Narrative Essay Topics for Personal Essays

For writing a good essay, each student should get acquainted with narrative essay topics first and with narrative essay examples as well. Remember that these ideas will help you to come up with your own topic. When you are writing a narrative essay, try to reveal the topic you have selected and come to a clear conclusion.

As we have already said, narrative writing topics will help you to come up with your own idea, but keep in mind that you can’t copy and paste our ideas. It is important to be aware that these topics for essays are presented for informational purposes only!

Personal Narrative Essay Topics

• What kind of person can be considered free? For some people, their freedom is the deliverance from tyranny of one group of people over another, from oppression and impossibility to dispose of oneself. We face the lack of freedom everyday – work, family, all kinds of obligations, and endlessly running around in a vicious circle. True freedom is within each of us.
• What serious changes have occurred to you in three years? How did they change you? Will these changes affect your future and how? How did these changes affect other areas of your life?
• Describe a situation when you had a misunderstanding with your friends or family. What did you do? Is it better to talk openly and solve all issues peacefully or choose another way? How often do you not understand the situation and do not make the right conclusions?Well, if it is not possible, would it be better to stop communicating with this person, because time will judge who is right who is to blame?
• What life difficulties did you face and how did you overcome them? How did you react when you refused all the old values, and no one understood you? Maybe, you refused to do something you didn’t want to, and at first it was quite difficult, but then it became easier – patience and the search for new solutions is the main thing. Did you forget about your principles to overcome these difficulties?
• What three words can you describe yourself with, and why? For example, you are peaceful, calm, and relaxed. Near to you everyone can calm down. You just bounce off the stress and fuss. You surrounded yourself with an aura of peace and harmony. You can easily relax and rest. It’s not so easy to scare you. You solve all problems calmly. You stay the same in conflict situations and use only peaceful means.
• Describe a situation where you were asked to do something that you have never done before. How did you do it and why? One always does something for the first time. It is not necessarily that “the first pancake is always a bit tricky.” If I see what I can do and understand how to do it, then I can not deny a person, knowing that this person certainly will not do it on his/her own.
• When did you have to make an important independent decision? In the process of daily work and in different life situations, we have to make decisions. Sometimes we think about them for a long time, sometimes we take them too hastily, but in both cases we often feel discontent with the result. It is good if the decision is not very important in our lives.
• Tell what accomplishments you are proud of and why (outside of school). We all take actions in life, and pride in ourselves is not something that comes without effort, but something that comes with personal, independent achievements and victories. Tell what you are most proud of, what you personally have done in your life, about what you remember in moments when everything is bad, and what comforts you and reconciles with yourself and the world. Try to formulate no more than the two most important achievements for you.
• What is the most important thing you learned that will help you become a successful student? Nowadays, students do not have much time, because they must go to work, to the gym, and develop aesthetically as well. But also time runs very quickly because of prolonged sitting at the computer. However, I have found how to manage my time and have learned how to become a successful student.
• Tell about a situation that took place outside the school, and where everything went wrong – not at all as you expected. What did you do? Why? How did your actions influence the final result? Would you have acted differently if you had the chance to go back in time? Did this situation change you?
• Do you often have to adapt to a new environment? Is it difficult for you? It’s no secret that when a person, for some reason or another, moves to live in other country, he or she undergoes a difficult process of adaptation. For many, this process begins with a stage that psychologists call a “honeymoon,” that is, when a person is in a state of such euphoria that everything around him/her is new, there are many interesting discoveries and bright hopes, and he/she is thoroughly delighted with the host country. I also passed through this stage in this way…
• Did you have such a situation where you were given advice and you ignored it, but then regretted it? What conclusions have you drawn? Have you decided after this that you will always listen to other people? Have you admitted your guilt and apologized to the person who gave you advice?
• Friendship comes and goes. When did you realize that you were losing a friend? What did you feel and what did you do? Why did this happen? True love and true friendship come by themselves, not as mere infatuation, but as a higher state. Like any dream, friendship does not come true right away, but after long battles, unsuccessful attempts, suffering, and overcoming selfish motivations. But sometimes, we lose it and don’t understand how it could have happened.
• Did you get into a situation where a best friend asked you to do something, but you did not want to do it? Why? When your friend asks you to do something that you don’t want to do, a conflict may occur. It does not matter how good your friend is for you – quarrels and disagreements will some day come to your life. If you really care about each other, you will definitely find a way out of the conflict.
  
