This is the first of a series of blogs I am writing about Retirement Strategies. My goal for this series is to give you information and ideas to facilitate your transition to a joyful and fulfilling retirement.
Retiring means transitioning from full-time work to something else. For many people that means moving to a life of leisure, if they can afford to do that.
Some workers retire because they want to do something else. Others are forced to leave the workforce by their employer or to deal with health issues for themselves or others. If the time of retiring is your choice, then you might use the criterion of having enough money to last throughout retirement as your triggering event. There are other issues and challenges for you to deal with, particularly those that deal with your activities during retirement.
Most people don’t fully appreciate that their work provides more than an earned income and benefits. When work disappears, here are some of other losses.
- When you leave work, they don’t come with you. That social interaction is gone.
- Structure of your time. Most people in their retirement are excited to have more freedom and flexibility. But many, who are not used to structuring their own time, find it to be challenging when days merge into each other without some kind of routine or focus.
- Work is organized around meeting goals. The sense of achieving them disappears upon retirement unless replaced with something else.
- Are you still a doctor (or lawyer etc.) when you are no longer practicing your profession?
If any of these losses are important to you, then you will want to replace them. Here are some ideas based in part on my own experiences when I retired in 2019.
- You may need to make new friends or activate older relationships. Doing activities that you love together with others is one way to accomplish that. I reached out to others through social media, zoom, and volunteer activites to meet new people and get together with old friends.
- Structure of your time. It is helpful to have some activities in retirement, daily, weekly or whatever. I’ve structured my time via cello lessons and practicing for them, along with a number of regular other activities.
- Having a sense of achievement. If you have some goals in retirement, making substantial progress or finishing them will give you a sense of accomplishment. I have a sense of achievement through building my new retirement coaching career and making progress on my cello.
- One solution is to continue some work into retirement in the same professional area. Another is to create a new identity that will give you the same respect that you had while working. For me I’ve replaced my work identity as a financial planner with an accreditation as a retirement coach.
All of these parts of the retirement transition require some thought and planning.
Do you have some ideas for replacing important features of your work when you retire?