One of the powerful themes that can help clients really focus on what they want in work and life, and can help clear away layers of “shoulds” and “if only”s is to explore the legacy we leave behind us - when we move on from a job, from an organization, or even when we leave a room!

What do people sense about us  - do we lift or diminish people? change a mood for better or worse…?

Asking ourselves: “when we reach the end of our life, what do we want to look back on as our legacy to others?” is a slightly awesome but very positive way of taking a perspective on what is really important to us.

I came across an article in the Guardian recently when ex nurse (and now singer) Bronnie Ware wrote about the five regrets she heard from people on their deathbed. Got me pondering….

Top Five Regrets:

• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life truer to myself, not the life others’ expected of me
• I wish I didn’t work so hard
• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
• I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends
• I wish that I had let myself be happier

Living your life backwards for a moment, what do you want your legacy to be - in this meeting? When you move on from this job? At your last breath?

Here’s Bronnie’s full piece Top Five Regrets of the Dying

At times of uncertainty when most things around us seems less reliable, less predictable, our values hold us at the quiet centre of the storm. This is true both at the organisational and the personal level.

For the organisation, values are the ship’s compass by which it defines itself - or redefines itself - when pushed off course.

…Continue reading - “Values hold the quiet centre”