How to Use Self-Authoring to Plan Your Life

TL;DR

Structured personal writing can clarify past experiences, reveal personality patterns, and define a desirable future. The Self Authoring Suite guides users through four programs focused on autobiography, faults, virtues, and goals, with careful writing spread across several days. The transcript reports that future authoring improved grades and reduced dropout rates among academically struggling students.

Transcript

I'm Dr.. Jordan B. [Peterson] a pSychology professor of the University of Toronto and Canada I'm going to tell you the story behind the self authoring Suite Website. A few years ago, I realized that the students in my classes had written essays on all sorts of subjects in grade school and college However, they'd never been asked to write thoughtful... Read More

Key Insights

• Personal narratives are interpretive frameworks that people use to understand themselves and everything around them. Carefully examining these stories can clarify personal experience, reduce uncertainty, and provide better information about how past events, present traits, and future aims influence decisions.
• Expressive writing is beneficial because it can produce specific causal conclusions about upsetting experiences. In the research described, students wrote for 15 minutes daily across three days, experienced a brief decline in mood, and later showed psychological and physical health improvements.
• Writing about ideals and future goals can provide benefits similar to writing about upsetting past experiences. The transcript connects both approaches through careful articulation, which helps people understand what happened, identify what they want, and form a clearer direction for future action.
• Future Authoring is a goal-setting program tested with students at McGill University and Erasmus University. Academically struggling McGill students reportedly increased their grades by 25% in one year and reduced their dropout rate from 30% to zero, with similar effects reported at Erasmus.
• Past Authoring is a guided autobiography exercise that divides a person's life into seven epochs or sections. Users describe important experiences within each period and consider whether those events were positive or negative, how they changed them, and what they might have done differently.
• Present Authoring consists of programs focused on personality faults and virtues. Users select six to nine descriptive adjectives, rank them, and write about occasions when each characteristic had a specific effect, allowing personal strengths and weaknesses to be examined through concrete experiences.
• Future Authoring defines both an ideal future and a future to avoid three to five years ahead. Users write freely about what they want, what they do not want, how they can justify their choices, and what will help them remain on track.
• The writing process is demanding and requires several hours, careful thought, and specific personal answers. The transcript recommends working across multiple days because reflection takes time and sleep assists the process, while the guided web pages make the task simpler and more structured.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is the Self Authoring Suite?

The Self Authoring Suite is a set of four interactive online writing programs designed to help people examine their past, understand their present personality, and plan their future. Its web pages provide specific personal questions, instructions, and psychological information. The suite includes Past Authoring, two Present Authoring programs covering faults and virtues, and Future Authoring for long-term goals and unwanted outcomes.

Q: How does self-authoring help people understand their past?

Past Authoring helps users construct an autobiography by dividing life into seven epochs or sections and describing important experiences from each one. Its questions ask users to identify their ten most important experiences, decide whether they were positive or negative, explain how each event changed them or their view of others, and consider what they should have done differently.

Q: How does expressive writing improve psychological and physical health?

The transcript attributes the benefits of expressive writing primarily to forming specific causal conclusions about past events, rather than simply releasing pent-up emotions. Dr. James Pennebaker's students wrote about their most upsetting experiences for 15 minutes a day over three days. After a brief decline in mood, they experienced long-term psychological and physical health improvements compared with students writing about ordinary activities.

Q: What does the Future Authoring program ask users to do?

Future Authoring asks users to define a future that would work well for them three to five years ahead and to describe the future they want to avoid. They write freely about desired and unwanted outcomes, explain how their decisions can be justified, and consider how to remain on track. Questions may cover education, career, relationships, social life, learning, and substance use.

Q: What academic results were reported for Future Authoring?

The transcript reports that academically struggling McGill University students who completed Future Authoring increased their grades by 25% in one year. Their dropout rate reportedly fell from 30% to zero. It also states that the same result occurred in testing involving more than 1,200 business students at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, although no additional numerical breakdown is provided.

Q: How do the Present Authoring programs examine personality?

The two Present Authoring programs focus separately on personality faults and virtues. Users review a list of adjectives, select six to nine that describe either their weaknesses or strengths, and place those adjectives in rank order. They then write a paragraph about a specific time when each characteristic affected their life, connecting general personality descriptions to concrete personal experiences.

Q: How long does the Self Authoring process take?

Each Self Authoring program requires several hours of careful thought, according to the transcript. Users are encouraged to spread the writing across multiple days so they have enough time to reflect and because sleep aids the process. The work is described as challenging, but the interactive pages simplify it by dividing reflection into instructions, focused prompts, and manageable writing tasks.

Q: What happens to a user's writing after completing a program?

Users receive a confidential username and account password, and their writing is securely stored. After completing each program, they receive an organized, comprehensive email that lays out the work they have done. They can also return to the programs later to edit and update their writing, allowing their autobiographical reflections, personality assessments, and future plans to change over time.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• The Self Authoring Suite arose from the observation that students often write essays about many subjects without thoughtfully examining their own experiences, personalities, or futures. It combines research on writing about upsetting events and ideal futures with guided questions intended to make difficult personal reflection more practical, specific, and organized.

• The suite contains four interactive writing programs. Past Authoring organizes an autobiography into seven epochs. Two Present Authoring programs examine faults and virtues through selected personality adjectives and concrete examples. Future Authoring asks users to describe both a desirable life three to five years ahead and an unwanted future to avoid.

• The programs require several hours of careful thought and are best completed across multiple days. Users receive confidential account credentials, securely stored writing, and an organized email after completing each program. They can later return to revise their work as their understanding, circumstances, personality, and goals continue to develop.