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Getting clear on what you REALLY want in life is so important when you are planning to make a big change, like changing your career. Because your job is not just simply what you do each day, it affects all areas of your life and, if it doesn’t feel right or fulfil your needs or make you happy, it can mess up your relationships and your dreams.
There is one mind blowing method to getting crystal clear about the things you really want in life. What is it? ….It’s writing your own eulogy.
Actually, it’s writing your own ideal eulogy, and using it as a blueprint of what you really want to achieve in life and how you want to live it.
WHAT IS A EULOGY?
A eulogy is a speech usually someone close to you gives at your funeral. It reflects back on your life, what you accomplished in life, the kind of person you were, what you did for others, the impact you had in the world and what people can learn from your life. It’s a celebration of all you are and what you meant to others.
It’s easy to live life with our head down, focussing on the here and now and leaving bigger plans on the back burner, while just making a living, not actually living. We’ve all heard the advice, if you were on your deathbed, would you regret this choice or would this or that seem important. By writing your ideal eulogy you’re expanding on this concept.
WHAT TO WRITE?
Writing your own eulogy can be an incredibly powerful and motivating thing to do, but how do you get started?
- First, remember this is about what you still want to achieve in this life, who you want to be, rather than just what you’ve done so far. As well as including things you have already done, you are writing as if all your big goals and dreams for the future have also happened.
- Set aside enough time. You should leave at least an hour away from distractions to get it done properly. It’s not something you can do is a spare 30 mins, so book the time and commit to it.
- You then have the decision of how to structure it. You can write it chronologically, that is going from birth, through education, work etc and all the accomplishments along the way. This will soon eat up your word count and is quite difficult to cut short. A much better method is to use themes, so areas of your life you can talk about like: Personality, Education, where you’ve lived and travelled to, working life , relationships or hobbies.
- Think about did you have any other stand out achievements that meant a lot to you, or that you were proud of?
- What words would you like to be used to describe you?
So things like adventurous, kind, wise, daring, caring, ambitious or creative.
Once you have brainstormed on the themes, achievements and descriptive words, you can weave them into a narrative. It should be no more than 10 mins or 1,300 words or but usually it will be around 5 mins long (650 words). 650 words is not that long, it's about 1 and a third A4 pages, with single spacing. So that gives you an idea what to aim for.
TAKING ACTION
There is no point doing the eulogy exercise if you just leave it there. The most important part is taking some action to start making those things that are in your ideal eulogy but have not yet made it into your life, take shape.
Firstly, read it back outloud. I know it feels weird but just try it. When you hear it you should feel emotion, exhilaration or pride that if that truly was your eulogy, you would have lived the life that is in your heart, mind and soul. If you don’t feel anything, go back and look at it again, as you may have written it as things you think you should be doing and it won’t connect with you at that gut level because it's not really you. When you feel a connection to the words, you have it right.
Then use your eulogy as a blueprint for your life and review the different themes you’ve highlighted one by one and create plans of how you are going to get from where you are right now into what you’ve written, and set a timeline on when you will get them done by.
The Bottom line is…whatever your age, even if you’re 90, there is always time for you to achieve more. Yes time may be shorter but none of us know what age we will go at so you could still have far longer than a 20 year old, no one knows. So write your ideal eulogy to find out what’s really important for you to achieve in this life, plan how you will make it happen and get going on achieving it. So if one day in the distant future someone reads it about you, they don’t need to change a word!
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