How To Focus On Your Legacy For A More Fulfilling Life Now

If you’re like me, you’re always on the run. Errands, work, and family obligations fill our calendar to the point where we need to X off days just to relax. How could we possibly think about anything outside the present moment? We’re drowning in to-dos and barely keeping our heads above water at times. 

In our fast-paced world, it’s easy to feel like life is just a series of daily tasks with no real purpose, but one powerful way to add meaning and direction to your life is to think about the legacy you want to leave behind – and not so much about what you’re going to fix for dinner. 

Focusing on what you’ll leave for others – whether it’s through your kids, a business, your art, or charitable work – can make your everyday actions more meaningful and fulfilling.

Your Legacy Doesn’t Mean a Will

Thinking about your legacy is all about looking beyond your own lifetime and considering the impact you’ll have on the world. Your legacy is totally unique and up to you. What’s important to me might be different for my best friend. 

For many of us, we might want our legacy to be raising children who carry on important values. As Thomas Campbell so poetically put it, "To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." This is arguably the best legacy that we can leave behind, considering the fate of mankind, you know, rests on our responsibility to leave others behind as those who have gone before us did (thanks, Gramps!). 

This legacy can also look different for many. One might interpret this legacy as investing in your children’s education; for another, it might simply mean having several kids and having a large family. It can look like setting aside intentional time to listen to your little one’s needs to teach them the values and morals that are important to you. It can look like prioritizing religious services for your family over sports. 

For others, a legacy might have nothing to do with your descendants. It could be about building a business that creates jobs, solves issues, makes a difference in your community, and so on. Some might find their legacy in creating art that lasts, while others may find it in starting a charity that helps those in need.

Whatever form your legacy takes, focusing on it helps you act with intention. It pushes you to think about how your actions affect others and what kind of mark you’ll leave on the world.

Looking Beyond Yourself

One of the best things about living for your legacy is that it helps shift your focus from just thinking about yourself (hey, individualistic culture) to thinking about how you can positively impact others. When you prioritize your legacy, you start to see your efforts as part of a bigger picture, which can make what you do feel more rewarding.

Thinking about others has massive consequences on your mental health. A study published in BMC Public Health found that volunteering is associated with reduced symptoms of depression. Specifically, individuals who volunteered regularly had a 20-30% lower likelihood of experiencing depressive symptoms compared to non-volunteers.

Helping others can relieve depression and anxiety symptoms in large part because our focus shifts away from ourselves toward others. Our sense of connection deepens, and we feel less isolated. We may feel a sense of purpose in life and a sense of control over our situations, and it even opens up avenues to receive encouraging and positive emotional feedback – something we all crave.

Building Your Life Around Legacy

When you make your legacy a guiding principle, it helps you make better decisions and manage your time more effectively. You start to think about what really matters to you in the long run, not just what feels good in the moment.

I’ll never forget when a previous employer brought in a career advisor who helped us reevaluate not only our job descriptions, but what we actually do on a day to day basis. He helped us compare the two vastly different documents, and he pointed out many tasks that we had picked up along the way that had nothing to do with our roles.

This same practice can be applied to our daily lives. Once we discern what kind of legacy we want to leave behind, we can do a cross comparison on how we spend our time, money, and energy. For example, if our legacy is to leave behind a novel, is it really necessary to spend so much time dabbling in music production? Or if our legacy is to send our children off into the world with a solid, classical education, does it make sense to spend so much money on sports when, in fact, we would prefer they attend a private school?

If we find ourselves spending a lot of time on things that have nothing to do with our goals, eliminate them. We can’t plant more in our garden without weeding and making space for new things to grow.

Choose to spend your time in a way that works toward your goals, rather than doing things that don’t align with them. This focus can help you feel more satisfied, as you see how your efforts contribute to something bigger than yourself.

Breaking Free of the Immediacy of Now

C.S Lewis wrote, “The present moment is the point at which time touches eternity,” meaning the present moment is important, dare I say, sacred. But it’s not everything.

It’s important to look ahead and have something long-term that you are working towards. Researchers found that individuals who frequently sought immediate gratification experienced higher levels of anxiety and stress, whereas individuals who set long-term goals experienced 25% less stress and anxiety compared to those without clear long-term goals. 

This doesn’t necessarily come easy for us since we live in an age where it feels less like “supply and demand” and more like “demand and supply asap.” National Geographic used the term “urgency culture” to describe the fast-paced, instantaneous, and indulgent world we live in now. (Same day delivery, we’re looking at you.)

Looking past the present and setting long-term goals has a ton of benefits, including:

• Improved emotional well-being

• Increased income

• Higher career achievement

• Higher academic performance

• Better physical health

• Enhanced life satisfaction

• Stronger relationships and greater relationship stability

• Increased resilience

• Improved self-discipline

Why? A myriad of reasons, some of which we’ve already discussed, but my personal favorite can be summed up simply as: “It gives you something to look forward to.”

When my dad was in Iraq when I was 14, he was insistent that my siblings put things on the calendar to look forward to. It’s a practice I still do today. I would balk at the idea of scheduling a big trip just weeks in advance, not because I wouldn’t have time to prepare for it, but rather because anticipating it is half the fun.

Living with your legacy in mind is more than just a nice idea – it’s a powerful way to give your life direction and purpose. Whether you’re focused on writing the next Broadway musical or discovering a groundbreaking cure for cancer, thinking about your legacy helps turn everyday actions into meaningful contributions. It makes life more fulfilling and helps you see how your choices impact the world in a positive way.

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