Tales of Retirement
By Jim A. Dixon, CKM
Ontario Government; Not-For-Profit CEO; Consultant
Retired July 31, 2014
Re-inspired August 1, 2014
I believe a positive, light viewpoint to life has kept me mentally and physically healthy leading into retirement. However, lately I’ve noticed myself adopting a “Then a Miracle Occurs” attitude, and this concerns me a little. It reminds me of the Sydney Harris cartoon, one I’ve referenced many times during work planning sessions.
Copyright Sydney Harris, Science Cartoons Plus, 2006.
Yes, I’ve experienced much of my life as an optimist and, in reality, probably used the “Then a Miracle Occurs” approach more often than not, but I don’t want you to think that I landed in ‘retirement’ without any semblance of good planning. I’ve done, and continue to do, things that will support me for the next period of my life. However, I can see that retirement has its challenges and in retirement I want to rely on myself more than miracles.
Challenge 1: The ‘R’ word
As a baby boomer the grrrrRrr word has bothered me for years, especially the last few years when many of my fellow employees would often ask me when I planned to retire. What – did I suddenly look old? Or was it the fact that I have six grandchildren? Whatever the reason, I found I was having difficulty with the concept, almost as if I was giving up on work and life only to join the parade of retirees at Tim Horton’s or Swiss Chalet.
No, none of that for me. I really prefer to embrace the concept of re-inspirement, a time to repurpose my life and dedicate myself to more of the activities I really enjoy. As I considered the ‘R’ word and new nominalizations for retirement, my thoughts continued to return to the basic human needs as expressed by Adlerian and psychotherapist Betty Lou Bettner.
Dr. Bettner describes our basic human needs in terms of the four crucial Cs of life: Connect, Capable, Count and Courage. In essence, everyone needs to feel connected to others, to be self-reliant, to be valued, and to be resilient.
I kept these four objectives firmly in mind as I deliberated about retiring from the job I had held for the last 12 years. Whatever my positive or negative thoughts were regarding retirement, I knew I would embrace these principles because, after all, they are basic human needs. Too often have I seen people retire with glee, only to find that their new-found freedom lacked ongoing connection to community, opportunities to continue to feel capable, the knowledge that they count, and an environment of encouragement.
Challenge 2: Staying focused
Once committed to retirement, I sat down and developed a list of long-term and shorter-term goals of the various things I envisioned doing during retirement. As much as everyone told me to kick back and relax after the last day of work, I decided, through my goal setting, to be a little more explicit about the use of my time. A key reason was that I recalled a time when I was, as you might say, in between assignments as an entrepreneur and the work was not forthcoming. My experience then was that time flew by and that it became harder and harder to get myself to take action. My tendency in times like this is to spend too much time thinking instead of doing.
Goals provide the focus, especially for a person like me who can be all over the map. Being somewhat attentionally challenged, it has really paid off for me to map out the first three months of retirement.
Challenge 3: Nest egg erosion
A common theme throughout my life has been to do whatever is necessary to support my family. This has led me into a variety of jobs, entrepreneurial ventures and a plethora of skill building activities. For example, alongside my regular work, I became a knowledge management consultant, a certified hypnotist, and a mental skills trainer for athletes.
Having committed to leaving my job and having determined a retirement date, I started to review the realities of income and expenses related to my upcoming situation. Like many people, my good intentions of having a huge nest egg for this time of life have not been fully realized. So my plan is to continue to monetize my skills post-retirement. These activities will provide a safety net for the cost of living surprises facing any retiree, such as a new roof or driveway repairs.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not all about work and no play. The enhanced choices I now have in retirement are the ability to schedule more recreation time, fitness, family time and, naturally, to create more opportunities to laugh. And in reviewing my prospects, some encouraging aspects have become clear: I no longer have mortgage payments; I have lower costs working from home; and I have a variety of great ways to stay connected with my community through other forms of work.
Challenge 4: The domestic dance
Following a final snapshot of the potential financial forecast, I tackled questions on the domestic front. I know there is going to be an adjustment in the use of our home, as my wife uses a home office for her work as a psychotherapist. Am I going to be in her way, thumping around the house? What about use of our one vehicle – will we need to compare our schedules? How do I balance family requests (babysitting grandchildren) with my own interests in ramping up new income sources?
For this domestic dance, I made sure that my wife and I had lots of dialogue about what life might be like with my change of focus. The good news is we are actually friends and don’t mind being around each other.
How’s This Working for Me?
This is a great question, attributed to Dr. Phil. My answer: a little bit scary.
At times it’s daunting to face the challenges I can see before me. However, the work I did in the three months leading up to retirement has helped greatly as I adjust to many changes. I really depend on the goals, short-term especially, to stay the course and to make sure I focus on a select number of activities, rather than everything in the hopper.
My health is good and that leaves me with some great options. Retirement opens the door for me to access physical activities more freely available during the day.
Retirement also gives me permission to employ more choice about the use of my time. It is kind of odd that many of us go through life wanting to exit the “JOB” in pursuit of what we really love to do, but don’t realize the many choices we had all along . It’s our subjective interpretation of events that brings meaning to how we experience life.
I intend to experience life fully – and I won’t be relying only on miracles to do so.