Legacy Building in Retirement
When most people talk about a retirement legacy, they’re referring to financial wealth and estate planning. That’s not the legacy we’re talking about here, although the two can be related. Your real legacy — the one that matters to the people who care about you most — is the things that define your life. What aspects of your values, passions, and strengths will you leave behind when you’re gone?
Most of us don’t want to be remembered for all the hours we put in at the office during our adult life. We’d rather be remembered for the impact that we had on the lives of other people. We all have the ability to influence others positively to some extent, even if we’re not the wealthiest people on our block. So, how do we make an impact in retirement on others? The first step to figuring that out is asking some introspective questions.
What Inspires You?
Leaving a legacy doesn’t happen by accident. It takes years of passionate work toward a certain goal or set of values. If you’re already retired, think about what inspires you to get out of bed every morning. If you’re getting closer to retirement, think about what you want to do once you’re no longer in the workforce. You don’t have to be an extremely wealthy person to leave behind a legacy. You just need to have a passion for something that you can share with and instill in others.
This could be a belief that you have cared about since you were a child, or it could be something you’ve discovered much later in life. It could be your profession during your career, or it could be a hobby that you’ve enjoyed for a long time, like golf, reading, or fly fishing. Maybe you want to improve living conditions for others in your community.
No one has ever left behind a legacy related to something they did not care about. Your legacy is ultimately going to be related to something that inspires you, so start by figuring out what that “something” is.
Who Will Your Legacy Impact?
Once you’ve identified something that you’re passionate enough about to invest your time, effort, and sometimes money in, it’s time to think about a demographic that you want your legacy to have an impact on. You can’t simply share your passion with everyone in every age group and every walk of life, because it’s not going to interest everyone. But it will interest some people. Having a narrow focus will make your legacy-building efforts that much more fruitful in the long run.
What is a specific group that could benefit from your legacy-building efforts? Here are just a few examples:
- Children or students
- Neighbors and local community members
- Religious groups
- The homeless
- Inner-city youth
- Refugees
- Victims of crime
- People struggling with addictions
What Impact Do You Want to Leave Behind?
Don’t worry about the means at this point, but rather about the end goal. Once you decide on a passion that you really want to pursue, you’ll figure out a way to fill in the blanks. The end result of leaving a legacy is about passing on your beliefs or values about a particular cause.
Here’s an example. You might be passionate about helping the homeless. Realistically, you’re not going to end homelessness through any of your efforts to provide for the basic needs of the homeless. Some achievable goals through your efforts, however, might include changing the way that other people think about the homelessness issue and inspiring them to adopt the same cause.
Theory is great, but how do you start to put this into practice? Now that you’ve thought about what inspires you and a potential demographic for your retirement legacy-building efforts, it’s time to take some more concrete steps.
Write it Down
Write down your goals when it comes to legacy building as a mission statement. There’s something about transporting an idea from your head through your arm and onto a piece of paper that spurs us to action. Many studies have found that people are more likely to pursue a goal if they simply write it down. Try to keep it to one sentence:
“I want to share my love of _ with youths and others in my community so that their lives can be enriched by it in the same way that mine has.”
Share with Others
Sharing your desire to leave behind a legacy with others can help enlist them to your cause:
“I hope that I’m remembered for X when I’m gone” is a powerful statement. Loved ones and friends may never have realized how important something was to you until you express it to them in this way. When they realize its importance to you, they’re more likely to offer moral, financial, or other support to an issue that you care passionately about.
Make it a Part of Your Daily Life
Every day when you wake up, think about ways that you can move the needle when it comes to leaving a legacy. It becomes easier to make an impact in retirement since you tend to have a lot more free time on your hands for passion projects. Working on your legacy project(s) also keeps you active and focused, which we all need as we get older.
One of the most consistent ways that you can make an impact is by dedicating some of your time to your passion projects. Serving on the board of directors for a local charitable organization can help define issues where more work is needed. Helping out with fundraisers or volunteering your time for events is another way to stay involved. Talk to others and let them know why this is so important to you, and your passion will inspire others to get involved.
You don’t have to be Bill Gates to leave behind a retirement legacy. All it takes is a passion for something you truly care about, getting involved in it, and sharing it with others.
