Back in September at AWBU I talked about Living and Telling Great Stories.

I keep talking about storytelling because I really believe it is the best way to build a following around your blog.

People LOVE a good story.

So I already shared about two kinds of stories you can live and tell on your blogs, The Sacred Everyday and The Noteworthy Days.

But then there’s a third kind of story to live, and it’s what I like to call:

The Grand Adventure

A grand adventure is an epic you can climb inside of. It’s a story that takes some dreaming and some planning.

It’s a story that makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning. It’s something that heightens your senses. It makes you alive to life. It’s a story that makes you want to keep blogging.

It can take a lot of different shapes but it has to be something that is uniquely you.

By that I mean that you can’t compare your grand adventure to someone else’s. Or you get in trouble.

My current grand adventure is called #48walks, and it’s part of my attempt to embrace where I live and the fact that for the most part, we walk everywhere. All the walks I’ve done this year have been leading up to longer walks, and specifically, a long walk across England that I did in September.

The Coast to Coast Trail in England is 191 miles. It sounded pretty impressive to me. I was actually kind of scared I wouldn’t be able to finish.

To me, it sounded like a Grand Adventure.

But as soon as I said that my Grand Adventure was going to be walking from the west coast of England to the east, I found out that 10000 people walk it every year. Someone actually ran it in five days. In 1991, someone ran the entire route in just under 40 hours.

I know of someone else who is going to run across the entire USA. Another blogger is currently walking across the whole world.

So if I start comparing my adventure to others, pretty soon I feel like it is no big deal that I walked across England, and I start thinking that maybe I should find something more original.

That’s when I have to stop and remember:

This is my Grand Adventure. For me it’s a story worth living and a story worth telling.

Your Grand Adventure is going to be something that makes YOUR heart beat faster. Because we’re all different.

Maybe your Grand Adventure is…

eating only food you cook for a year.

giving away all your possessions.

having coffee once a week with someone new.

filming heirloom recipes internationally.

raising a significant amount of money for a worthy cause.

a trip around the world.

running a marathon.

For me, it was going for a long walk.

Even though all grand adventures are not the same, all Grand Adventures seem to have some of the same elements.

So besides the fact that it EXCITES YOU, here’s how you know you’re setting out on a Grand Adventure:

A Grand Adventure involves RISK, even the risk of FAILURE.

So your adventure should have some elements that stretch you. That push you to the limit of your strength or your skill set or your mental prowess.

It is going to stretch you and there will be hard work involved.

And there could be failure. And that’s OK.

In fact it’s best to acknowledge up front that you could completely fail at your Grand Adventure.

But that doesn’t mean the adventure wasn’t worth taking.

Your grand adventure is your story arc. It’s this beautiful design that shapes your life for a season. But the point of the arc is to give us something to live through. Not necessarily attain something.

It’s the journey not the destination.

We’ve all heard that before, but when you step back and look at someone’s story it’s all this bit in the middle of the story arc that is interesting, that keeps you engaged.

And living through the journey is what changes us. Molds us. Shapes us.

You cannot ever fully prepare for A Grand Adventure.

There are unpredictable elements for which there is no preparing.

No matter how much you prepare, you never feel ready to take it on. At some point, you just go for it. This is where a blog comes in really handy in living a big story, because at some point you put it out there that this is what you are going to do, and then there’s more pressure to actually do it.

I find that it helps if you have to commit to something. Again, put things on the calendar. Meetings. Tickets. Commitments.

So you have to start.

And then in the middle of the journey all kinds of things happen that you didn’t plan. Here are some quotes from Donald Miller that I used at AWBU this year about the harder bits of a Grand Adventure:

The negative turns in a story is what makes it interesting. Don’t be discouraged by negative turns. If you understand that this is what makes it interesting, then you don’t give up when you encounter a setback. Plus the pain makes the ending more beautiful.

Here’s the truth about telling great stories with your life. It’s going to sound like a great idea and you are going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you’re not going to want to do it. It’s like that with writing books, and it’s like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.

Have you ever been in the middle of something hard and thought this: “I hate this moment but I’m going to love this memory.”

Donald Miller from A Million Miles

 

That last quote from Donald Miller perfectly describes so many events of my life. Even amazing events like being in Paris on Bastille Day often have a backstory of events that also made the day difficult.

All Grand Adventures are like this. They are made up of moments you hate and moments you love. In fact, it is the mixture of the memories of both are what make the story brilliant.

So there you have it. Three Ways to Live and Tell Great Stories on your blog: The Sacred Everyday, Noteworthy Days and The Grand Adventure.

So friends, go live the story that you want to write about. Then come back and tell me all about it.

If you plan a Grand Adventure in 2015, I would LOVE to know about it. Leave me a link in the comments! Or tell me on Twitter.