What is the State of Your Legacy?
by Robert Hackman
Photograph by Jurien Huggins on Unsplash
So, you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Lyrics from the song ‘Time’
By Pink Floyd
It goes without saying. None of us knows how long we have to live. Nor do we know how long we will keep our health, wits, or faculties.
We gladly spend our time in denial. However, author, psychologist, and artist Ed Adams aptly states in his book, Becoming a Happier Man, ‘It’s wise to remember we only think we have time.’
I am not encouraging you to become morbid and act as if death continually looms at your door. That would not be helpful. Nor would it make you popular at parties.
Yet it does not make sense to stiff-arm the notion that none of us knows when we will expire either.
A Relevant Story
Our inclination to do so reminds me of the movie ‘Tuck Everlasting.’ Based on the classic book of the same name, it tells the story of the Tuck family, whose members live forever—something many find enticing.
The unexpected message of the story is that without the pain of loss and the shared awareness that none of us gets out of this life alive, nothing has significance. The importance of the actions taken or not on one day is the same as the next. There is no sense of urgency because there is no need.
When you disown the unpredictability of your own mortality, you unconsciously take the same perspective.
Realizing that’s not the case sharpens your focus.
What’s the state of your Legacy right now? How close are you to living and leaving the Legacies you genuinely want? What changes do you need to make to close the gap between your current state and your desired state?
An important note here: Legacies are continuous. They are constantly occurring. They do not ensue in batch mode. However, we can only assess them at specific points in time within a larger context.
Steps to Identifying Your Current Legacy Condition
The first step to ascertaining the condition of your Legacy is to affirm that you have one – comprehending that Legacies pertain to you. Each one of us lives and leaves our Legacies all day, every day. We do this through interactions with others, our environment, and what we leave behind.
The only question is how close the ones we live are to those for which we yearn.
The second step is to determine the Legacies that matter most to you. This requires reflection and getting in touch with how you truly feel about the impact you seek to make.
Reading, writing, engaging thinking partners, mentors, confidants, or coaches, and participating in supportive peer groups are all ways to clarify the ways you want to make a difference. Ask people how they experience you.
Gratitude practices, mindfulness, yoga, and meditation are helpful ways to settle your thoughts and tap into the awareness of your body. Your body reveals most genuinely what you feel at any given moment.
The third step is noticing the gaps between your current state and how you interact with others and your environment compared to what you want.
The fourth step is developing the willingness to make the necessary changes to move you in your desired direction.
You do not realize the love you have for the status quo. Your devotion and attachment to your current state are stronger than you realize. That is why they say change is hard to come by, especially during times of uncertainty.
Even when your current situation does not serve you, you are inclined to remain there.
As Mark Twain famously quipped, ‘I am in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.’ You laugh at his proclamation because you see the same delusional beliefs in yourself. They are alive and well in your teams, families, organizations, and communities.
Twain stated more presciently, ‘If you want to change the future. You need to change what you are doing in the present.’ This gets directly to our fantasies.
Believing you don’t have to determine what is essential to you, align yourself with what matters most, and, God forbid, change to live and lead with fewer regrets.
Rather than take the risk of choosing wrongly, you decide not to. Doing nothing seems safer, as if that, too, were not a choice. It is by far the most common choice. One that does not move you forward.
We all agree that no one wants more regrets. No one does. Yet we readily sign up for regrets by pushing off decisions, resisting change, and avoiding risks even when they are in service to creating the best version of ourselves.
Additional lyrics from Floyd’s song, Time, express our disposition well:
‘You are young, and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run; you missed the starting gun’
Your Legacies won’t wait. They go on whether you attend to them or not. The choices are yours. Which will they be?
Worthy Inquiries:
- What keeps you from assessing the condition of your Legacy? What fuels your resistance? What are the costs to you and others?
- How does holding onto the illusion that you ‘know’ you have time influence your decision-making?
- What essential decisions do you put off because it is not the right time? What constitutes the proper time?
- Are you signing up for regrets by pushing off decisions, resisting change, and avoiding risks even when they are in service to creating the best version of you – your team and your company?
- Can you remember that you change your future by the changes you make in the present? How would that alter your decisions today?
Please contact me for help taking a Legacy inventory to determine its current condition and identify the changes you need to make to align with what matters most for the benefit of yourself, your family, your team, your organization, and your community. I welcome the conversation.
Robert Hackman, Principal, 4C Consulting – Courageously Curious Consulting and Coaching, helps people live and lead with fewer regrets. He grows and develops leaders through executive coaching, strategy consulting, facilitation, and training of individuals, teams, and organizations. He is committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He facilitates trusting environments that promote uncommonly candid conversations. Rob is also passionate about the power of Everyday Legacies and developing Legacy Mindsets. He has conducted over 50 Legacy interviews with people to date.
A serious man with a dry sense of humor who loves absurdity. Rob can often be found hiking rocky elevations or making music playlists. His varied mixes, including Pandemic Playlists and Music About Men, can be found on Spotify.