Considering What to Do in Retirement

What Are You Going to Do in Retirement?

If you’re considering or preparing for retirement, you might wonder, “How hard can planning my retirement lifestyle be?” I know, I’ve been there too. It turns out that even retirement isn’t always what you expect. And it’s not just me saying it.

A recent article from The Wall Street Journal recommended an innovative approach to employee benefits.₁ One that focuses on different career stages, including preparing for post-career life.

The Retirement Perspectives and Attitudes Survey validated the need for this type of benefit.₂ It found that retirement isn’t as effortless as someone might expect. This survey was conducted by a retirement coach and a blogger/influencer found that only 51% of retirees thought that the transition was smooth, compared to 70% of pre-retirees who expected it would go smoothly.

That was no surprise to me. It’s so important to think thoroughly about what you are going to do in retirement before you retire. I recall many conversations with clients who struggled with how to fill their time in ways that would satisfy their needs for meaning, esteem, achievement, engagement, and significance.

A Career Off-Boarding Checklist

Answering the question “What are you going to do in retirement?” is not easy for many. To help, here is a checklist that I use to help many clients who were wrestling with this vital question.

1. What Is Your Reason to Retire?

Knowing why your time matters to you may potentially help you establish priorities and give you focus. Be intentional about your goals (financial and non-financial) and monitor your progress along the way to stay on track.

The world of possibilities of what you can do in retirement may be exciting, but it also might be overwhelming without some forethought. Here are just a few examples of things to think about during the retirement planning process:

• Do you want to contribute to your prior work field but on a new or reduced basis?
• Are there any entirely new interests that you want to entertain?
• Do you want to meet new people?
• Is taking better care of yourself something you need to prioritize?
• How much more time do you want to spend with your family? And how do you want to spend that time?
• Are there specific causes or organizations within your community that you want to devote yourself to?
• What do you want to learn more about?
• Do you want to travel the world or just take a break?

The life you want won’t just happen, so think about what matters (or doesn’t) to you. Make it personal and important. Time is a finite commodity.

2. Who Am I?

As you review the list of questions that we just shared, hopefully that will just be the beginning of the discovery process of who you really are as you head into retirement. If someone simply says, “Tell me a little bit about yourself,” during your working years, how would you answer that? The first thing that a lot of people say in response to that is about their job rather than something about their family or what they enjoy doing outside of work.

If you’ve spent the past 30 or 40 years working 40 or so hours a week, we’re guessing that your job has been a big part of your identity. That’s why it’s so important to identify what you want your life to look like in retirement before you retire. It’s hard for some people to grasp, but boredom is a feeling that can potentially take over your retirement if you haven’t defined your retirement lifestyle. We’ll elaborate on that momentarily.

Whether you’re a few years or a few decades from retirement, how would you describe yourself? What motivates and drives you? What matters to you the most? Do you have abilities that come naturally to you that you can use to make a difference in retirement? Understanding who you are will help you understand what kind of retirement life will be satisfying for you.

3. How Do I Go Forward?

Upon retirement, you will no longer have a boss, work assignments, or assigned objectives. You will have to manage yourself. Here are some ideas to help:

Maintain a Regular Structure to Your Day

It’s easy to think that having nothing to do, merely drifting through your day/week/month/year/life acting on your whims and working only when desire or inspiration strikes is very appealing. The problem is that drifting through life tends not to be very good for us over the medium to long term. Of course, we usually benefit from taking rest days, but life tends to require more purpose and structure than constant leisure.

There are numerous potential benefits of having a planned structure to positively impact wellbeing and your work. A regular routine may help you maintain your circadian rhythm, which is good for your physical wellbeing and particularly your sleep. Getting up, eating, and taking breaks at similar times each day, potentially provides you with a psychological sense of progress through the day and gives your activities shape and structure. This could also reduce the sense you might sometimes get of being lost with what you are doing.

A regular structure also can help with creating a sense of familiarity and control that may reduce your stress levels and help you feel more in control of your time and life generally. Routine also potentially moves you past procrastination without you having to really push yourself through.

Finding a Routine That Works for You

Take time to experiment with building a routine and find one that could work for you. In addition to your work tasks, remember to plan breaks, meals, stay hydrated, get outside, and speak to others.

It may help to begin your day with tasks that warm up your brain by reading, listening to a podcast or music, or exercising. It may also help to end the working part of your day with some wind down activities, so you can take a proper break in the evening. Try ending your day by making a to-do list for the next day and reviewing what you have achieved that day.

