Ideas worth spreading

How changing your story can change your life

5,848,564 views | Lori Gottlieb • TED@DuPont

Stories help you make sense of your life -- but when these narratives are incomplete or misleading, they can keep you stuck instead of providing clarity. In an actionable talk, psychotherapist and advice columnist Lori Gottlieb shows how to break free from the stories you've been telling yourself by becoming your own editor and rewriting your narrative from a different point of view.

Stories help you make sense of your life -- but when these narratives are incomplete or misleading, they can keep you stuck instead of providing clarity. In an actionable talk, psychotherapist and advice columnist Lori Gottlieb shows how to break free from the stories you've been telling yourself by becoming your own editor and rewriting your narrative from a different point of view.

This talk was presented at a TED Institute event given in partnership with DuPont. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about the TED Institute.

Get involved with Bring Change to Mind, a mental health advocacy organization focused on ending the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness.

About the speaker

Psychotherapist, author

See speaker profile

Lori Gottlieb asks: What if the stories we tell ourselves are wrong?

Lori Gottlieb | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019 | Book

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Lori Gottlieb | The Atlantic | Explore

"Dear Therapist"

Dax Shepard and Lori Gottlieb | 2019 | Book

The Armchair Expert

This is a podcast where guests talk with exquisite honesty about their lives — and you can't help but see yourself in the stories they tell.

Irvin Yalom | Basic Books, 2012 | Book

Love's Executioner: & Other Tales of Psychotherapy

Often considered to be "the Oliver Sacks of psychiatry," Yalom, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Stanford, has been revolutionary in bringing his patients' stories to life in the pages of his books, starting with Love's Executioner, a moving, incisive and unforgettable portrait of our shared humanity.

Brené Brown | TEDxHouston, 2010 | Watch

"The power of vulnerability"

In order to share a more accurate version of our stories, we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Take this crash course as a first step to editing your stories.

Learn more

About TED Institute

Every year, TED works with a group of select companies and foundations to identify internal ideators, inventors, connectors, and creators. Drawing on the same rigorous regimen that has prepared speakers for the TED main stage, TED Institute works closely with each partner, overseeing curation and providing intensive one-on-one talk development to sharpen and fine tune ideas. The culmination is an event produced, recorded, and hosted by TED, generating a growing library of valuable TED Talks that can spur innovation and transform organizations.

Read more about the TED Institute

This talk was presented at a TED Institute event given in partnership with DuPont. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about the TED Institute.

Get involved with Bring Change to Mind, a mental health advocacy organization focused on ending the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness.