Advance mental preparation to retire
Knowing when it is time to Retire
Advance preparation financially
Budget for the future
Changes in spending in retirement
Three Phases of Retirement
Go-go
Slow-go
No-go
Reasons to Retire
Disability
Forced retirement
Planned retirement
Concept of Redirection as opposed to Retirement
Preventing failure in Retirement
Purpose VS Identity- your why in life
How not to fail in Retirement Written in 2017
While I certainly don’t ascribe
to or follow Eastern mysticism, retirement seems to follow the Tao’s yin and
yang duality philosophy. The yin/yang is
described as opposites being connected and interrelated like dark and light,
good and bad, etc. Work and retirement
seems to be that way also with opposites being connected. I checked in the
Bible to see if there was some guidance.
There is very little indications that retirement was considered in the
Old and New Testament except for some of the temple positions. So the Bible didn’t provide much guidance and
some of those dudes worked past 120 years old with some regularity.
I have been studying and reading prior to and since my retirement and
the more I look at the issue the more complex it seems. The fact is that it is an abrupt change in
life. You can’t really be partially
retired. To your coworkers you’re either
pulling your share or your dogging. Either
you are retired or you are not. Trying
to slow down didn’t work very well for me.
I began my process almost 18
months before I started my retirement. I
began reading everything I could on the topic much like I approached my
career. I began quizzing everyone I know
who had recently retired and some who had been retired for a while. Asking what they did, how they decided, what
they were doing differently now and how they felt. The thing that I have learned is that no two
retirements are the same. I found it
helpful to tell someone about my plans although I didn’t tell my staff until 6
months and the patients I was only able to give a month warning. While the mental and psychological
preparation was difficult, you can’t omit the physical preparation. I am afraid that I approached the finish line
like the marathon runner on fumes. The
last few years I didn’t make exercise as big a priority as I should and now it
is much more difficult to make up for lost time.
It is hard and it is easy. It is easy in that you just stop going to
work and you are retired. The financial
part was actually easier than I thought.
While early in my career the financial part was the most daunting part
of the retirement picture. We were
fortunate to have great counsel from a financial planner that helped set us a
plan that we stuck too. He was able to tell
me when enough was enough. It is hard in
that the most of the time there is really no plan or procedure after the actual
stopping your job. No training occurs
for retirement. It causes joy and
sadness. Most of us are lucky enough to
love what we do and we are the fortunate ones.
Some people are anxious to retire and never look back. Retiring certainly allows us to do things we
weren’t able to do before or maybe not as often, so that part is fun. Bur sometimes what we did was fun or at least
part of it. Work is kind of like Italian
dressing. When you are working, you are
constantly shaking the jar and all the particles floating around are like the
good and bad things of your work. When
you retire, the bad particles settle and aren’t as noticeable as before but you
can definitely taste the difference.
The lack of an organized schedule
was one of the hardest things I dealt with upon retiring. Being free to do whatever you want is much like
the caged bird the when the door is opened to his cage, he just sits there
looking at the door to freedom.
Not everyone retires for the same
reason. Health forces some to retire and
it can be unanticipated and undesired.
The transition for those is much more difficult until the realities of the
reason for their retirement sets are accepted.
The responsibilities of work that are lessened by retirement can ease
the physical, emotional and mental stress that sometimes you don’t realize you
have til its gone. That defense
mechanism is very strong while you work.
With a change in schedule and responsibilities sometimes comes over
commitments to new opportunities. It is
easy to become too busy too quickly.
Some suggest to not to commit to long term obligations until 6 months of
retirement pass.
There is a clear distinction
between quitting, giving up and retirement.
Not in what you do afterwards but how your see yourself. We are encouraged to never give up, don’t
quit for all our lives. So, one has to
mentally convince yourself that you have retired not quit! It also takes time to adjust to the change
from bread winner to bread eater. We
have been encouraged to save to build and accumulate. Retirement signals that you reached the point
of becoming a consumer of the storehouse we constructed and truly have begun
the downhill slide. That is a very
difficult spot to reach where you say I have enough. In order to do so you must be a planner and a
plodder or a lottery winner. It is not
in our DNA to deny ourselves for the long term and then just turn that off. I found it difficult to get used to not
having people constantly ask my opinion or insights. While it was sometimes bothersome, when it
was gone it was eerie!
So what do you do? If you are fortunate enough to be able to see
and achieve the finish line of your career, than take some time to rest, think
and reflect before jumping back into something.
Journaling seems to be helpful in sorting thru priorities. Take 3-6 months before making big commitments,
but don’t do nothing. By all means don’t
fail at retirement. That would be
defined as going back to work when you didn’t have too or need or because you
are bored. Accepting a new job or
position takes on a new reality when you know you don’t have to or need to
work. Take time to flesh out your
retirement plans. I find that continuing
to set goals for myself is helpful to be able to check my progress. Also, having an accountability partner is
helpful, sometimes for both of you. It
can be someone who is either ahead of you or behind you. Both can be beneficial.
Then start looking forward. Look onward to new opportunities, new
adventures. Like the old saying,
“Sometimes you have to do the things you don’t want to do when you don’t want
to do them, so that you will be able to do the things you want to do when you
want to do them.”
