“Are we there yet?”

Every parent who’s taken a family vacation by car has heard that question from the backseat. Sometimes it starts when you’re barely out of the driveway.

It’s cute when a child asks. But sometimes as adults, we can also forget to enjoy the journey. The fun of this long trip called life isn’t just in arriving at our destinations (our goals) but in each mile involved in reaching them. Every day, I leverage the Legacy Map as a navigation tool to determine my destinations and measure success — all while concurrently enjoying the journey. 

How do we balance this yin and yang, this present and future in regards to legacy?

Living Your Legacy, Not Leaving a Legacy

As you know, I am Replacing Retirement by Living My Legacy every day. Please note the wording. I am “living” my legacy, not merely “leaving” my legacy.

The dictionary defines legacy as “money or property left in a will.” Another meaning is “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor.” So, a legacy can be tangible or intangible assets. When I use the term in connection with our Legacy Map process, I’m referring to a two-fold desire:

● To leave money or property to our children 
● To pass on knowledge and inspiration based on how well we lived our lives 

Hopefully this expands your concept of legacy. Now let’s look at the timing. We usually think of passing down a legacy after we die. Like at the reading of a will. 

But I say, why wait? Do it now! Do it every day! 

Don’t Wait: Your Legacy Everyday

The most crucial part of the Legacy Map is not limited to what we leave at the end of our life, but at the end of each day. Leaving a legacy every single day we’re on this planet is the point. I look at each day as a step in defining my legacy — especially since I can’t possibly know when my final day on earth will be.  

Every morning, I’m given the awesome opportunity to create my legacy. Having this perspective is one of the blessings unique to the second half of life. When I was younger, I was focused more on the moment and didn’t take the longer view into consideration. My decisions were generally self-centered, and revolved around what I needed right then. By contrast, the decisions I make today are evaluated against my Legacy Map — Will this decision move me closer or further away from the person I have articulated and plan to become during my lifetime?

I try and weigh all of my decisions against that envisioned outcome. I’m not perfect at this. And, yes, immediate needs pop up. But in the morning especially, I try to be completely intentional about my upcoming choices — making sure each day’s decisions are fully aligned with and steered by my long-term goals. 

On those well-planned days, my ship sails smoothly across the waves of life! 

Holding Ourselves Accountable to the Legacy We Desire

Sadly, that’s not the case for many of my clients. After decades of working with leadership and executive teams, I’ve found that many successful individuals are reluctant to hold themselves accountable for their own course in life. It’s normative in business for companies to create detailed plans of action to measure their performance against. Yet when it comes to the individual, there’s reluctance to creating a similar plan, and even greater reluctance to being held accountable to it.  

I’ve found very few leaders who feel comfortable developing their own unique path for success and significance. Virtually all the leaders I work with have a daily task or to-do list, but no Legacy Map or equivalent tool for personal navigation on their lifelong journey. As a society, we’re conditioned to serving the “urgent and important,” but rarely (if ever) prioritizing the “important but not urgent.”  

Why is that? Does the busyness of life get in the way? Is it too uncomfortable to look deeply into what matters most? 

Maybe the prospect of setting and then failing to reach our goals is just too daunting. Or maybe no one has ever given us a clear methodology to follow in personal goal setting (here’s a link to our website for tips). 

Don’t Put off Planning Your Legacy

If you’ve neglected to intentionally plan your future, it’s never too late to change. Each day is brand-new opportunity to start fresh and live our legacy. Every day is another piece of the puzzle that is our lifetime legacy. Utilizing the combination of your Legacy Map and a coach or mentor to help hold you accountable insures daily inspiration and management of energy in achieving your lifetime goals.  

We’re all unique and the legacy we’re creating will look different for each of us. The key is don’t put it off. Don’t wait until some future date or destination. Let’s focus on today’s part of the journey (with all of its possibilities and discoveries) while holding steady to the course set by our Legacy Map for tomorrow. 

Today is (always) the best day of my life.