We come to work each day and organize what needs to be done. We make dozens of phone calls and participate in a slew of meetings. We send copious amounts of emails and respond to even more. We talk to our colleagues, formulate plans, make decisions, check items off our lists, and then move on to the next thing.

At the end of the day, we go home with a sense of accomplishment for all that was completed and a sense of frustration for all that was not. The next morning, we do it all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Over time, if you’re persistent, this process has the potential to move mountains, and the mountains that you move become a part of your legacy.

We’re all continually trying to be more productive. We look to find new ways of working to be more efficient and have become masters at doing more with less. At some point in your career, though, it’s valuable to stop for a moment and really think about your legacy. What is it you hope to leave behind? What are you personally creating?

For some, your legacy will be about the people you mentor: those whom you nurture, open doors for, and in whom you help cultivate and instill a spirit of possibility. For others it will be the firms, healthcare institutions, and companies you build, fanning the spark of an idea into something that lives more permanently in the world. For others still, it’s the designs you create, the buildings you’ll leave behind, and the ways in which those structures help to shape individual or community behaviors.

No matter what the outlet, we all leave a legacy through our careers and our lives, and taking a moment to think about what we want that legacy to represent provides the chance to define and focus your efforts on the version of you that you want to live on.

In the healthcare design industry, we’re fortunate. We get to engage in work that’s directly connected to improving outcomes, whether it’s in critical care settings where every facet must work in concert to help save a life or it’s the community health center designed in such a way as to draw people in and engage them in healthy behaviors.

As our industry has matured, we’ve moved past looking solely at what’s within the four walls of a traditional healthcare building and realized that we can effect change by thoughtfully designing the spaces outside to create vibrant and engaging communities—communities that are safe, support healthy lifestyles, and unite people in a way that promotes social interaction.

This work is still not the bread and butter of healthcare designers today, but in it lies our future and great promise. Healthcare design will always mean creating safe healthcare spaces that improve outcomes and help reduce the cost of care. But moving forward, all that we’ve learned and achieved also puts us in a unique place to have a voice in a much larger conversation.

Careers seem long when you’re in the thick of things but in reality can fly by in a flash.
Take the time now to be sure that yours is moving in the direction you want it to, that you are doing the things that are meaningful to you at the moment, and that when you look back you’ll find the legacy that you want to leave behind.

Take the time now to be sure that yours is moving in the direction you want it to, that you are doing the things that are meaningful to you at the moment, and that when you look back you’ll find the legacy that you want to leave behind.

Debra Levin is president and CEO of The Center for Health Design. She can be reached at dlevin@healthdesign.org.