Eulogy for Self-Example: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Eulogy for Self-Example, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
About 2 minutes
Try it here: write one line you would want said
Write one line you would want said about your character, then think about one thing that would help you live it.
What is one thing you would want said about your character?
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. - 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 - 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 - 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 - Write the passages about what you are genuinely proud of
Acknowledge, without false modesty, the things you have done that were worth doing.
The Legacy Letter: Writing What You Want to Leave Behind - Practice structured humility
Regularly seek evidence that you’re wrong, limited, or have more to learn — and sit with it.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Make a commitment that transcends self-interest
Bind yourself to a person, cause, or calling that comes before your own preferences.
The Eulogy Virtues: Building a Life of Character - Apply the razor to yourself
Extend to your own past actions the same charitable interpretation you give others.
Hanlon's Razor: Never Attribute to Malice What Stupidity Can Explain - Review the crowd of history
Call to mind the powerful, famous, and worried people of the past — and note they are all gone.
The View from Above
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
- 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 can’t tell which of my values are truly mine and which I just absorbed from my parents or my culture
- My days get eaten by what’s urgent and I never zoom out to ask who I actually want to have been
- When I look back I default to everything I regret and fell short on, and the genuinely good and hard-won things I did barely register
Related concerns
- Eulogy About Myself
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 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.
- The Eulogy Virtues Building A Life Of Character During A Big Change
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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