Six Word Memoir Activity
The six word memoir is a quick and creative way to get people thinking and writing about their own lives. To play this game, each member of your team brainstorms six words that summarize their life, and then shares their Six Word Memoir with the group.
This attractive activity brings together reflection, writing and images to produce a moment of connection with oneself.
Because the activity limits each participant to six words, your colleagues’ choices in words invariably lead to questions about why these particular words stood out. Your team will come together to play this icebreaker game, while also discovering interesting insights about each other.
Instructions
- List as many words as you can about yourself – things you like, feelings you have. Don’t cross out,
change, or rewrite anything. You are going for quantity, so write
as much as you can for at least 3 minutes. - Circle 3 items that inspire you to say more:
Pick words from your list that, if heard aloud, would make you think about something that happened in
your life, a story or an idea, or something that was important to you. - From those items you circled, select one:
“Free write” about it for at least 2 minutes. “Free write” means you just start writing about that idea,
object, role or event. The only rule is: don’t stop writing for at least two minutes. Whatever comes to
mind is fair game. - Develop a 6-word phrase that captures the essence of what your topic means to you.
- Share the 6 words with the team
The topics of this publication: empathy, reflection, self
