Jen Jackson
January 16, 2024
Money Wellness Education Financial literacy Social media Economy Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Women & wealth ProfessionalsNavigating Reirement's Sea of Changes
Navigating Retirement's Sea of Changes Strategies for a Smooth Transition
When it’s time to move on from your career, you face a sea of changes. Adjusting to it all is challenging for 69% of people according to research done by Ameriprise Financial. Why is that?
• You lose your identity. If you’re no longer a doctor, teacher, designer, salesperson, carpenter, or whatever you did, who are you?
• You lose work that was meaningful to you and gave you a sense that you were doing something useful; something that mattered.
• You have a lot of hours to fill up. When you’ve checked all the items off your bucket list, what do you do then?
• You miss the social interaction with your co-workers.
• You have lost the whole structure of your days.
Here are some strategies to help you navigate the transition, deal with the challenges, and find new meaning and purpose in life as you begin this new chapter in life.
1. Embrace change.
The changes are inevitable. You can choose to fight them or embrace them. Embracing them can sometimes be a process and these are actions to make it easier.
- Manage your mindset. Retirement isn’t a destination, and it isn’t the end of the road. It’s an exciting new journey filled with possibilities you may not even have imagined yet. Focus on all of the things you are gaining rather than going down a rabbit hole of what you are losing.
- Strengthen your resilience. It is a valuable skill to help you bounce back when something tough happens – which life has a way of throwing at all of us. The good news is that resilience is not something you either have or you don’t. It’s a learned skill and it’s never too late to learn it.
This is a great opportunity to work on it. The Resilience Factor: 7 keys to finding your inner strength and overcoming life’s hurdles by Karen Reivich, Ph.D. and Andrew Shatté, Ph.D. is filled with useful information and helpful exercises.
- Acknowledge your emotions. We are sold an image of retirement as “happily ever after” that doesn’t have room for the reality that you may feel angry or sad or anxious, or a mix of unpleasant emotions sometimes. But those emotions are often part of the transition and do not mean there is something wrong with you or your new life.
Many of us go through a grieving process as we adjust to not having the things we used to enjoy about our work anymore. Acknowledging and accepting your feelings helps them pass more quickly. Letting go of what you miss opens you up to the new possibilities ahead.
- Redefine your identity. For many of us, what we do for a living is a big part of how we see ourselves. When that is gone, it can be hard to see who you are now. But now you can choose new ways of defining yourself by the activities and relationships you are including in your life now. Now you are a mentor, volunteer, artist, writer, student, grandparent, or whatever you are you are focusing your time on. But you are NOT “retired.” That is your work status not who you are!
- Set new goals. We all have been setting personal and professional goals for most of our working lives and we should keep setting new goals for ourselves, new things to strive for. Goals can help you focus on things that are important to you and energize you to do things to achieve them. Now you goals should be focused on your hopes and dreams.
2. Create a New Routine.
The freedom from over-stuffed calendars and rigid schedules is exhilarating! It may sound heavenly to be able to just go with the flow all day every day. Go for it – at least for a while. The downside is that after a while, you are likely to feel like you are drifting directionless without aim or purpose. You may also feel like you never really get things done. Most of us function better with some kind of structure in our lives. It can certainly be flexible but there is comfort in having some routine.
- Add structure to your days. Even if you’re still figuring out what you want your new life to be like, establish a loose daily schedule. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day – that is good for your health. Allow yourself to be leisurely like lingering over breakfast, but schedule times for exercising and socializing with friends.
Establishing a daily routine can make it easier to accomplish the things you want to and often gives purpose to your days. Your routine doesn't have to be rigid, but it will help prevent feelings of aimlessness.
It can also help solve the frequent problem of struggling to “switch off” from work mode and relax, especially in the early weeks or months of retirement. You have established a number of habits over the many years of working
and changing them often takes a deliberate and conscious effort. A routine can make that easier.
- Be adaptable and willing to try new things. Embrace the opportunities your new life brings. That may require flexibility in your routine, but you are the boss.
3. Adopt Usefulness not Youthfulness.
Usefulness is now significantly more important to adults 65+ than youthfulness according to a new study by AgeWavei.
Two of the most profound findings that have emerged from the large body of research that has been done about aging is that having a purpose and being socially connected are very beneficial to our health and wellbeing.
Having a strong sense of purpose in our later years enhances our health and well-being and may even reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and stroke,ii while social isolation has been found to be more deadly than smoking cigarettes.iii
What you did for a living gave you a sense of purpose. You were making a contribution to your customers, co-workers, clients, company or community. That feeling of being useful needs to be replaced. A key component to adjusting successful to your new life is reimagine a purposeful role for yourself.
As AgeWave says, “Maybe it’s time to replace the age-old search for the ‘fountain of youth’ with finding one’s own ‘fountain of usefulness.”
4. Design Your Happiness Portfolio®.
Your financial advisor has helped you build your financial portfolio so you can retire. Now you need to build your Happiness Portfolio®. It is your vision and plan for how you want to live your next chapter. It addresses eight non-financial aspects of your life.
It’s never too early or too late to do it. If you are a planner, take the time before you retire to reflect on and write down your specific ideas about what you want in your new life. Yes, your bucket list should be part of it – but it’s only part. Address the everyday things you want to do as well. It will help you see what is ahead. If you have already retired, do it now. It will help you make this truly the best time of your life.
Jennifer Jackson is a Senior Wealth Advisor leading The Jackson Group at CIBC Private Wealth.
Jen understands that to truly flourish in retirement, clients need a Happiness Portfolio® in addition to their financial plan. The Happiness Portfolio® process allows clients to create a vision and action plan for the non-financial areas of life which, if neglected, can derail retirement. The Happiness Portfolio® helps to ensure clients have the right mindset to stay engaged with activities that support and enhance their mind, body and spirit.
To learn more about our process or to schedule a consultation, please contact Jen at 519-640-7643 or Jennifer.jackson@cibc.ca.
i The New Age of Aging: An Age Wave Study, 2023
ii Irving, J., Davis, S., Collier, A. Aging with purpose: systematic search and review of literature pertaining to older adults
and purpose. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development. 2017
iii Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T.B., Layton, J.B., Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLOS
Medicine. 2010