• Teenagers are always making new friends and parting with the old ones. Describe a case when you had to part with someone. Why did you do it anyway? In childhood and youth, friendship means a lot for us, but in time it loses its significance. Why, growing up, do people lose friends, and can this be avoided? Friendship is a unique relationship, because, unlike relations with relatives, we choose whom we should deal with.
• Have you ever had moments in your life when you wanted to quit your project without ever completing it? Why? It often happens that you have found a dream job or organized a project which you are crazy about, but it takes a while, and you get bored and want to give up everything. I myself went through this two times: I started with a crazy love for the project, a feeling that this is the work of my life, and ended with the desire to escape. On why this happens: there can be several reasons, as someone can have a complex of reasons.
• Over the past three years, have you had such a situation where someone did not agree with something very close to you? What did you do? A person may not only disagree with you, but he or she can even make offensive remarks. You may find it difficult to decide how to behave when someone makes a remark offensive to your beliefs, values, or views. Even harder it may be when this person is not serious at all, and making an insulting accent.
• When did you feel uncomfortable? What did you do to fix this? Constantly I feel myself uncomfortable, in any society – with friends, in a cafe, while walking. I become sluggish, silent, and there is a feeling that I want to say to myself, “What am I doing here?” I want to leave, hide, remain alone with myself.
• What mistake have you made in the last three years? Describe it. How did you solve it? Do you think this mistake will influence your future? Did this mistake have harmful consequences? Did someone help you to solve this mistake or did you do it on your own?
• Describe the situation when you were assigned a responsibility which you did not want. What did you do? Why? Did you feel uncomfortable that you had to do something, but had no desire for it? Did you tell the person who assigned the responsibility that you don’t want to do it? Did the decision change the person’s attitude of you?
• What did you learn from the person you admire? How did you take advantage of this? Imitation of a person you admire, or imitation of a certain role model, is the quickest way to learn something. In childhood it was our way to learn more about the world and learn to speak, walk, and communicate with others. If you imitate people you admire, and thus learn, you will get a lot from the experience and knowledge of others.
• Describe the case when you realized that a teacher or any other adult was not right. What did you do? At first you tried to solve the problem somehow, and talked with your teacher. What did you say? Did it help you to solve the problem? Did the teacher change the attitude to you after your complaints?
• Describe a case when you tried hard to achieve something, but did not get it. What did you learn from this? I had a controversial grade for geography, and I tried very hard to improve it in a good way and it almost turned out for me. However, the teacher put a lower grade than I wanted. It was in the 8th grade. Now I’m in the 9th grade, and I hate geography as a result.
• Describe the case when you had to work in an unfamiliar company. What was the result of this? Did you feel uncomfortable when talking to unfamiliar employees? Did you interfere with the fact that you work in an unfamiliar company? What were your feelings in this situation?
• Describe the situation when your friend or relative needed help. What was it? What did you do? What came of this? Each person has had a situation when a friend or relative needed help. I’m no exception, and as an example, I had this situation: I understand mathematics well, but I am much worse at geography. On the contrary, my friend Jane loves geography, but she has problems with mathematics. So, after the lessons we met and helped each other sort out new topics and do homework.
• There are leaders, and there are followers. Describe a case when you were a follower. What did you do? Why? All people are divided into two categories in life: leaders and followers. A follower is one who is inclined to adjust to a leader. The follower is passive and does not like to make independent decisions. Write what is true about you, and whether you were a follower, if only in particular situation.

We hope that these good narrative topics will help you if you are going to write a personal narrative essay. You can see more topics in our blog if you read through other posts with different topics. Nevertheless, a good topic is not the only important thing for your paper. You need to follow particular requirements and rules to write a good paper as well. To know more about these rules, check out our guide on how to write a narrative paper. Sticking to all requirements will make your paper worth a high grade. We are here to help you with all aspects of essay writing, so you can deal with it in the fastest possible way and at the highest quality!