Part of deciding to do anything involving memoir is being able to do some self-reflection.
Self-reflection involves being nonjudgmental about your own thoughts and feelings. This requires needing to be able to examine them to figure out how best to present them. Since the audience is someone other than yourself, what would you want someone to take away from learning about your life? What are the core things that make up what you value, what you have experienced, and what you learned from those experiences?
Last time I did a blog post on memoir, I talked about outlining what you intend to talk about as something to consider. I acknowledge that might not work for everyone. However, a positive thing about outlining is that is gives a person something to do while undergoing that process of self-reflection.
The key is ultimately figuring out what works for each person. Ultimately, though, it is about setting up a map and compass to get a person though the story of their life in order to tell it to someone else.
