Have you ever thought about why we adore Cinderella, the poor servant who transforms into a princess? Or how about the story of Luke Skywalker, a poor farm child who grows up to be the galaxy’s saviour? Or that of Rapunzel, a beautiful girl imprisoned by a witch who came out of the shackles by cutting her own hair.
If you think about their stories carefully, you’ll notice that, while they suffer significant shifts, they did not go through a huge transition, from one sort of person to another. Instead, they begin with their innate grandeur stifled by traumatic childhoods and buried by adversity. They learn to leave the shackles of their past and become their actual selves—leaders, inspirational figures, and heroes—over the course of their adventures. The core message of these stories is one that we can all relate to.
Human life is complex. We are born, we learn to live, and somewhere along the way we lose touch with our inner brilliance when we face life’s challenges. We begin to make unpalatable compromises, accept less, and transform into persons who are not our true selves.
These stories, on the other hand, give us strength. They motivate us to be someone or something. They ignite our power within. But why just these stories. Examine the lives of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., three of the century’s most renowned and influential figures.
None of them were born wealthy or powerful, but they all tapped into a personal blueprint to access natural gifts, worked out the finest means, or Vehicle, to use those Gifts, identified their primary audience for those gifts, and then moved Heaven and Earth to share those gifts with the world.
To put it another way, they found their mojo, pursued their mission, and fought until they were able to give the advantages of their strength to those who needed it the most.
This is a path that has been pursued since the dawn of time, the path of legacy, to gain success and achievement.
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The Ultimate Guide to Leaving a Legacy: How To Leave Your Mark!
As human beings, we want to make a difference but unfortunately, not everything we do has a positive effect. Humans are, after all, the only species on the planet that destroys their own environment. However, the effect can be either beneficial or harmful, and it can be purposeful or accidental. The influence can be exceedingly modest or incredibly significant. Some people make such a great difference in the world that they leave a legacy. When does our influence become a legacy? There are four major conditions, for leaving a legacy.
To leave a legacy, you should have a:
- Pure intentional
- positive
- impact on a large scale
- that will outlast your own life/company’s lifespan
But how do you actually leave a mark, Let’s find out?
Find Your Purpose – Every human is an individual being with individual qualities. Maybe I am compassionate but you are strong. What I mean is that each one of us has an individual aspect to ourselves that creates our purpose. Our life’s purpose is ours to find and no one can help us in that. So in order to live in the path of your legacy begin by finding your purpose, your individual mojo that keeps you up at night, that keeps you going in the morning and that directs all your actions.
Unlock Your Passion – Only finding your purpose will not do the trick. You can find your purpose and still not be able to leave a legacy at the end. So finding your passion and connecting it to your purpose as well as your natural abilities and skills is the key to leaving a legacy. You should be ready to adopt practical tactics for leaving a legacy at work once you’ve done the effort to find your actual passions.
Write Your Legacy Statement – The next step is to write your legacy statement. Your legacy statement can assist you in determining which of your various activities should be scaled in order to meet your objectives. It’s the force that propels you forward in all you do. You will change what you concentrate on. Your actions, plans, branding, and interactions are all built on this basis. This statement will aid you in achieving your long-term goals and evaluating new prospects. People can misunderstand the future you’re striving for if you don’t have a legacy statement. They may lose the concentration and energy needed to effect change if they are not aligned with your mission.
Live Your Legacy – The last step is to live your legacy. How many times have you heard, “Fake it till you make it.” The same can go with your legacy. Live your legacy. Passionately and gratefully engage in this life. We have no idea how long we will be able to enjoy this life. However, we may leave a legacy by living as if we care and in a way that respects our creation. People will remember how you live rather than your accomplishments.
What Does It Mean To Leave A Legacy?
What does it mean to leave a legacy in this world? Consider the people you’ve only heard of but have yet to meet. There may be many for example, a famous person who died centuries before you were born, or a member of your great-great-grand family, or someone your mother knew whom you never met.
When people talk about leaving a legacy, they usually mean leaving a big financial fortune to their family or making a large financial gift to an organisation whose aim aligns with their own. A desire to leave an influence AFTER we die is the driving force for legacy contributions. In actuality, only a small minority of people in the world are ever able to leave a significant financial legacy that will outlast them. If we’re being honest, most people struggle to achieve the dream and live paycheck to paycheck for most of their life. They never consider leaving a financial legacy because they never accumulate the wealth required to do so.
