curley, with an Introduction by Stuart Hampshire, Penguin Classics, 2005. p 76 ↩
- Citton, Yves Translated by David Broder. Mythocracy: How Stories Shape Our Worlds London: Verso, 2025. p 65 ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid 66 ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid 69-70 ↩
- Ibid 71 ↩
- Ibid 82 ↩
- Ibid 95 ↩
- Ibid 56 ↩
- Ibid 100 ↩
- Ibid 110 ↩
- Ibid 110-111 ↩