Stop Thinking About What You Are Retiring From - Start Thinking About What You Are Retiring To
I’ve crossed paths with many people that are literally counting down the days to when they can retire. They will often tell me how much they don’t enjoy their work and how they can’t wait until they can retire (or in some cases hope for a package) and leave their jobs behind.
When I ask what they plan to do in retirement I often get a variety of answers.
The usual responses often start with “sleep in for a change”, travel, play some golf or enjoy another hobby. And the majority say they plan to just take it easy. Others have said they will figure it out when they get there – just the idea of not having the daily grind of their job is enough to satisfy them.
But here’s where it gets interesting. In some research conducted by Edward Jones and Age Wave, they shared the following;
Thirty-one percent of new retirees (those who have been retired for less than five years) say they have struggled to find a sense of purpose in retirement. The struggle can start with how to spend their time. They transition, often abruptly, from being time constrained to being time affluent. The average person age 65 and over has more than seven hours of leisure a day to fill
When you leave your career, you are often going from a situation where you always seem to be fighting for enough time to suddenly one of excess. The question then is what are you really going to do to fill in all this time.
Often new retirees will head into sort of a honeymoon stage.
It’s where they celebrate their newfound freedom and being the master of their own time. They often start with some of the projects they have always been meaning to do, taking a long trip, visiting with family and friends and engaging in activities they enjoy. But this may start to wear thin after a period of time. The things that were once special may begin to lose their appeal as they become a little less special when you can do it whenever you want.
Some may begin to feel isolated without the daily social interactions of their colleagues. Others may find themselves bored without the mental stimulation that their work offered them. And others will begin to find other outlets to fill their time that may not be so healthy.
For example, did you know that the average retiree watches 48 hours of television a week? Think about that. That’s more than the average full time job spent sitting in front of the TV.
The trick is to start thinking less about what you are retiring from – and spend more time thinking about what are you retiring to.
There is a reason this is important.
As shared in an article published by Reuters, having purpose later in life can literally extend your life. They shared;
Seniors who feel their life has purpose may be less likely to die from heart, circulatory and digestive diseases and more likely to live longer… In a study that followed nearly 7,000 people over age 50 for more than a decade, researchers determined that people were more likely to die at a younger age if they felt their lives had little purpose.
So how do you even begin to think about what your purpose in retirement will be?
In the following TedTalk, Adam Leipzig shares some ideas on how you can get started. He basically boils finding your purpose down to answering the following 5 key questions;
Who you are
What you do
Who you do it for
What these people want and need
How these people change as a result
As Adam mentions in his talk – it’s really about discovering what you love to do and then figuring out how you leverage this to help others.
Retirement provides us with the opportunity to explore past passions and interests and utilize our years of experience and expertise with the added benefit of it possibly helping others.
So as much as you may be excited about what you’re leaving when you retire, maybe start to shift your thinking to what you will do when you get there. And open your mind to all the possibilities that this time of our life can offer.
Here is Adam Leipzig's TedTalk - How To Know Your Life Purpose In 5 Minutes;