We can all begin to contemplate leaving our own legacy if we think of legacy as something we contribute that has a significant impact on the lives of present and future generations, rather than just a financial legacy. It’s possible that leaving a big sum of money will leave a legacy, but it’s also possible that it won’t. In any case, every one of us possesses something unique within us, shaped by our experiences, relationships, interests, struggles, and accomplishments, which provides us with the insight and heart to give exactly what someone else requires from us.
Leaving a legacy in its actual sense means making a difference, making an impact that will last long even after you die. It is something that is passed down. It is your mark. It is your footprint. It is your contribution.
Understanding and accepting the critical, one-of-a-kind obligation of leaving this kind of legacy BEFORE we die leads to what I call larger purpose living: spending our lives, our time, and our money to make a significant difference in the lives of others. If we do it right, our effect will become our legacy, inspiring others to do the same, so that future generations are involved in leaving people we encounter in a better place than they were before we met them!
We are all born on this planet with a purpose. Everything thing you are doing right now is having a major impact on you and the people around you. If you want to leave a legacy, you must remember how you got started but concentrate on how you completed it.
You are leaving a legacy whether you want it or not. The question is are you going to be intentional about the legacy you leave.
What Is A Legacy? Does it Matter, And Why Should I Care?
Where do you think it’s probably best to plant a young tree? In an open field or a forest?
When a new tree is put in an area with older trees, it grows faster. The reason for this is that the roots of the young tree can follow the routes left by previous trees and implant themselves deeper. Many tree roots may graft themselves to one another over time, forming a complicated, interconnected foundation under the ground. Stronger trees share resources with lesser trees in this way, resulting in a healthier forest as a whole.
That’s what legacy is: a cross-temporal relationship with a need for those who came before us and a responsibility to those who will come after us.
So in the most natural form, our life is about living and leaving a legacy and legacy is about taking lessons from the past, living in the present, and planning for the future. It entails cultivating and transmitting a timeless aspect of yourself. It’s a gift that’s passed down the years, whether it’s in the form of money, property, or even stories. It is about you. It is about building now and experiencing later.
So if you ask me the question what is legacy, I would probably say it is YOU. So remind yourself, that the time we have here is valuable, and how we spend it shapes the narrative we leave behind.
What kind of legacy will you leave? What gift do you have to give the world, and will it echo through the minds and the souls of many more people after you? Ask yourself!
People Who Have Left A Legacy Behind
Until you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Have you ever dreamed about becoming a successful actress or singer? What about India’s president? We all have aspirations and dreams. You’ve undoubtedly attained some of your goals. However, no matter how successful you are now, you still have objectives to achieve. And it is our intention to assist you in realising your dreams and realising your true potential.
Let’s begin with a simple experiment. Take a look at the list of people below. Make a list of what they all have in common and see if you can figure out what they have in common.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mother Teresa
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead
Albert Einstein
Marie Curie
Nelson Mandela
Have you figured out what it is? Some of the persons are well-known, and you are likely familiar with their names. But undoubtedly they all have left a legacy behind them.
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela is perhaps the world’s last true hero. He is a living saint, revered by millions as a smiling embodiment of sacrifice and rectitude. He was an anti-apartheid activist who spent his early adult years fighting for Africans’ equal rights. He was imprisoned for life on Robben Island after violent demonstrations but was eventually released 27 years later. Following his release, he championed forgiveness and equality as messages. Apartheid was dissolved in 1991, Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, and he became South Africa’s first black president the following year.
Albert Einstein
The theory of relativity was developed by the Nobel Prize-winning German theoretical physicist. In addition, the famously eccentric genius devised the mass-energy equivalence formula, E = mc2. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for discovering the law of the photoelectric effect. This would prove to be crucial in the development of quantum theory.
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, was a true legacy. She became recognised around the world for selflessly dedicating her life to caring for lepers, the destitute, and the dying in Kolkata’s slums. From the United States to Yemen, she grew her order into a global network of nuns and lay volunteers who now run hospitals, health clinics, homeless shelters, and youth centers. She was what we can say as a true figure of gratitude. She won the Nobel Prize in 1979 lauded not only for her commitment to the disadvantaged but also for her managerial abilities.
Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead
Whitehead, the well-to-do son of a Yorkshire manufacturer, went to Oxford and got fascinated in the Arts & Crafts Movement. The movement, which was promoted by English artists such as John Ruskin and William Morris, pushed people to make handcrafted furniture and crafts as an antithesis to the monotonous, repetitive jobs of the Industrial Era. In 1892, Whitehead immigrated to the United States and married Philadelphian Jane Byrd McCall; together, they founded the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock in 1903. The utopian-style colony attracted many famous artists of the time, who produced furniture, earthenware, textiles, metalwork, and ceramics. Woodstock is still recognised as a sanctuary for artists of all stripes, despite the fact that the original colony did not last long.
Marie Curie
The Polish physicist and chemist became well-known for her groundbreaking work on radioactivity. She found two new compounds, radium and polonium, and used what she learned to conduct the first investigation into the use of radiation to treat tumors. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, the only woman to win it twice, and the first to win it in two different fields.
All these people have left such a huge footprint on our lives that we still remember them. What have you done? Rather what will you do? The upcoming generations must look back on your legacy with appreciation. You must disregard all production protocols and enter a successful arsenal. Fear is the enemy of success; allowing it into any aspect of your life will cripple your faith and render you worthless. Break free from the enchantment of fear and embrace faith.
Always remember your last name is bigger than your first name. Your first name is always about you but your last name is about us.
Question To Help You Understand The Legacy You Want To Leave
Given below are a few questions that can help you figure out and understand better the legacy and the legacy you want to leave behind.
- What do you want to be remembered as when you die?
- What stories are you leaving behind?
- Are you able to fulfill your purpose?
- What contributions have you made in your life?
- What will people remember you for outside of your family and friends?
- Whose lives will you have had an impact on?
- How will the world be a better place as a result of your presence?
- What impact were you able to create?
- How well were you able to serve around you?
- What will the future generation remember you for?
10 Leave A Legacy Quotes That Will Inspire You
“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” — Benjamin Franklin
“All good men and women must take responsibility to create legacies that will take the next generation to a level we could only imagine.” — Jim Rohn
“The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.”— Stephen Covey
“You want to be part of something like that, that’s something bigger than yourself, that’s something you leave a legacy of being part of something special.”— Saquon Barkley
“The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money… but rather a legacy of character and faith.” — Billy Graham
“The greatest legacy anyone can leave behind is to positively impact the lives of others. Whenever you add value to other people’s lives, you are unknowingly leaving footprints on the sands of time that live on, even after your passing.” — Emeasoba George
“If you’re going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can’t be erased.” — Maya Angelou
“Even though your time on the job is temporary, if you do a good enough job, your work there will last forever.” — Idowu Koyenikan
“I think the whole world is dying to hear someone say, ‘I love you.’ I think that if I can leave the legacy of love and passion in the world, then I think I’ve done my job in a world that’s getting colder and colder by the day.” — Lionel Richie
“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” — Shannon L. Alder
I don’t know what I meant before I got here but I know what it’s going to mean before I leave. So may sure you count.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to leave a legacy?
Making a difference, making an impact that will continue long after you die, is what it means to leave a legacy. It is something that is passed on from generation to generation. It’s your call. It’s your imprint on the ground. It’s something you’ve done.
What is a legacy?
A cross-temporal relationship with a need for those who came before us and a responsibility to those who will follow us is defined as a legacy. Leaving a legacy entails learning from the past, living in the present, and making plans for the future. It entails growing and imparting some aspect of oneself that is ageless. It’s a gift that has been passed down the generations, whether in the form of money, real estate, or even stories. It everything boils down to you. It’s all about constructing now and enjoying afterwards.
Who are the people who have left a legacy behind?
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Mother Teresa
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead
- Albert Einstein
- Marie Curie
- Nelson Mandela
Give some questions to help us understand the legacy you want to leave.
- What do you want to be remembered as when you die?
- What stories are you leaving behind?
- Are you able to fulfill your purpose?
- What contributions have you made in your life?
- What will people remember you for outside of your family and friends?
Give some leave a legacy quotes that will inspire you.
“All good men and women must take responsibility to create legacies that will take the next generation to a level we could only imagine.” — Jim Rohn
“The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution.”— Stephen Covey
“You want to be part of something like that, that’s something bigger than yourself, that’s something you leave a legacy of being part of something special.”— Saquon Barkley
