Is My Story Really Enough?

Don’t join the comparison Olympics team.

There’s a belief most women carry when they think about writing their story. It has to be big. Dramatic. Resolved with a neat redemption arc that feels Hallmark complete. Then they think: Mine isn’t any of those things. So maybe I don’t have a story to tell.

Or even worse, they start competing in the comparison Olympics. My story isn’t as [fill in the blank] as hers.

What Makes a Story Worth Telling

Here’s what I actually know. What actually makes a story worth telling has nothing to do with scale.

It has to do with what you learned—the transformation for the reader, something they can take with them, or something that makes them feel less alone. It’s actually not even about you.

If you’ve felt something deeply, that’s enough. If you’ve learned something about yourself or the world that shifted how you move through it, that’s a story.

What Counts as a Story?

A marriage that looked fine from the outside but wasn’t. Loving someone through mental illness. Living with addiction. Becoming a caregiver. Developing a better way to deliver a service that people actually need. Infertility. Miscarriage. A health scare that changed everything. Growing up with something nobody talked about. A friendship that saved you. Career wins and failures that taught you something real. Living inside a system that stopped serving you and choosing to leave it. An encounter with a stranger. A trip that revealed something unexpected.

Your Reader Is the Person Who Needs This

The women I work with all have stories worth telling. What they’re missing is this: If someone needs to hear that they’re not the only one, they’re your reader. And your story is exactly what they need.

Specific Is Stronger Than Big

What you bring is the detail. A small, true moment that evokes emotion. The words that were said. The color of the waiting room. The way your hands shook. That’s what makes someone reading it feel like you’re speaking directly to them. Not because your story is big, but because it’s real and specific and textured in a way that is yours.

What if it’s not about your story being big enough? What if it’s about being specific enough? Feeling enough? Mattering to the one person who needs to read it?

That’s enough. You’re enough.

This originally appeared on my Substack.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like these:

  • You Don’t Need More Options. You Just Need A Filter.

    If you don’t know where to start writing your memoir, you’re not alone. During my vacation, I woke up with the very clear realization that I’ve been too focused on doing more: spending more time on business development, learning new things, and analyzing data. My inbox reflects this. I’ve got…

  • You’re Standing Too Close to Sort It Yourself

    If you can’t decide what belongs in your memoir, I get it. I spent the morning volunteering at the thrift store, and I found a pair of men’s Levi’s for $4. I would never have picked those up on my own. But a creator I follow, Outfits with Alix, who teaches…

  • The Mirror Was Never Objective. Neither Is Your Memory.

    For most of my life, I dreaded having my picture taken. The woman I saw in the mirror and the woman in the photograph never seemed to be the same person. I would look at a snapshot from a day I had genuinely enjoyed and feel a familiar disappointment settle…