Your personal legacy is the answer to a question most of us avoid until later life, then can't stop thinking about: what will I be remembered for? The good news is that your legacy isn't decided yet, and it isn't out of your hands. It is being written right now, in how you live and in what you choose to preserve.
What a personal legacy really is
A personal legacy is the particular dent your one life leaves in the world — the specific people changed because you existed, the work that carries your fingerprints, the sayings your family will still repeat in fifty years. It is not a monument. It is a thousand small, true things.
How to discover what you'll be remembered for
Ask the people who know you
You are the worst judge of your own legacy. Ask three people who love you: "What's something I do, or say, or believe that you'll always associate with me?" Their answers will surprise you, and they're usually right.
Notice what you can't help doing
The thing you do without being asked — feeding people, fixing things, telling the truth, making the room laugh — is almost always the center of your living legacy.
A living legacy: shaping it while you can
The phrase "living legacy" matters. You don't have to wait. The kind word said now, the story told at the table, the letter written this week — these are legacy in real time. Every memory you write down is a piece of the legacy of a life made permanent.
Write your personal legacy down
Memory is generous but not reliable. The surest way to shape what you'll be remembered for is to put it in your own words while the details are still bright. Legacy Meaning gives you a permanent, private place to do exactly that. Begin with our legacy questions to unlock the first memory, or claim your place free.