A personal essay isn’t your life story. It’s a pivotal event. The narrator has an epiphany, or is changed at the end of the story.
“Personal essays represent what you think, what you feel . . . your effort to communicate those thoughts and feelings to others . . . What is the point of your essay? Don’t belabor the point too much; let the point grow out of the experience of the essay. It might be true, in fact, that you didn’t even have a point to make when you started writing your essay. Go ahead and write it and see if a point develops.” — The Personal Essay
More on personal essay:
Personal Essay is Memoir in Short Form
Still don’t know how to start? Gather your writing implements: Paper, pen, pencil, writing device, choose a writing prompt and . . . Just Write!