What kind of girl does legacy like

What are your values? How do you want your life to touch others? What would make you proud? If you had to do one thing to improve your world, what would your contribution be? How can you increase the well-being of those who depend on you? How can you leave your mark on whatever you do? The answer to these introspective questions will help you develop a meaningful philosophy of life that goes beyond just creating financial wealth.

Your words become the building blocks of your legacy. Knowing what's important, what drives you and how you want to be remembered creates tremendous clarity in how you should live your life. As Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner remind us in A Leader's Legacy , "by asking ourselves how we want to be remembered, we plant the seeds for living our lives as if we matter. Creating a legacy statement will help you commit to what you wrote down and live your life in line with your higher values.

If you need more guidelines for developing your legacy document, check out the resources at Plan Your Legacy. In a similar manner, the Six-Word Memoir is a way of naming your mission in life. Staring at a blank page can be daunting, but choosing six words to define your mission and what you want your life to stand for may not be so hard and may even be energizing and stimulating.

Try thinking of six poignant words that can define the footprint you want to leave in your life's path. Everyone thinks of creating a will to distribute their material possessions, but what about spiritual gifts?

An ethical will is a spiritual legacy that you leave for your children, your family, your friends and associates. It's an important document where you capture the essence of who you are and what you stand for by writing about your life lessons, values, accomplishments and hopes. It's a way of recording significant milestones and defining moments in your life, something you leave for those who matter to you. Try your hand at writing your own ethical will—you can start creating one at any age and build on it with the passage of time as you continue to accumulate wisdom and knowledge.

I want to be remembered as someone who made a difference, that a geek girl in high school can become more and to show what the other side of life is like. To continually bounce back and fight when giving up wasn't an option. I want someday for my children to say "wow, our mother's impact on the world extends to people who really needed help. We've all got roles in our lives, to be a good daughter friend, cousin niece, etc.

If we really try and really want it, we can actually change the world. Maybe it's the hippie gene inherited from my father, but I truly believe we can make and break our own destinies.

What do you want your legacy to be? She hid behind criticizing others and focusing on what the world wasn't accomplishing so she wouldn't have to look herself in the mirror. Every area of her life was unfulfilled. Out of need, she entered into a marriage of convenience. She had no close friends. She was a hoarder, she was depressed, and she suffered from low self-esteem. She couldn't trust others, so her business ideas could never take off.

She couldn't stay connected to her kids because she felt ashamed of her lack of money and success. She desperately wanted to create a life she could be proud of before she died, but she didn't know how to make that happen because of all her internal pain and her internal dialog telling her how stupid and worthless she was.

Sarah ended up passing away in her early sixties. Her legacy was an unfulfilled life, without ever being able to give herself or her children the love they needed because she was so stressed out, sad, and ashamed of her lack of money and success.

Often, when we think of legacy, we think of things--material possessions. But as both of these examples illustrate, your legacy isn't always about things. Usually, it's about who you are and how you touch people's lives. To start purposefully creating your legacy, think about the following three questions.

I've used these questions myself and have given them to my clients to think about and answer. They will rock you to your core. I am hoping this book highlights the plight of widows and widowers in our culture, in hope of educating the general public about what they can do to help these sad, lonely folks.

I go out and give talks on my book, offer my time to my many clubs and to the town. I just hope I can continue to my work in good health for many years to come. Around the same time, I knew I wanted to leave some form of legacy, but to whom?

We did not have children. And absolutely I wanted to be remembered. As I continued writing my first novel and part of my second one, the responses to what is my purpose and what kind of legacy I could leave and to whom, came to me through the creative process.

Consciously I do not know if my purpose and my legacy influenced the way I lived my life before or after their discovery. I can say that so much of living my life was influenced by my willingness to accept myself with love, compassion and gentleness and treat others the same.

My challenge each day continues to be to accept differences and be loving and kind. I have always wanted to help create positive change in my immediate community as well as in communities abroad lacking access to basics like clean water. I am a business owner, so much of my time over the past 30 years has been dedicated to building a business focusing on me while squeezing in volunteer and philanthropic work a few times or more a year.

Now, I spend more time thinking and planning ways to have my commitments managed in the opposite order. I would like to be remembered as a woman who achieved balance; a grounding source of unconditional love for her family; a supporter of personal growth, achievement and empowerment for those she touched; a positive energy to the creation of peace and respect for everyone and all forms of life.

Each day, I start my day with prayer followed by meditation. The prayer allows me to reconnect with my purpose for being here life and meditation gets me centered with where I am in my journey and what my priorities at this point in time should be.