Your Legacy in your Second Half
How do I make my life meaningful?
The point is finding meaning. It’s the meaning which sparks energy. John McFarlane, ANZ CEO (2005)
An idea presented in a previous article was to consider your next transition as a game. After all, if you have navigated your way and succeeded to date, it may have your game mastery that has led you to where you are today. What if this transition were a move from success for you, to success for a broader community? Consider this move as Significance beyond success.
Sheehy (1999) declares, ‘There’s a revolution in the human lifecycle. With the possibility of living until into your 80s, you must be prepared to live several adult lives’. Your mastery of Significance and embodiment of Generativity are the best predictors for happiness and success in later life. Mastery does not mean just moving in the not-for-profit sector or into unpaid voluntary work. Rather, consider yourself as becoming an ‘older-preneur’, contributing your experience and skills and interest to start-up businesses. Perhaps rather, you want to develop your second or third career. Perhaps you want to change your role within your organisation and mentor younger high performers.
How can you be Generative as you grow older?
Think about this characteristic to look at what you are doing presently. Review what you want to achieve that is meaningful for the greater community. The community may be your team at work, your family, your field of expertise, and the community in which you live. Of course, you may have a greater community you wish to operate in. You may desire to improve conditions for indigenous communities or increase educational opportunities for the disadvantaged. Make a start – focus on working towards your goal, the results you want to achieve in adding value in your chosen community.
Look at what is important to you and what you may have missed doing before. Perhaps you had time for a client rather than attend a significant family event. Perhaps you attended an early company meeting instead of being with family members who needed you then. With hindsight and perhaps regret, you may seek to make time for every important person in your life.
What have been your views to date on older persons and their contribution to the community? Have your stereotyped older people and joined in the banter about how others share your opinion? Now that you are growing older, what do you think now? Are you prepared to become a stereotype or someone of significance in your chosen community?
What legacy will you leave?
A legacy is not about how much money and to whom you leave that money. Instead, think about being involved in valuable, generative activities which can be incorporated in your life now, or into the future. For some of you, work contribution may occupy all your time and energy; you may have no idea how to answer the question about a future legacy. You may have no other interests, hobbies and activities outside your work to pursue now and plan for the future.
Moving to your Second Half is the time to develop these interests, pick up hobbies or build on what interested you earlier. Focus on achieving results that are worthwhile. This focus may mean you have to plan knowingly and in a conscious way. This may be the first time you are doing so.
Alternatively, you may consider your legacy is about extending your career, or building another one. If you have been working effectively, in a safe, solid, well-planned and well-managed environment, can you stop suddenly? How logical is that, to lose your talents and skills to an unplanned Second Half?
Building your legacy with Significance
What will you build on to create a legacy? Consider your career and the networks you have built, including the professional associations you may be a member of, and the qualifications you have earned. Review your wealth and consider what is superfluous, to be donated or shared as part of this legacy. Wealth may be money, goods, qualities, skills and experience.
Be aware of the challenges that you may face in constructing this legacy. You may be enjoying your work and engagement in a career and activities that have meaning now. You may have the stability that provides you with all you need. There will come a time when this stability may be threatened as you grow older, whether from those stereotype views that your employer has or from your own restlessness. If you want to be an active participant in the rest of your life take on this work with enthusiasm and joy.
How can you build a legacy?
Are you looking forward to your Second Half? Are you aware and even aware of the work it takes to make a life of meaning in your Second Half? What if you need some help?
Contact us for a complimentary consultation to focus on being and staying connected to others. We work with you to discover what you want for your life and how to transition to a life of meaning and purpose. It will be the best 30 minutes you spend to get started.
Sign up for our 52 weekly tips about your transition. The tips provide regular reminders of what you can do to make your transition inspirational and practical.
Reference
Perigo, J 2008, Winning in the second half, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, England.
Sheehy, G 1999, Understanding men’s passages: discovering the new map of men’s lives. Ballantine Books, NY.
© 2011 Helene Strawbridge, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the Second Half Success material in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read: By Helene Strawbridge of Second Half Success. Please visit Helene’s web site at www.secondhalfsuccess.com.au for additional articles and resources. (Make sure the link is live if placed in an newsletter or in a web site.)
|
