— Here’s how to adopt a ‘legacy’ mind-set.

Building a legacy — which benefits others and will survive beyond your lifetime — encourages you to think deeper and longer term

By Katherine Kam

As you think about which goals to pursue this year, consider one with lasting impact: building a legacy.

“What do I want to leave the world? How do I want to be remembered?” said Lisa Marchiano, a psychotherapist in Philadelphia. “When we think in terms of legacy, we’re really trying to use our imagination to think far beyond our own individual existence.”

Short-term goals such as starting a new hobby or saving money for a special vacation can be valuable, but a legacy mind-set requires different considerations. Building a legacy — which benefits others and will survive beyond your lifetime — encourages you to think deeper and longer term, experts say.

Legacy building does not have to be a grand project, it can be a simple one that speaks to your strengths and values. Some examples include:

Legacy building does not have to be a grand project, it can be a simple one that speaks to your strengths and values. Some examples include:

• Start a collection of recipes of favorite family dishes to give to younger relatives.
• Support an organization that does vital work.
• Mentor a youth who needs guidance and a mature perspective.
• Leave your life lessons in story form for your loved ones or community.
• Create scrapbooks and photo albums, clearly labeled with added written accounts, so memories won’t be forgotten.
• Research your ancestry and create a family tree.
• Use your talents to create a new family heirloom, for example, a wood sculpture or furniture, a painting or a piece of pottery.

Howard Kaplan, a financial adviser in Cincinnati, comes from a tightknit family, a legacy, he says, he inherited from a maternal grandmother who prized extended kin gatherings.

As part of his own legacy, Kaplan, 56, wrote a digital document he called a “life letter” for his daughters, Hannah, 25, and Sarah, 22.

Reflecting on his own values, goals and life lessons benefited him, too, he said: “It was a gift for myself.”

“I wanted to tell my story,” Kaplan said, to let family and descendants know “why I made certain decisions and how I became who I am.” His family is close, but he had not expressed his thoughts to them in such a way, he said.

Among the top lessons for his offspring: Life is hard. “Not that that’s bad. It’s just the way it is,” he said. “There is no easy bus that’s coming for us, so we’re all going to have to work hard.”

>But he was also creative and playful. Kaplan loves music, he said, from Beethoven to AC/DC. He paired his life letter to his daughters with a playlist of 42 songs that hold meaning for him. His favorite: “Family Affair” by Mary J. Blige. “The beat is amazing,” he said, but he’s also drawn to the lyrics: “We don’t need no haters. We’re just trying to love one another.”

Volunteer and work legacies matter, too

You don’t need to have children to embrace a legacy resolution. For example, you can support or volunteer at an organization, including one that might outlive you.

Charming Evelyn, 56, grew up in the Caribbean, where conservation was a way of life. Households, including hers, collected rainwater in large storage tanks for domestic use, she said.

“We do not waste,” she said. People reused plastic containers and turned empty cookie tins into sewing boxes. “There was already a level of recycling happening,” she said.

Evelyn parlayed that tradition of conservation and a love of nature into a long-standing volunteer commitment with the Sierra Club, a grass-roots environmental organization. She volunteers as the chair of the water committee for the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter and has worked on issues such as water conservation and depletion of groundwater.

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