So you think you’re ready to retire?
Retirement. For some, this word sounds like endless sleep-ins and slow breakfasts, playing with the grandchildren, travelling the world and chasing old dreams that had been relegated to a holding pattern for decades. For others, the idea of being a retiree brings up dread, a vast nothingness, or paralysing confusion: “What am I supposed to be doing with all this free time?”
There is one thing, however, that applies to everyone who is approaching this major milestone in life: Retirement is a time of considerable change and adjustment, which brings with it a host of challenges and opportunities.
When you leave regular employment behind, you will be closing a significant, well-known chapter of your life. At the same time, you may find that as you are expectantly looking towards the next pages, they only seem to stare back at you; pristine and empty, waiting for you to fill them with meaning and purpose. This can be a daunting experience — especially if we have been used to being the active author of our life so far, competently in control of the stories we create.
And the free space left for new life stories in retirement is only getting longer and longer as the average life expectancy of Australians has been on the steady increase for decades. To illustrate this point: While 65-year-old males in 1960–62 were looking forward to another 12.5 years of life on average, and their female counterparts to another 15.7, this had risen to 19.7 years for males and 22.3 for females by 2015–17.[1]
Looking ahead, the projected life expectancy of little girls and boys born in 2014–15 is 93.6 and 91.5 years, respectively[2] — suggesting that what we have traditionally thought of as “old age” may shift even more over time. Seventy may be the new fifty, who knows. What it is reasonable to conclude though, is that it will be more and more important to keep looking past the traditional retirement marker at 65 years of age or thereabouts. Life will go on, so to speak.
In some way, therefore, approaching retirement today can be compared to the big decisions that every young person has to confront when figuring out what to do with their life. But where you once asked yourself, “which job is right for me?” and “what are my biggest interests and strengths, and how can I use them to make a living?”, your task now is to find out who you are (or who you want to become) without full-time employment to provide identity and a clear direction in life. Which also means that anyone who has built their concept of self solely on the mantra of “I work, therefore I am” up to this point, may find themselves seriously challenged in retirement to find another stable foundation on which to build and maintain a sense of self-worth, purpose and identity.
All transitions and significant changes in life tend to be more successful and positive when we plan and prepare for them — and retirement us no exception to this rule. For most people, however, planning for retirement begins and ends with the financial aspects. So you have seen a financial advisor, managed to pay off your debts and got your investments in order. Tick — and you are ready for retirement? Not quite.
While making sure that you will be financially safe and comfortable is of course of key concern, it is only one aspect of responsible planning. You may have taken care of your financial resources, but what about your “psychological portfolio” — your identity, your relationships and your purpose? According to Nancy Schlossberg, University of Maryland professor emerita in counselling psychology and prolific author, all three are potentially at stake at retirement and need to be re-defined and re-negotiated. We all have heard the amusing stories of couples where the retirement of one partner bought on shocking realisations for both — one feeling like all the meaningful roles at home had already been taken, leaving no space for them, and the other partner missing the daily time on their own which they had become used to over the years. Re-negotiating mutual expectations is a process that takes time, but which is critical when leaving one set of roles, relationships, routines, and assumptions, while replacing them with new ones.
Ken Dyutchwald is a gerontologist, psychologist and CEO of Age Wave — a company that provides research, consulting and educational services on a broad range of issues relating to aging populations. After many years of researching the topic, he argues that there a five distinct stages of retirement that people go through.[4]
The first stage, Imagination, may start as early as 15 years before retirement. At this point, thinking about retirement is not on top of the average busy professional’s priority list, and ideas about this future period tend to be somewhat vague but usually positive, e.g. revolving around adventure and empowerment.
During the second stage, Anticipation, which begins around 5 years before retirement, excitement and hope are on the rise for most of us: the promise of finally having enough time for family, hobbies or maybe even rewarding post-retirement careers. For others, doubts and worries about financial security and having enough things to do start to creep in. This is a good time to start making realistic plans and preparations — including talking to your partner about changing roles and expectations.
The name of the third stage, Liberation, says it all: Freedom! You made it! For most people, the beginning of retirement is marked by excitement, relief or enthusiasm — in short, retirement honeymoon. Typically, this period involves positive experiences such as a long-anticipated overseas trip, re-connecting with family and friends, or finally fixing up the house. Like all honeymoons, however, this must come to an end — for some people it only lasts a few days before reality sets in, luckier ones might ride on an emotional high for up to a year. But what goes up, must come down.
