Paula spent her 20s looking for a solution to her dissatisfaction. She believed a sense of fulfillment would arrive alongside key milestones: getting her law degree, getting married, having children. Now that she has all three, she feels worse than ever. Her family doesn’t understand why she isn’t happy. Her single friends are annoyed by the disappointment she feels in partnership. Paula feels trapped in her picture-perfect life.

The problem is that Paula spent a decade believing she was acting in accordance with her own desires. She was instead building a life story from an inherited script: one in which her professional worth was dictated by her parents’ career path and her societal worth was determined by her marital and maternal status. Her life story didn’t match who she was or what she actually wanted.

Dan McAdams argues that the way we tell our life story represents our internalized and evolving identity, providing us with meaning, purpose,........

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