I stumbled across a YouTube video this morning that I wish I’d seen before I retired. When I retired, I had a vague idea of how life might change, and I tried to do some planning, but I was really totally unprepared for the reality.
When I watched this video, I immediately identified with it. I knew from my experience that it was speaking the truth.
The Four Stages of Retirement
The video I saw was a Ted Talk by Dr. Riley Moynes. In this 13-minute video (he’s an excellent speaker), he outlines the four stages of Retirement:
- Vacation Time. It’s like being on vacation 24/7. You have little or no structure or routine in your life, do the bucket list things you didn’t have time to do when you worked, and splurge on new toys, or travel. This phase usually lasts about a year.
- Feeling Loss And Feeling Lost. You realize when you retired you lost your routine, work relationships, power, responsibility, and a sense of purpose and identity. You feel insignificant and lack a purpose in life. You begin to think about what’s important in your life and hopefully move forward.
- Trial and Error. You start to think, “How can I still contribute?” You try on some approaches for size and decide some things work, while others don’t. You eliminate old options and learn about new options that might be a good fit for you.
- Reinvent and Repurpose. In phase 4 you’re asking yourself, “What’s my purpose?”, and “What do I want to become?” You’re open to new ideas and directions that make the best use of your skills and interests. For those who successfully navigate stage 2 and 3, this can become the best time of retirement. You know who you are and feel like you are making a contribution. You have identity and purpose.
I wish I’d had this information when I retired about seven years ago. I would have still had to go through the stages, but I would have had a much better idea of what was happening to me and what I needed to do to move forward.
Working Through the Retirement Stages in My Life
About four years into retirement, I had become frustrated and unhappy with myself. I was depressed. After a lifetime of professional work in two career fields (ministry and law), I felt unproductive and insignificant, and didn’t have a clear sense of identity. I did volunteer work for a community organization (this work delayed my entry into stage 2), but eventually felt bored and restless. I was in stage 2, the “Feeling Loss and Feeling Lost” stage of retirement.
Unfortunately, many people stay stuck in this phase, and spend the remainder of their lives feeling depressed, unhappy, unproductive, and unfulfilled. Some people make it to the 3rd stage, “Trial and Error,” but can’t ever decide what they want to do with their life.
How Productivity Gave Me My Identity and Purpose in Life
While I was in stage 3 and trying to decide what I was going to do to move forward, I was fortunate to do a lot of reading and listening to podcasts in the area of productivity. As a result of reading Chris Bailey’s The Productivity Project and following MacSparky, I was aware that I needed to know as a starting point what was most important in my life.
I took a popular productivity course, but found it didn’t help me. Their approach to discovering what was important was an approach that I had encountered many times in the past (and didn’t work for me then, either), that of starting with identifying your values. That was too esoteric and nebulous for me to do anything with.
Life Roles Identity and Evaluation Told Me What Was Important
Fortunately, about two years ago, I encountered David Spark’s Life Roles identity and evaluation approach, as described in his Personal Retreat Video And Planning Pdf. This approach gave me a practical way to identify what was important to me (and the values behind those things). See my post, My Experiences and Tips for Doing a Roles-Based Personal Retreat.
But even after knowing what was important to me, I needed a way to figure out what my purpose was in retirement, and what I wanted to become. Over the years I’d taken several personality profiles, so I had a good sense of what my strongest skills were (and their corresponding weaknesses)
So, What Do I Need to Become?
What I needed next was to figure out what I should be doing with those skills, what kind of work I could do that would bring me a sense of purpose and fulfillment. I chanced upon the Motivation Code online test. After taking the free inventory, I saw the value to me and paid for the full test and report.
My personality profiles told me that I was good at analytic skills, details, simplifying complex material, and organizing. My motivation code evaluation informed me that in the past the type of work I found most fulfilling and productive was doing research, breaking down and organizing material, then teaching that material by writing or doing presentations.
With a knowledge of my strengths, and the knowledge of the type of work that best fit me, I searched for opportunities that fit both criteria. I realized, at heart, I was a teacher and felt fulfilled using my skills to help people.
As a part of a community Mac/iOS group, I had done presentations in the past. I volunteered to do more. I wanted to write more and decided to start two blogs, one in the tech area, and one in another interest area of mine, an educational site senior sexuality 101.
Feeling Productive and Fulfilled Now, But Wish I’d Known
I didn’t really know what was going on when I transitioned through these steps of retirement. Somehow I mucked my way through and am now feeling productive and fulfilled, helping people as a teacher by writing on my blogs and giving live presentations.
I wish I’d know these stages when I first retired. It would have helped me to understand and anticipate what was happening to me at each stage of the process, and would have directed me to the questions I should have been asking.
If you’re retired and feeling unproductive or retirement is coming up soon, I recommend you take a look at Dr. Moynes’ Ted Talk or read his two short books, The Four Phases of Retirement: What to Expect When You’re Retiring, and The Ten Lessons: How You Too Can Squeeze All The “Juice” Out of Retirement. His website has other resources available.