You Only Die Once: How To Make It to the End with No Regrets

After the death of her mother at 58, life coach and speaker Wellman (Four Thousand Mondays) became motivated to start living in such a way as to not have regrets on her own deathbed, and she explains here how to do the same. She notes that the average person gets about 4,000 Mondays, and she goes on to use that day of the week as a kind of motivator. The book contains exercises like the Vitality Challenge and the Big End for deciding which habits to drop and which dreams to pursue; it even includes an assignment for writing one’s own obituary. Wellman has a way with turns of phrase: of her initial inability to get out of her rut she notes, “A dream without a plan is just a wish accompanied by a lot of sauvignon blanc.” This humor ameliorates the depressing work of taking stock of life, examining habits, and discussing death.