It may sound morbid, but one of the most useful motivational exercises I ever experienced was writing my own obituary. The idea occurred to me after reading the obituaries in the Sunday paper one afternoon.
Obituaries are like mini-biographies, spotlighting the high points of a person's life.
Career achievements, club memberships, and religious or social affiliations play a significant role, as do family relationships and roots. As I reviewed the snapshots of lives that had passed, I thought about my own life. I was not much impressed with the content so far, to say the least, which lead me to consider what I would like to see written. The obituary that I wrote spelled out my dearest dreams, some of which I had never even acknowledged before. I saw priorities that I didn't know I had, from a perspective I didn't know existed.