Redefine “Work”

Hopefully, you end up finding a job for at least some point in your career that doesn’t feel like “work.” Some people attain financial independence, but choose to continue working because it gives them a sense of purpose and satisfaction. But if you can’t wait to retire or are looking for something that will give you a greater sense of purpose, what are you going to do in retirement?

Many people want to travel more in retirement and spend more time with their family. Picking up new hobbies, becoming more active in your community, doing volunteer work, and finding a part-time job that you enjoy are also possibilities. It’s so important to have a reason(s) to retire and understand who you are as you’re heading into retirement to help determine your path forward.

Don’t forget to set short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals for yourself as you’re transitioning from work to retirement. You don’t need to wait until retirement to get started on those goals either. If you’ve accrued hours upon hours of PTO and are feeling burnt out at work, take that PTO and check off those goals you’ve set for yourself.

4. Stay Positive

Many people think of retirement as a time in their life when they finally leave their job and no longer need to work. But rather than taking the approach of retiring from your job, focus on what you’ll be retiring to. Having that mindset in addition to maintaining a positive, growth-oriented attitude can potentially give you a sense of rejuvenation in retirement.

5. Don’t Overreact to Boredom

While I’ve talked to some people who think that boredom will never be an issue in retirement, others have told me that boredom in retirement is a big concern. There’s potential benefit from having a little bit of boredom, as it can lead you to new endeavors. It’s natural to be bored at times during such a big transition, even if you have planned for what you are going to do in retirement.

Rest and relaxation can always be an alternative as you’re trying new interests. If those new interests don’t work out, don’t dwell on it by overreacting to unexpectedly being bored. There are always other new things you can try in retirement.

6. Maintain/Develop Your Social Network

Making new friends might not be as easy as when you worked, but it’s always worth the effort to find and seize opportunities to get to know new people. New people that you meet in retirement don’t have to fall into that exceptional “Best Friends Forever” category. Also, if you’ve developed friendships with your coworkers, find some time to hang out with them outside of normal work hours if you’re not doing so already.

Reviewing Our Retirement Plan Checklist

During my career as a financial advisor, I obviously spent a lot of time helping people financially prepare to get to and through retirement. It’s my hope that this article has highlighted that there’s so much more to retirement planning than saving enough money to retire. After all, how are you supposed to know how much you need to save for retirement if you don’t know what you are going to do in retirement? That’s why Modern Wealth Management builds personalized, goals-based financial plans for its clients.

What are you going to do in retirement and how much do you need to save for retirement are questions that require a lot of thought as you’re answering them. We put together our Retirement Plan Checklist to help people as they answer those questions so they can begin to gauge their retirement readiness. This white paper consists of a 30-question checklist and age-and date-based timelines of retirement considerations.

Retirement Plan Checklist

So, What Are You Going to Do in Retirement?

No matter how far you are in your career, I hope you’ve spent some time thinking about what you are going to do in retirement. However, planning for retirement is a massive responsibility that can be challenging to undertake alone. It may be even too big of an undertaking for one financial advisor to handle independently. That’s why Modern Wealth Management employs a team of financial professionals that works together on behalf of the client. That financial planning team consists of a CFP® Professional, CPA, CFA, estate planning specialist, insurance specialists, and a company retirement plan team.

To learn more about how Modern Wealth’s team approach and what to consider throughout the retirement planning process, start a conversation with the Modern Wealth team below.

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Resources Mentioned in This Article

• Your Retirement Date Decision – Is It Only About the Numbers?
• Your Retirement Lifestyle: What Do You Want Your Retirement to Look Like?
• Introducing Your Encore
• Transition into Retirement by Following These 5 Steps
• Nonfinancial Life Planning with Bruce Godke
• Short-Term, Mid-Term, and Long-Term Financial Goals
• Time Is Your Scarcest Resource in Retirement
• Benefits of Volunteering in Retirement
• Planning a Big Family Vacation
• Starting the Retirement Planning Process
• Retiring at 50: Can You Do It?
• Have I Saved Enough to Retire?
• Components of a Complete Financial Plan with Logan DeGraeve, CFP®, AIF®
• Don’t Retire without Doing These Things First
• DIY Retirement Planning: What Can Be Overlooked?
• Why You Need a Financial Planning Team with Jason Gordo

Downloads

• Retirement Plan Checklist

Other Sources

[1] https://theworkplacereport.createsend1.com/t/d-e-vtudyiy-irjuwdjhd-r/?ref=retirementcommentaries.com

[2] https://www.retirewithpossibilities.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Retirement-Perspectives-and-Attitudes-Survey-May-2023.pdf