How do you live from the legacy you intend to share and leave?

Explore and Discover the Legacy Branches and Tenets, and Consider Their Impact on the Legacy Project(s) You Decide to Implement

What is Legacy?

Legacy is about the useful whats you gift others so they can learn something from your lived experience. See expanded definition here

What does your legacy mean to you? Do you know yet? If you don’t, then take time to reflect upon those moments where you’ve made a significant contribution to someone else’s life. Think back to times when you were helpful, generous, loving, caring, etc., towards another person.

It could be anything!

to frame a "nested cycling of living life via a legacy lens".

That is, you weave in and out - and, through these five tenets - as you live from your legacy. They are nested in each other like a Russian doll. When you use one, the others are present because of the ripple effect. 

Legacy Values

Values as in what is of truth, worth, and utility? What is eventful, helpful, and useful?

That is, think about what is important to you. What would make you happy if you could have it all? If you had no limits on how much money or time you spent doing something, what would you want to spend your time doing? How would you like to feel when you were done with this thing? Would you rather work alone or with others? Do you prefer solitude or social interaction? These things help us understand who we are as people.  What we value. 

For a complete assessment of your Hierarch of Values complete Dr. John Demartini's Values Assessment. The time you take to complete this assessment is priceless!

Legacy Challenges

Think about some big goals you’d love to accomplish before you die. Maybe they include helping someone else achieve their dreams; maybe they involve making an impact on society at large.

Whatever these goals may be, write them down.

Then --- what will hinder and help you to realize these goals? 
Maintain and convert the helps!
Impact and reduce the hinders!

Legacy Projects

Now that you’ve thought about what makes you tick and the goals you want to achieve, think about what kind of person you want to become. Think about what you enjoy most in life.

Write down three activities that give you joy. Now take those same three activities and imagine yourself accomplishing them over the course of your lifetime. This will help you figure out which direction you want to move toward.

With this activity you have hints as to your legacy projects.

Legacies Stories

Think back to times where you felt happiest. Remembering happier moments helps remind you why you decided to pursue the possible legacy projects.

It also gives you insight into what kinds of experiences you might want to seek out during your lifetime.

And, what stories you want to use

• to write and publish your autobiography
• to start a business
• to become an elder-mentor

and to share with family and friends --- the grandchildren -- at gatherings.

Legacy Contributions

Having introduced the Five Legacy Tenets, let's look at the Five Branches of Legacy

The Five Branches Of Legacy

Life

This branch represents the way you choose to live your life. There are two main paths you can follow: one leads toward success and fulfillment while the other leads away from both.

Which path you choose depends entirely upon your own personal preferences. 

Personal Note: I've chosen a Legacy Approach (moving into IT) rather than Legacy Avoidance (moving away for it). My first value step was acceptance without blocking. 

Leadership

In order to lead effectively, you must know yourself well enough to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Once you identify your talents, you can then begin to build skills around those areas. For example, if you’re naturally talented at writing but lack business acumen, you can learn more about marketing so that you can better market your ideas. In addition, you can develop relationships with mentors who can guide you through tough decisions.

Also, you must know what you believe. In short, you must know what matters to you. Once you identify what truly matters to you, then you can begin to act accordingly. For example, if you value honesty above everything else, then you should always tell the truth even if it means losing a friend. On the flip side, if you don’t care whether or not you lose a friend because you only care about winning, then you shouldn’t lie.

Personal Note: When I figured out leadership and management are two ends of the same stick is when and where my legacy challenges lessen and I gained clarity of my legacy projects.

Legal

If you have children, you need to make sure that they inherit something when you pass away. If you don’t plan ahead for this situation, you could end up leaving nothing behind. Legal is all about ensuring that your wishes are carried out after you’re gone.

When you start thinking about legacy, you probably assume that you’ll leave money behind. However, this isn’t necessarily true. Money doesn’t last forever. What does last forever is knowledge and wisdom.

However, In order to protect yourself and others legally, you must learn the law. Laws govern every aspect of human activity so knowing the laws governing your legacy actions is essential. 

Personal Note: I set up my Will, and my Living Will. I left no room for interpretation. And I made sure my executor understood my requirements (rather than considering them as requests).

Literacy

Personal Note: While working in Africa I noticed children at school without trees to sit under to learn. That got me thinking about Trees Everyday --- one of the five WELLth Movement Legacy Projects! 

Loverage

If you want to get ahead, you need to love openly using words and actions that touch the hearts of others. That is, you leverage your words as love - and thus, you engage in loverage!

Loverage pays off but it doesn’t pay off overnight. Instead, it takes time for your efforts to bear fruit. So instead of waiting until tomorrow to start loveraging, you can start today. Start small and gradually increase your loverage as you see fit. Just make sure you keep moving forward.

Personal Note: I play with words - thus "loverage". And so - loverage is about love and rage as it is about lover though time (age). Insightful - Yes?

To sum it all up, think about what you hope to contribute to the world around you.

Legacy Project

Your Legacy Project is all those moments where you make decisions or take actions based on who you want to become. This includes everything from relationships to how much time, effort, and money you spend.

The selection of your legacy project is at your fingertips.
Often, you overthink its selection. 

And so, a starting point is to access the Legacy Intention Course to explore and discover your legacy intention words. Once these words (and phrases) are known, you can play with (arrange, shuffle, etc.) them and a project begins to unfold. 

From here you can take steps to make it happen by yourself. If you prefer a Guide on the Ride, more importantly a Navigator Opening the Gate, there are additional ways to live from the legacy you intend to share and leave. Use the website Contact page to access the comments section to send an email with a question -or- request and/or to book a 29 minute Legacy Conversation. 

Declaration: This article was supported by an AI writing app!