Or let's modify it a little: "who do you want to be at the moment of your DEATH?".
Or let's put it yet another way... That thing that you are doing today: do you see yourself still doing it in 30 years? 5 years? 1 month?
Far, far away...
I've been asking myself this question several weeks after starting a new job. And every single time the answer was: "Hell no!". And every single time I unconsciously - in my imagination - quit at this very moment. The actual "quitting" followed short after that.
I am a software developer. I asked myself this question 3 months after working on a system that I hated. Do I want to see a label "died gracefully during Sharepoint maintenance" put on my grave? No, I don't.
I also asked myself this question after 2 years of a really nice job, which let me evolve and improve myself. But as it turned out: this evolution was not in the exact direction that I needed at the momoent.
YOU - now
You don't need to be a developer to think about it. This is an excercise for anyone.
Maybe you are a team leader, ex-devloper, who loves to code but was forced to go up the management level?
Maybe you are a business owner, but it simply started to bore you? Or maybe working your ass off for 15 hours a day is killing you?
Or maybe you are NOT a business owner and you're spending 15 hours a day improving someone else's business?
Or maybe: you're not getting X years of experience, you're just getting 1 year of experience for the Xth time?
What then?
TODO
I'm not saying you should resign, quit your job immediately, just like this. I'm not saying you should go and start another stupid startup. Wise decisions need time, thinking and preparations.
What I AM saying is that you should ask yourself this question: "that thing that I am doing right now... do I want to be doing it in the future?". If the answer is "no": you should definitely start thinking about the other part: "what would I like to be doing then?". Wake up the lazy genius in you - let him do the job in the background. Let him think for a while: it can take weeks, it can take years. The outcome should be a "satisfaction generation algorithm".
It does not necessarily need to be a plan of taking over the whole universe. Just a single tiny part of it. YOUR part.
You could step under a bus tomorrow. Someone could hit you with a mechete next week. You can wander into a mine field when catching pokemons. All of theis COULD happen some time. But the time to ask yourself this important question is today. It is NOW. You don't even need to have an answer ready right away. Asking the question is enough.
Me - now
I could die today - and I'd be proud and happy of myself. I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing. I minimized the things that I don't want to be spending time on.
I haven't reached my goals yet, but that's not the point. The most important thing is that - after several years of wandering in the dark - I have a map. I am prepared to achieve the things that matter to me, because I have defined them. And I walked onto the right path - for better or worse.
We don't set goals to celebrate the results. We set goals to cheris the way towards them.
Are you aware of YOUR goals? Are you on the correct path?