Out With The Old, In With The New—Five Steps To Guide You In Mapping Your New Retirement
Introduction
As we enter a new year, we usually reflect back on the previous year—what was good and forward-moving for us and what was not so good or held us back. While reflecting on the retirement transitions that many of us are planning for in the future, I’d like you to consider the new template for retirement that arrived around the time of the new millennium.
Letting Go Of The Old Retirement
Our great grandparents’ and grandparents’ retirements were a very different experience. The average life expectancy was only forty-seven years in the early 1900s. Because we didn’t have the medical advancements that we have now, our ancestors often died before they left work or shortly thereafter. By the time our parents came along, there had been some significant improvements in life expectancy. During the latter part of the twentieth century, people were routinely living well into their 70s and beyond. However, the added life expectancy wasn’t enough to change the stereotype of retirement that shaped the lifestyle of previous generations over the last several centuries.
Most of the people who preceded our boomer generation followed the traditional “retirement to leisure,” characterized by recreational activities like playing golf, fishing, traveling, and spending time with grandchildren. Although there is nothing wrong with these activities woven into a retirement plan, this plan was heavy on leisure activities and light on the kind of purposeful activities that bring meaning to life after work. Some of the retirement trends for our parents’ generation were:
- Retiring to communities with an age restriction of fifty-five and older* Playing golf or pursuing other leisure activities on a regular basis (many retirees are still doing this today)
- Travelling, but not as much as expected because of the unanticipated expenses of this activity
- Spending more time with grandchildren when they didn’t have the time when their kids were growing up
There were few books written about this important life transition because retirement seemed so straightforward. The best thing that can be said about this third chapter of life for previous generations was they often did what they thought they were supposed to do.
In With The New—A New Retirement Pattern
Our generation is redefining retirement with new behavior patterns because of who we are and what we represent. Throughout our lives, boomers pioneered changes in many aspects of our lives, like civil rights, progressive communication technologies, medical breakthroughs and moon exploration just to name a few. I’d like you to think about how much things have changed in our generation as we have grown up in the second half of the twentieth century.
Our average life expectancy is now over eighty years. For many of us that means we will live at least twenty-five to thirty-five years beyond our current careers. This gift of time means we will have the opportunity to create what I call a retirement career or an extension of our work life that will be redefined by each of us. Our self-help, enjoyment-of-finer-things, hard-working generation wants more from retirement than just leisure. Boomers are showing future generations how to make the most of retirement:
- Recareering to something entirely different
- Moving to multigenerational communities
- Starting a nonprofit business or organization
- Joining the Peace Corps
- Working with Habitat for Humanity
- Going back to college
- Engaging in philanthropic pursuits
- Writing books
- Volunteering
- Mentoring
All of the above are complemented with leisure activities and a more relaxed pace. In other words, we are redefining our retirement by designing a more purposeful life, making a difference and complementing leisure pursuits with activities we think are far more interesting.
Just look at a few of the books that have been written since 2000 about the new retirement:
- The New Retirement: Discovering Your Dream (2001)
- The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential In The Second Half Of Life (2001)
- Too Young To Retire: 101 Ways To Start The Rest Of Your Life (2004)
- The Power Years: A User’s Guide To The Rest Of Your Life (2005)
- Changing Course: Navigating Life After 50 (2007)
- Don’t Retire, Rewire (2007)
- Your Retirement, Your Way: Why It Takes More Than Money To Live Your Dream (2007)
- Encore: Finding Work That Matters In The Second Half Of Life (2008)
- How To Retire While Happy And Free (2009)
- The Big Shift: Navigating The New Stage Beyond Midlife (2012)
We all know that trends come in waves, no matter how you express it (i.e. what is in today is out tomorrow; what was new is now old; what was trendy is now outdated). The simple truth is that people, events, and trends change over time. These new retirement patterns are not a flash in the pan that will be discarded in the next ten to twenty years. They are here to stay.
We need to look at our ability to change with the times and make the internal shift or transition to our next life stage. I am seeing a convergence of the old with the new and a realization that retirement can combine the best of both worlds—purpose AND leisure. Remember there is life after work and work after retirement. What is changing is our definition of work.
Five Steps
Here are five steps to guide you in creating the lifestyle meant for you as you create YOUR new retirement.
- Invest in time for self-exploration and define the strengths and life values that define you. Go to www.whatsnext.com and take the “Values Exercise.” Read the book Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton and take the assessment by using the code found in the inside of the dust jacket or in the back of the book in the sealed sleeve.
- Make a list of those ideas, activities, and dreams you want to pursue in retirement and ask yourself: are they in alignment with my strengths and values?
- What do you need to change, rearrange, let go of, or grab onto to make your dreams and ideas a reality?
- Prioritize those dreams that are most important to you and share them with your life partner or a close friend if you are single.
- Get support and begin to create a plan that will move you towards fulfilling your retirement dreams.
Now remember to make the best of your life for the rest of your life!
Dee
Dee Cascio
Author, speaker, Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Life Coach, Retirement Lifestyle/ReCareer Coach, and Life and Work Transitions Strategies Coach.
The Life and Work Transitions Community
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