How do you want to be remembered?

How do you want to be remembered?

This is a really hard question for a lot of people.  Especially women.  Especially entrepreneurs.  There are so many ways we WANT to make an impact on the world, and so many ways we WANT to help people, so many ways we WANT to support our families and our lifestyles. 

If you had to pick 5 words that you wanted your children to use in your eulogy, what would they be?

It’s not as easy as you think to define this.  The hardest thing for us is making sure our actions are interpreted in the way we’re intending.  No one else is inside our heads, no one hears our thoughts (unless they are reading our journals, and, shame on them!). 

So today, I’m issuing you a challenge, and it’s not going to be easy, but I promise you’ll learn something about yourself.  Take some time, and write out the 5 words you want to be remembered as.  You may get triggered, it’s OK.  Go with it. 

After you’ve written those 5 words, write an action for each one that you’ll do in support of those words this week.  You may already be doing them.  That’s great!  Write down the ways you’re living up to those words.  If you’re not living them the way you want to be, that’s when you can make the change.  Remember, the actions you write down aren’t huge, and things don’t change overnight.  Make these tiny shifts in your life to live up to the way YOU want to be.

Side note: DO NOT write down words OTHER people have called you.  In the words of Hogarth from the Iron Giant, “You are who you choose to be.”  Take a minute to reflect on that sentence.  YOU choose to be whomever YOU want.  You have the ultimate responsibility for everything in your life.  And only YOU can change it.

If you want to go deeper into this exercise, Head over and check out the NorthStar Life Plan.  This workbook gives you the most comprehensive set of tools to make any decision in your life.  Don’t fear your decisions, make them count!

Have an amazing day!

~Jessica