Transform Your life With the Hero’s Journey

7 Steps to Use Life’s Inciting Incidents for Transformation

Keri Mangis
4 min readSep 24, 2023

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Photo by Gabriel Bassino on Unsplash

Think about your favorite character from a book, television show, or movie.

What is it you love about them? Chances are, it’s not that they live a predictable life with few changes and challenges. It’s far more likely they resonate with you because they rise from the ashes of life’s most challenging events.

What Are Inciting Incidents?

Life’s most critical events are called inciting incidents, and no plot is complete without one (or two or three). An inciting incident is what turns a character inward for reflection, healing, and re-orientation. Because of the human tendency to run on autopilot more than 90% of the time, we need inciting incidents in our lives in order to change and grow.

Some examples of inciting incidents can include changes in relationship or work status; a physical move; a loss, death, or failure; or even just a transition from one stage of life to another. Other times…

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Keri Mangis

I am author and speaker, dedicated to getting out (and staying out) of Plato’s Cave of shadows and deception. Hope to bring a few people with me.