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 in college however they never
been asked to write thoughtfully about
themselves about their own past
experiences personalities and visions
for their futures upon reflection this
lack of opportunity struck me as strange
to say the least since there's nothing
more important to get straight than your
own personal experience at the same time
I was speaking with managers at various
companies about how to hire more
effective workers they were much more
interested in how to improve the
performance of poorly performing people
they had already hired I didn't have
much to tell them at the time because
improving people is very difficult
nonetheless the two problems stuck in my
mind so I started to search for
psychological interventions that could
be used widely and practically to
clarify and improve people's lives I
already knew that people lived inside
the stories they told about themselves
and that they used those stories to
interpret everything around them while
considering this I came upon dr. James
penny Baker's research conducted at the
University of Texas at Austin
dr. Pennebaker tested Sigmund Freud's
theory that the release of emotions
related to traumatic events could be
curative he had his students write for
three days for 15 minutes a day about
the most upsetting experiences of their
lives while a control group wrote about
ordinary daily activities those in the
former group experienced long-term
improvements in their psychological and
physical health
after a brief dip in mood not so much
because of the expression of pent-up
feelings however but because they drew
more specific causal conclusions about
what had happened to them in the past
dr. Laura King had her subjects write
about their ideals and future goals
instead but they experienced the same
benefits
our research team specifically tested
the effects of the future authoring
program part of the self authoring suite
related to goal setting of McGill
University in Montreal Canada and
Erasmus University in Rotterdam Holland
academically struggling McGill students
increased their grades by 25% in one
year and decrease their dropout rates
from 30% to zero the same thing happened
at Erasmus University with more than
1,200 business students these effects do
not just apply to students either dr.
Frank Smith one of the world's
outstanding industrial psychologists has
demonstrated that participating in such
programs makes all kinds of people
substantially more effective or whatever
they are doing people who complete such
programs appear to benefit because the
careful articulation of their
experiences past present and future
decreases misery related to threat and
uncertainty and increases happiness and
hope which people experience when they
progress towards somewhere they truly
want to be when complicated experiences
are carefully put into words the manner
in which they are represented in the
brain changes they move from the areas
associated with stressful emotion
demanding constant physical readiness to
the areas associated with detailed
comprehension and understanding this
makes articulate people less stressed
and more informed about how to be
successful now and in the future it is
for these reasons that we develop the
self authoring suite a set of four
interactive online writing programs and
are offering them to anyone who wants to
concentrate on improving his or her life
if you want to understand yourself
better become less anxious and happier
and commit yourself more firmly to your
education career or your relationships
these programs will help a lot each of
the programs is composed of a series of
interactive web pages that present you
with specific personal questions this
simplifies and guides the difficult
process of personal writing each program
requires
careful thought and takes several hours
to complete it is better to write over a
number of days so that you have time to
think and because sleep aids the process
the writing is challenging but the
experimentally documented benefits are
worth it the past authoring program
helps you write an autobiography it will
present you with pages like this
introducing you to the program
and providing psychologically sound
advice and information
it will then ask you to start writing
dividing your life into seven epochs or
sections and describing the important
experiences of each the two present are
three programs help you address your
personality faults and capitalize on
your virtues when you start either of
these programs you will also be
presented with instruction pages then
you'll be provided with a list of
adjectives some of which will accurately
define you and be asked to select six to
nine describing your faults if you're
feeling up to a challenge or your
virtues if you could use a boost you
will then be asked to rank order these
adjectives and to write a paragraph
describing a time when each had a
specific effect on your life the future
authoring program helps you define the
future that would work best for you
three to five years down the road and
just as importantly to describe the
future you want to avoid it starts with
some questions like these which will
start you thinking in the right
direction
then it will ask you to write freely
about what you want and don't want and
about how to justify your decisions and
stay on the right track the programs
contain much more detail than this brief
summary presents here are the sorts of
additional questions you will be asked
to consider what were your 10 most
important experiences where they
positive or negative how did each
experience change you or your view of
other people were there things that you
should have done differently
are you the life of the party do you
feel comfortable around people do you
think before you act
are you full of ideas are you a sensible
person do you do things according to a
plan
are you too quiet around strangers do
daydream too much what is one thing that
you could do better what do you want to
learn about how should you handle your
drinking or drug use describe your ideal
social life
you may choose to complete any or all of
the four programs you will be given a
confidential username and account
password and your writing will be
securely stored once you have completed
each program you'll receive an organized
comprehensive email laying out the work
that you have done you can return to the
programs in the future to edit and
update your work many people do not
understand who they are where they are
or where they are going in consequence
instead of attempting those actions that
would make their lives as valuable as
possible things just happen to them and
they're often not good
carefully answering all the questions in
the self authoring suite in your own
words will clear the fog from your
vision make you healthier and stronger
and increase the chances that you will
exist in a manner that justifies all the
trouble that life inevitably presents
this will help you be a good person for
yourself and for other people carve
yourself a new and better you there's no
sense slow tching around miserably when
you can aim for what you should have and
get it good luck with the programs