Greetings!

Welcome to the new year and a new decade. Maybe even a new you? What are you eager to create in your life, your work and the world? If you’re reading this, you likely have more freedom to create, express yourself, work in a satisfying way and give back than many other people on the planet.

I enjoy the symbolism of the new year, but do my best not to stay too far out in the future. It’s one thing to vision and plan — both good and important activities — but it’s also crucial to stay in the present moment, putting one foot in front of the other. The present is the place you create from, and taking one step at a time is the way you do it.

The first step is an active demonstration, a true commitment. That notion reminds me of two other truly legacy level first steps that also began on January 1, and required a continued commitment to bring to fruition. They deserve celebration maybe even more than the new year.

In 1863, then-President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This first step - issuing the proclamation - was taken during the third year of the ongoing civil war and was not particularly far reaching in its effect. But it grew, and inspired Americans to make many expansive and long-ranging changes in this country after that. Additionally, in 1970 the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was passed. This first step toward incorporating environmental considerations into law and policy required the US federal government to use all practicable means to create and maintain conditions for humans and nature to act in productive harmony, and to utilize environmental considerations in an interdisciplinary approach to planning and decision-making. That first step likewise created numerous additional changes that have spanned the following decades. Each first step began its own thousand mile journey - journeys that continue today.

So in this new year, commit to take a step — you may be amazed where it will take you. Venture out in a new direction, toward creating something that is meaningful to you and makes something better. Envision a great new future, but from the present with each foot firmly planted as you go. And remember: you don’t have to take any journey alone. It’s usually easier with help and support. It’s tough to create synergy by yourself — unity is plural, a minimum of two. So while you’re considering the journey, also consider who would make a good companion to help get you where you truly want to go.

Cheers,

Dolly

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Are you good at making commitments? Are you capable of committing to something big, significant or important to you?

Making a commitment is crucial to creating a legacy project. And the first commitment is to yourself. At the point in life where you’re ready to develop your personal legacy, the commitment is one that comes from within, rather than to satisfy something or someone outside yourself, like a job, a partner, or a boss. In a sense, it is a commitment to your own integrity — to really take on something that resonates with you and moves you deep inside.

Hopefully, prior commitments in your life have been like that. But often so much of life includes mastering requirements — academic or professional standards, business mandates, and so on — and our commitments are formed around them. At best, we’re commit to completing those outside requirements because we’ve consciously chosen to accomplish something we think is significant, but sometimes those accomplishments are misplaced goals. They are goals that belong to someone else or something we’ve taken on, consciously or unconsciously, because it is important to someone else. So you think it is important to you, until you realize it really was not. Focusing on your legacy and what you want to create is about discovering what stirs inside you and then making a commitment to yourself to address your own interests, passions or sense of purpose.

Commitment is more than just a declaration, which is something you say is true or that you are going to do; but you haven’t done it yet. So it remains a declaration that lives in language and thought rather than in evidence. Declarations are the promises we make to ourselves and sometimes others, either in our heads or even out loud like "one of these days I’m going to ..." or "let’s do lunch!" but we never quite get around to.

Commitment may start with a declaration, but once you are committed you don’t need to declare it or even say anything about it because you are actively demonstrating it. Legacy level commitment is about putting a stake in the ground about something you truly care about and are ready and willing to act on. It is about walking your talk and if you choose a leadership role in developing a project, it is also about creating an environment to match that commitment and develop it in a sustainable way.

What moves you to want to put your stake in the ground? How will you demonstrate that?

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