I’ve been thinking a lot lately about person legend lately, thanks to some long conversations about this with my teens over the last couple weeks. It’s so great to have teenagers. I can honestly say that I dreaded this phase of motherhood when my kids were little because I worried about my children somehow becoming mean strangers, and frankly, the way most parents talk about having teenage kids, didn’t really help. But the truth is, having teenagers is kind of like the cherry on top of motherhood, and I think my favorite part about it, is walking next to them while they really, truly grow to understand who they are at their core.
There have been a lot of long talks lately with my three oldest kids about what their purpose and personal legend is, how to discover it, and why it’s so important for their lives. It’s been such a good reminder to me, so I thought it would be fun to talk about that today. Especially if you, like me have often fallen into the busy, weighed-down-by-life trap that has a tendency to make you forget who you are and what your personal legend is. There is so much power and joy in truly knowing yourself, in understanding your personal legend. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s first talk about what a personal legend is…
What is a personal legend?
A Personal Legend is just a fancy way of saying the means by which a person can regard life as fulfilling. In a nutshell, it’s your life’s purpose. It’s what lights you up, it’s the calling that awakens a deep desire and passion to live with a sense of purpose for something greater than yourself. Living your personal legend is about identifying your purpose and having the desire to become the greatest version of yourself.
We all have a personal legend, and we’re born with us. I’ve come to believe as I’ve gotten older and raised 4 kids that we all kind of intuitively know ourselves and our personal legend (though not in a way we can put into words) as small children. Our personality comes out devoid of self-consciousness, we don’t have to think about what we enjoy, we just enjoy it without judgement or meaning. We in essence kind of arrive on earth already knowing who we are and what we love. And then somewhere along the way life and people kind of get us all confused and we get lost and forget who we really are, what makes us tick and what our personal legend is.
We get busier the older we get and we forget to remember who we are and what really lights us up, and end up living what Thoreou called “lives of quiet desperation and die with a song still in our heart.” I don’t know about you, but living a life of quiet desperation and dying with my song still in my heart, is not what I am going for with my one magnificent life.
We all have a purpose and a personal legend and the world needs us to live it. Have you ever met someone who is just fully living their potential, tapped into their purpose, honed in on their magic. They make you feel like a million bucks, their light illuminates you, they make you feel like anything is possible. That’s the kind of life we want to be living, that’s the kind of magic the world needs. And you deserve to be living in that way.
So how do we get off our current train and back on the personal legend one when we are deeply rooted in our life habits? Here are a few things I have found helpful for finding my personal legend and tapping into my own magic, so I can get on with living the fullest and most magnificent version of my life. (And this is a constant work in progress for me. But luckily, it’s a joyful one.)
Give yourself quiet time.
Part of rediscovering what you intuitively knew as a kid is giving yourself time. Unstructured, quiet time is the key. And it’s harder and harder to come by these days with screens and stimulus in abundance. But you will never discover the truth of what you love if there’s always noise and distractions around you. Part of understanding your personal legend is asking yourself the question: “What do you think about when you don’t have to be thinking about anything.” If you are always putting things into your head: social media, TV, podcasts, audio books, etc. etc. you will never have the space and stillness to understand who you really are. (It works the same way with kids and boredom, see this post here.)
So give yourself 10-20 minutes a day to sit in purposeful silence. This is not the same as meditating. This is just sitting quietly and letting your mind drift. Not trying to force it to be clear, just giving it space to think about what it’s naturally drawn to, what it wants to think about. Then write those things down. If you don’t have any brilliant discoveries the first several times you do this. Be patient. If you’ve been over-stimluated for years, your head and heart need a little time to adjust. Keep doing it, eventually your intuition will start speaking.
Pay attention to what gives you a spark.
Is there something you love to do, that when you do it you forget about time and get completely wrapped up in it? When you are done you feel more energy, like your well was filled up, like you are living more, and better? These are the things that give you your spark. And they are clues that will help you discover your own unique personal legend. If nothing gives you a spark, go back to what you’re brain drifted to during your purposeful quiet. Try some of that. Write down the things that give you a spark, fill you with energy and make you feel happy.
Just say no.
I’ve noticed as an adult and especially as a woman, there are all these things we feel like we “should” be doing. And most of those things, I realized several years ago were just made up by people who are living lives I don’t actually want to live. I felt peer pressure to conform to a certain way of parenting because what did it mean about me if my kids weren’t in all the “typical” activities. Then I realized, I didn’t want to spend my children’s childhood taxiing them from extra curricular to extra curricular, and that they weren’t their happiest that way either. Who said it has to look like that? It doesn’t! And neither does your life. Be brave enough to say no to the things that just feel intuitively not right for your life. When you say no to those things, you’re really making room for all the better yes’s that are waiting for you.
A word on this: Something being “not right” for your life, doesn’t mean it’s “not right” for someone else’s, and visa-versa, so don’t worry about what other people are doing. It has nothing to do with your personal legend; everyone’s is different. Have the confidence to say no!
Try new things.
Be bold and try new things. All kinds of new things! Meet new people, take a class or a course, see if something speaks to you. Discovering what lights you up can take some trial and error, so don’t be afraid to try different things. Have fun with it. And always pay attention to what lights you up and gives you a spark. Follow the energy.
Be bold and brave.
Stepping into your fullest potential will often scare the crap out of your subconscious, because your subconscious is there to keep you safe and alive. Our instincts tell us to go with the flow, stay with the group, because that’s where we are safe and safe=alive. So when you are stepping into your personal legend, it’s going to feel (at least at first) like a huge step out of your comfort zone and your subconscious is going to want to throw a little fit about that. It’s okay, be brave and do it anyway. Push yourself and go for it. This is your one magnificent life, you were meant to live it fully! Every single awesome, amazing thing that has happened in my life that has helped me tap into my own personal legend, involved stepping scarily out of my comfort zone. Being new at something, risking looking stupid, or being misunderstood. But what my soul got was much, much better on the other side.
My personal legend.
If you are still sitting there scratching your head trying to understand what the heck your personal legend is, here’s an example, a snippet of mine:
I am a maker. I love creating and I love adventure. I love good music and food, and books and I love creating cozy around me. Seeing new places, and meeting new people is so important to me. I want to always leave things better than I found them. Homes, spaces, our earth, people… I find immense joy in motherhood and nurturing and connecting with my children is the most natural thing in the world to me. I believe in a higher power, and that it connects all of us, and gives us our spark, our own impulse to create. I love helping people find their spark. I want to be the biggest cheerleader for other people. I want them to feel and believe in their worth, their ability and their magic when they are around me, and I love helping them discover it. I love life and I want mine to be a magnificent adventure.
Do you know what your personal legend is? Share some of your magic with us in the comments!
