Life story questions

1. What is the very first thing you remember? Where were you, and who was there?
2. What did your home smell like on a holiday morning when you were small?
3. Which room from your childhood do you still see when you close your eyes? Walk me through it.
4. What game did you play most, and who taught it to you?
5. What was an ordinary Saturday like when you were about eight?
6. What did you get in trouble for as a child, and how did the grown-ups react?
7. Which food from your childhood can you still taste? Who made it?
8. What sounds filled your street or neighborhood when you were young?
9. What were you afraid of as a child, and what made it better?
10. Which adult outside your family paid attention to you, and what did they do?
11. What did you want to be when you grew up, and where did that idea come from?
12. What story about you as a baby or toddler did your family love to tell?

1. Who raised you, and what is one habit of theirs you can still picture clearly?
2. Where did your grandparents come from, and how did you learn about it?
3. What did dinner at your family table look and sound like?
4. Which relative was the storyteller, and which story did they tell most often?
5. How did your family celebrate birthdays?
6. What saying did your parents repeat so often that you can still hear it?
7. What did you and your brothers, sisters or cousins fight about, and how did it end?
8. What work did the adults in your family do, and what did you notice about it as a child?
9. Which family tradition would you most like someone to keep going?
10. When did you first see one of your parents as a person, not just a parent?
11. What surprising piece of family history did you only learn as an adult?
12. Who in your family are you most like, and how do you know?

1. How did you get to school each morning, and what did you pass on the way?
2. Which teacher do you still remember, and what did they say or do that stayed with you?
3. What did your classroom smell and sound like?
4. Who was your best friend at school, and how did you become friends?
5. Which subject came easily to you, and which one did you dread?
6. What did you eat for lunch, and where did you sit?
7. Tell me about a day at school when everything went wrong.
8. What school trip, sports day or performance do you still remember in detail?
9. Was there a moment at school when you felt truly proud of yourself?
10. Where did you go after school, and who were you with?
11. Which rule did you break, or badly want to break?
12. If you could tell your school-age self one thing, what would it be?

1. What was the first money you ever earned, and what did you spend it on?
2. Describe your first real job: the place, the smell, the people, the boss.
3. What did you learn at work that no school ever taught you?
4. Who took a chance on you early in your working life?
5. What was the hardest day you ever had at work?
6. Which mistake at work taught you the most?
7. How did you choose, or fall into, the work you did for most of your life?
8. What did a typical workday look like, from the moment you woke up?
9. What were you paid at your first job, and did it feel like a lot?
10. Which coworker do you still think about, and why?
11. What part of your work were you quietly best at?
12. If you hadn't done that work, what do you think you would have done instead?

1. How did you meet the person who mattered most to you? Tell it like a scene.
2. What was your first crush like, and did they ever know?
3. What happened on a first date that you still remember?
4. When did you know this person was different from everyone else?
5. What song, place or smell brings that person back to you instantly?
6. What did you two argue about most, and how did you make up?
7. Which friendship has lasted the longest, and what has kept it going?
8. What is the kindest thing someone you loved ever did for you?
9. What did love look like on an ordinary Tuesday?
10. Which friend drifted away, and what would you like to tell them now?
11. When you decided to build a life with someone, what did that day or that decision look like?
12. What do you know about love now that you didn't know at twenty?

1. Which home have you loved most, and what did its front door look like?
2. What could you see from your bedroom window in the place you grew up?
3. Tell me about the day you moved into a new home. What came through the door first?
4. Which neighborhood shop or corner do you remember, and who ran it?
5. Which town or city shaped you most, and how?
6. What did your kitchen smell like on a busy evening?
7. What view from a trip have you never forgotten?
8. What did you have to leave behind when you moved, and do you still miss it?
9. Which neighbor do you remember best, and why?
10. Where did you go when you needed to be alone?
11. Which piece of furniture or object has followed you from home to home?
12. If you could spend one more afternoon in a place from your past, where would you go?

1. What was the hardest year of your life, and what did an ordinary day look like then?
2. Who showed up for you when things were at their worst?
3. What kept you going when you felt like giving up?
4. Tell me about a loss that changed you. What do you remember about that day?
5. When was money tight, and what did your family do to get by?
6. What decision did you have to make when there were no good options?
7. During that time, what helped you sleep, and what kept you awake?
8. What did you learn about yourself that you could only have learned the hard way?
9. Is there someone you had to forgive, or someone whose forgiveness you needed?
10. How did a big event in the wider world, like a recession, a disaster or a war, reach into your daily life?
11. What small thing brought you comfort when nothing else did?
12. Looking back, what would you say to yourself in the middle of that time?

1. What moment are you quietly proud of that few people know about?
2. Tell me about the day your hard work finally paid off. Where were you when you heard?
3. What did you build, make or fix with your own hands that you still think about?
4. When did you stand up for yourself or for someone else?
5. Which goal took you years to reach?
6. Which compliment has stayed with you the longest?
7. When did you do something that surprised even you?
8. When did you feel proudest of someone you raised, taught or helped?
9. Which risk are you glad you took?
10. What skill did you learn later in life than most people, and why was it worth it?
11. Is there a photograph of a moment you're proud of? Describe what was just outside the frame.
12. What would you like people to remember you for?

1. What do you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young?
2. Who taught you the difference between right and wrong, and how?
3. What place did faith, or the lack of it, have in the home you grew up in?
4. When did you change your mind about something important?
5. What rule do you live by, even when no one is watching?
6. What do you think makes a good life?
7. What would you never compromise on?
8. Which book, song or conversation changed how you see the world?
9. What about the world makes you angry, and what gives you hope?
10. What does being a good neighbor mean to you?
11. What do you think people get wrong about your generation?
12. What does gratitude look like in your everyday life?

1. What do you wish someone had told you at eighteen?
2. What advice about money would you give your grandchildren?
3. What should people know before they marry or commit to a partner?
4. What is the best advice you ever ignored?
5. How do you get through a day when everything goes wrong?
6. What do you know about raising children that you learned too late?
7. What is worth spending money on, and what isn't?
8. What would you like your family to keep doing long after you're gone?
9. Which recipe, skill or trick should never be lost from the family?
10. How can someone tell whether they're in the right line of work?
11. What would you like to say to a family member who hasn't been born yet?
12. If your life were a book, what would you want its last line to be?