Legacy.
Increasingly,
We are looking for purpose and meaning in life.
Thinking about legacy is a way of identifying yours.
This meditation will guide you through understanding the impact of your life experiences and making a plan for the legacy you would like to create.
Being proactive with legacy helps you lead a life with purpose.
It helps motivate and organize all aspects of your life because legacy,
Like the first Yoga Sutra,
Is now.
This moment,
Your identity,
Career,
Community,
Family.
You don't need to have a big job to have a legacy.
Your legacy is a word or a statement guiding everything that you do.
Let's begin.
I suggest you get a piece of paper,
Your favorite pen,
Maybe make a cup of tea.
We'll go through three sections,
Identification,
Habits,
And communication.
I promise it won't take too long.
You're always welcome to pause and come back to it.
If you would like to refine it,
Do it once,
Do it again.
First question,
First piece of paper.
How?
How do you spend your time?
You are the director of your life on that piece of paper in front of you.
Draw a mind map.
You might like to call it a stakeholder map.
You might like to call it an organizational chart.
Where do you spend your time?
See if you can group four to six different areas,
Different teams.
You might have family.
You might have your own time.
You might have work,
Career,
Your business.
You might have community service.
You might have travel or hobbies.
See if you can draw,
See if you can visualize a map of all of the teams around how you spend your time.
You may press pause or you may continue going.
Now let's identify your strengths,
Your character strengths.
These are your superpowers.
I'm going to ask you to press pause again and jump online to a character strength survey.
It's free.
It will take 15 minutes tops and it is the most extraordinary overview of the top three to six character strengths that are uniquely yours.
Enjoy.
Welcome back.
Now we're into section two,
Habits.
Habits,
They deep code us.
They're the formative early experiences often outside our control.
Upon these habits,
We can collect experiences.
These are more conscious choices as we curate our next steps in life.
And then upon the basis of the coding and the collecting,
I'm now giving you the opportunity to craft,
To weave all elements of this coding and collecting,
These habits we've picked up along the way to create your own legacy.
Let's go into coding.
Let's understand the influence of the world you were born into.
Get a second piece of paper and have a think about what is the era and the culture,
The foundations that you were born into.
When you've described the influence and observed the era that you were born into,
What about the people?
Who are the people around you?
Now let's think of ceremony.
What were the rituals and practices such as religion and customs around the major milestones in your life?
As we mature,
We're a little bit more conscious in the habits that we pick up along the way.
We call this phase collecting.
Collecting experiences from travel,
Relationships and other major influences that we really like and would like to continue as part of life.
Write down the habits that you've collected and would like to continue.
Write down the certifications,
The qualifications and the career decisions around your education and your curiosity What are the conscious choices that you've made as you curated a career?
And interactions.
What are the interactions that you really like to keep in your life?
Could be hobbies,
Could be relationships.
Now we've understood how we're coded.
We've reminisced what we've collected along the way.
Now it's the creative part.
We get to weave all elements and proactively craft your legacy statement.
Let's start with your vision.
What do you wish for in life?
Let's consider the impact.
What have you already so beautifully achieved and confidently,
Proudly know to be true in terms of the impact you can have for yourself and for those teams,
Those people around you that you've mapped and you've drawn.
Now communication.
Proactive legacy is being aware of how we are coded,
What we've collected and the decision on what to craft going forward.
Now is your moment to compose your legacy statement.
Keep it short,
Make it easy to remember and allow it to be yours.
It can be a purpose statement,
It can be a description of your character,
It is absolutely iterative.
Considering your legacy statement,
Compare it to the other areas of your life.
Do a little audit.
Are you living this legacy with the people?
Are you living this legacy with what you've collected along the way?
If not,
How can you optimize?
How can you bring everything day to day into alignment?
Your legacy helps you make decisions and prioritize.
Now is there anything else that comes to mind?
Is there something sticky or uncomfortable in your legacy statement?
Start the process again,
See what you can refine.
Is there anything you're feeling guilty about?
This is what's calling your first attention.
See what you can do there.
Thank you and congratulations,
You've crafted your own legacy statement and you now have a guide for bringing legacy into all aspects of your life.