This is the beginning of the Reorientation phase which can last around 15 years into retirement. This stage is the most challenging as it requires an individual to develop a sense of renewed purpose and direction, re-negotiate roles and relationships, and find a new and meaningful structure to their days (finding a way to fill the hours that were previously spent at work — without just relying on the TV to fill the gap). Some may realise that retirement is more challenging than they thought and have to work hard to fight off depression, loneliness and the heavy question, “is this all there is?”. Others are able to reinvent themselves and successfully manage the transformation into a fulfilling new life, e.g. by volunteering in the community, sharing their accumulated wisdom and knowledge in mentoring relationships with younger solicitors, going back to school to fulfil a lifelong dream of studying a particular subject, looking after the grandchildren, or even starting a new business.
The fifth and last stage of the journey is called Reconciliation. It usually starts about 16 years into retirement and is marked by contentment and reflection for most people. The major themes in this stage involve the creation of a positive personal legacy, achieving acceptance of the sum of one’s choices in life, but also the difficulty of facing end-of-life issues as the years progress.
While Dytchwald’s framework suggests that these distinct stages are more or less universal, Schlossberg has developed a typology of how people approach the challenges and opportunities that retirement presents. Maybe you find yourself in one or several of the following types:
· Continuers keep their former identity — but in a modified way. They want to do similar things, and use the same skills and interests than before, but may do this in a volunteering or consulting capacity with reduced or flexible hours. As a personal example, my sister’s father-in-law is a retired art history professor who still enjoys organising art exhibitions and teaching students — but not on a regular basis, and he only enters engagements which really interest him.
· Adventurers see retirement as the opportunity to pursue an unrealised dream or try something new, such as learning a new skill, buying a round-the-world ticket, working creatively, or even buying a farm. In other words, new experiences that probably don’t involve the legal world.
· Easy gliders value the freedom and lack of pressure that comes with retirement, and take every day as it comes: Playing golf one day, babysitting the grandkids the next, and then going on a trip. Maybe. This style suits a relaxed personality type.
· Involved spectators don’t want to play an active role in the profession anymore, but at the same time they still care and do not want to lose touch. For example, they may still regularly follow latest development and trends in the profession, catch up with old colleagues, and keep on professional and legal mailing lists.
· Searchers do not see retirement as a fixed state, but as something fluid and changing. They are looking for their niche, keep experimenting with different options, and remain open for change -which makes it a stage that many people visit at some point on their way to creating their new identity.
· Retreaters opt to go down the path of disengagement — either as an active choice or by being pulled along by the momentum of least resistance. In short, this choice is probably the only one you want to avoid as it carries the risk of depression, loneliness and increasing isolation from life.
No matter which unique journey might be yours, there are some important messages to consider when looking ahead and planning for life after full-time employment:
1. Retirement is a major transition in life and — like all successful change management projects — needs to be planned and prepared for holistically (involving more than just financial aspects) and well in advance.
2. No matter how committed you are to your work, don’t let your job become the only way you define yourself as a person. Taking the time to cultivate other interests outside law and to nurture close relationships with others is an important investment in your future and ongoing psychological wellbeing.
3. Your relationship with work will change, but must not necessarily come to a screeching halt altogether. What matters most is that you keep being involved with pursuits that provide you with personal meaning and purpose — whatever this looks like for you.
4. Consider a slow transition into retirement, for example reducing hours or days a few years ahead of full retirement. This will give you space and time to explore other activities and how to manage the loss structure that your job provided.
5. Staying curious and playful will help you in adapting to a major transition such as entering retirement. Maybe that’s what George Bernard Shaw had I mind when he said: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing”.
[1] https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/life-expectancy-death/deaths-in-australia/contents/life-expectancy (4/10/2019)
[2] Commonwealth of Australia, 2015, ‘2015 Intergenerational Report: Australia in 2055’, The Treasury, Canberra
[3] Schlossberg, N, 2009, ‘Revitalizing Retirement: Reshaping Your Identity, Relationships, and Purpose, APA Lifetools
[4] https://agewave.com/the-five-stages-of-retirement/ (4/10/2019)
Written by:
Rebecca Niebler — Organisational Culture and Support Officer, Queensland Law Society
