The Hero’s Journey (Digital Version)

This visual map of the Hero’s Journey is designed as a reflective tool for individual coaching, supervision, group work and organizational contexts. It offers a clear visual structure to explore personal or organizational stories of change, crisis, transition and development.

Product details:

• JPG file, optimized for screen use (1920 × 1920 px)
• Includes suggestions for practical application (german)
• Suitable for individuals and groups
• Areas of use: development, challenges, crisis, grief, change
• Digital download (can be used repeatedly)
  

The concept of the Hero’s Journey is based on he comparative mythological research of Joseph Campbell, published under the title The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Campbell’s work originated in literary studies and myth analysis – not in coaching, therapy or consulting. Over time, however, therapeutic, counseling and organizational approaches have adopted and adapted the narrative structure of the Hero’s Journey. The film industry, writers and marketing have also drawn on its meaningful and coherent storyline.

This map does not present a new coaching or therapeutic method of the Hero’s Journey.
Its intention is different: to provide a visual landscape that can be used flexibly across various concepts and approaches.

The map brings together several stages on shared “islands”, because all interpretations of the Hero’s Journey follow the same fundamental movement – even if they emphasize and differentiate phases in different ways.

The Hero’s Journey as a visual landscape

The map supports storytelling and reflection by offering a landscape to walk through, explore and linger in.
It can be used to look at:

• personal life stories
• professional or organizational change processes
• inner journeys and identity shifts
• group dynamics and shared narratives
  

The journey unfolds across different regions, along meaningful places and through encounters with various figures – which can also be understood as inner parts or roles.
Campbell originally described the Hero’s Journey in 17 phases. Later interpretations reduced these to 6, 8, 10 or 12 stages, using different terms. This map integrates these perspectives without prescribing a single interpretation.

The Hero’s Journey – in brief

Most journeys begin in the familiar world, the “home”. From there, the path usually unfolds clockwise.
At the top center, four small green islands symbolize aspects of longing, wholeness and remembered resources – inner memories or qualities that may have been dormant but become relevant when leaving the familiar world.
A call to adventure follows. This can be an external event, an inner voice or an uncomfortable situation that demands change. Often, there is an initial refusal – supported by convincing reasons to stay where one is.
With the eventual decision to leave, a threshold is crossed. The old world is no longer fully available, yet the new one is not familiar. What follows are phases of search and discovery: experimenting, gathering new experiences and uncovering previously unused resources.

Questions arise such as:

• What supports me?
• Who accompanies me?
• What strengths do I discover?

At the heart of the journey lies a decisive trial:
letting go of illusions, releasing old patterns and recognizing one’s true task or mission.
Transformation leaves traces – scars and gaps – but also reveals something new: a treasure or reward that can be carried forward and shared.

To make this new insight meaningful in everyday life, the journey leads back home. The return is not a simple reversal: the person is changed, and this change also affects others.

How the map can be used

The map can be introduced as a structure for reflection, inviting individuals or groups to locate themselves within the journey:

• Where are you right now?
• Which phase feels familiar?
• Where do different people position themselves – and why?

It can also be combined with work on inner parts or roles, using archetypal figures of the journey (mentor, threshold guardian, helper, challenger) as metaphors for internal dynamics.

This visual map is an invitation to explore change through storytelling –
not as a linear success model, but as a meaningful journey between the known and the unknown.