Coaching practices for Eulogy Exercise
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Eulogy Exercise, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- If someone stood up at my funeral tomorrow and told the truth about how I actually treat people, I’m not sure I’d like what they’d have to say
- My days get eaten by what’s urgent and I never zoom out to ask who I actually want to have been
- There’s a quality — real courage, say, or quiet generosity — that I admire deeply but have no idea how to actually grow in myself, and I want to find a real person who built it under pressure and trace how they did it, because right now it just feels like an abstract wish.
- I want to look back from the very end of my life and ask honestly what I actually did with my time
- I can’t tell which of my values are truly mine and which I just absorbed from my parents or my culture
Practices that may help
- Write your own eulogy first
Draft what you want said about your character at your funeral — then measure the gap against your life now.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest. - The eulogy exercise: working backward from the life you want
Write a brief eulogy for yourself that describes who you were and how you lived — then work backward to what that requires today.
Values-Based Action (ACT), Made Practical - Choose a character role model and study their biography
Find a person — living or historical — whose eulogy virtues you admire and study how they built them.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Write a brief final accounting
Write as if you’re reporting on your life: what did you do with your time?
Memento Mori: Using Mortality Awareness to Focus What Matters - Use the eulogy / future-self lens
Imagine how you’d want to be remembered to reveal the values you’d defend most.
Values Clarification, Made Practical - Speak or write to the person directly
Address the deceased in letters, journal entries, or internal dialogue as a form of active continuing connection.
Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical - Construct a coherent narrative of the loss
Tell the full story of the loss — who the person was, what happened, and what life is now.
Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical - Create private rituals for losses that have no public ceremony
Design your own mourning practice for a loss that comes with no cultural script.
Disenfranchised Grief, Made Practical - Write a gratitude letter to someone you can no longer reach
If the person is deceased or unreachable, write the letter anyway — the benefit accrues to the writer regardless.
The Gratitude Visit: Telling Someone They Mattered
Related concerns
- Write Your Own Eulogy Exercise
Draft what you want said about your character at your funeral — then measure the gap against your life now.
Write your own eulogy first
- Eulogy Exercise Values Act
Draft what you want said about your character at your funeral — then measure the gap against your life now.
- Eulogy Virtues
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
- The Eulogy Virtues Building A Life Of Character After A Loss
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
- The Eulogy Virtues Building A Life Of Character At Work
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
- The Eulogy Virtues Building A Life Of Character Before Bed
David Brooks distinguishes two sets of virtues: résumé virtues — the skills and achievements that get you hired — and eulogy virtues — the moral qualities like courage, honesty, and loyalty that people mention when you die. His argument is that modern culture relentlessly develops the first set while neglecting the second, and that deliberately cultivating character requires different work: self-examination, wrestling with weakness, and submission to commitments beyond self-interest.
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