Essay 7: What If Your Life Is the Story?

How Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey can reshape your stories—and your life

Jul 17, 2025

When Joseph Campbell introduced the concept of The Hero’s Journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he wasn’t inventing a storytelling formula—he was uncovering a universal pattern. Across cultures and continents, people have been telling the same fundamental story for thousands of years: a reluctant hero leaves home, faces trials, gains wisdom, and returns transformed. From The Odyssey to Star Wars, the structure is everywhere. But it’s not just a tool for writers—it’s a roadmap for living.

What Is the Hero’s Journey?

Campbell outlined a sequence of stages that make up the Hero’s Journey. While not every story includes every step, the essential arc is this:

The Call to Adventure – Something disrupts the ordinary world.
Refusal of the Call – The hero hesitates or resists change.
Meeting the Mentor – Guidance appears in some form.
Crossing the Threshold – The hero commits to the journey.
Tests, Allies, and Enemies – Challenges and lessons arise.
The Ordeal – A major confrontation or breaking point.
The Reward – Insight, success, or transformation.
The Road Back – Return to the old world, but changed.
The Resurrection – One final test that proves the transformation.
Return with the Elixir – The hero brings something valuable back.

It’s a story arc—but it’s also a psychological blueprint for personal growth.

How I Use It in My Short Stories

When I write, the Hero’s Journey is often humming quietly in the background. My stories may not have dragons or prophecies, but they do have turning points, inner battles, and returns. A character doesn’t need to save the world—they just need to change.

Sometimes that change is small: a moment of clarity, a shift in perspective, a single brave choice. But those are the stories that stick with us, because they feel real. The Hero’s Journey gives me a structure to explore that change in a satisfying way—for both the character and the reader.

Why It Matters in Storytelling

The Hero’s Journey matters because it taps into something primal. It creates emotional resonance. It ensures that characters don’t just move through a plot, but are shaped by it. That growth is what makes a story powerful. Readers might not remember every scene, but they’ll remember how it felt when a character finally became who they were meant to be.

How the Hero’s Journey Can Help Us

Here’s where it gets interesting: the Hero’s Journey isn’t just a writing tool. It’s a mirror for your life.

We all go through journeys. Some we choose. Others choose us. A breakup, a new job, a diagnosis, a dream—we all face calls to adventure. And more often than not, we refuse the call at first. We’re afraid. We don’t feel ready. We doubt ourselves.

But when we step across the threshold—when we say yes to change—we begin our own transformation.

Meeting the Mentor might look like finally reading that book that changes everything, or meeting someone who believes in us more than we believe in ourselves.
Tests and Trials show up as setbacks, failures, and heartbreaks—each one asking, “Do you really want this? Will you keep going?”
The Ordeal can be the lowest moment. A rock bottom. A betrayal. A loss. But it’s also the turning point.
The Reward is hard-won: clarity, confidence, a new identity.
The Return is where you bring your wisdom back to others. You become the mentor. You help someone else begin.

Thinking of life this way doesn’t make it easier—but it gives it shape. It reframes pain as part of progress. It reminds us that fear is normal, trials are expected, and growth is possible.

Campbell once said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” That’s the Hero’s Journey in a single sentence.

How You Can Use It in Your Writing (And Life)

If you’re a writer, start by thinking of your characters like real people: scared, uncertain, hopeful. Let them stumble. Let them grow. Use the Hero’s Journey not as a formula, but as a compass.

If you’re not a writer, or you’re just trying to figure out where you are in your own story, ask yourself:

What’s my current “Call to Adventure”?
Am I refusing it? Why?
Who are my mentors?
What trials am I facing—and what are they teaching me?
What kind of person do I want to be when I return?

You don’t have to have all the answers. The Hero’s Journey isn’t about certainty—it’s about courage. The courage to leave the known, the courage to face the unknown, and the courage to return and share what you’ve learned.

In the End

The Hero’s Journey isn’t just a story—it’s our story. We live it every time we grow, every time we fall and rise again. That’s why it works in fiction. That’s why it works in life.

I write stories to remind myself—and hopefully my readers—that change is hard, but it’s worth it. That trials shape us. That we all have something to return with.

And maybe, just maybe, writing is my way of answering the call.

So tell me, what are your thoughts on Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey and what part of the journey are you currently on? Let me know in the comments below.

— Allen

Keep the Words Flowing ☕