Plan For Being Retired
If you’re not yet retired, now is the time to plan and prepare for it, because life will change when you no longer have your 9-5 job to get up for in the morning.
Hopefully, you have planned for retirement financially, but have you planned for how you will spend your time?
You may think, “My plan is to enjoy not working!” And you should, but after you have spent months enjoying no longer having to go to work and having the free time you craved, boredom, loneliness, or restlessness might set in.
You might wonder, “Is this it? Is this what I am going to do for the rest of my life?”
Without purpose, retirement can feel like an endless stretch of days without much meaning.
That’s why planning how you’ll spend your time is almost as important as planning how you’ll spend your money.
Find Your Purpose
Everyone needs purpose, something to get up for in the morning. For some it’s travel. For others it’s volunteering, hobbies, or learning something new.
Traveling may feel exciting in the early years of retirement, but as time passes traveling might not be so appealing anymore. Long flights and busy airports may lose its appeal.
That’s why purpose needs to be flexible and evolving as things change. Planning for being retired is pretty simple.
Start by figuring out what you enjoy doing. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or big.
Something as simple as:
- Learning how to bake your own bread
- Starting an herb and vegetable garden
- Join a walking club
- Learning Italian
Write down everything and anything, no matter how small it might seem. Rediscover your passion for different things. The good news is that you have plenty of time to figure out what you enjoy through trial and error. Once you have conquered one thing on your list, move on to the next one.
Find Your Joy
Purpose is not about grand plans. Sometimes it’s the little things that give us the most joy.
For me, mornings are magical. I love going for an early morning walk, watering the plants, sitting outside reading while listening to the birds. The small morning rituals are what makes me excited to get up every day.
What simple things give YOU joy?
Write them down. It could be sort of a bucket list, but it is more about discovering what you really want and what gives you true enjoyment.
And if you don’t do them now, then when will you?
If You're Already Retired
If you are retired, you might have already experienced what it feels like to have the days pass you by and you can’t even remember how you spent them. If that sounds familiar, take a moment to reflect.
- Do you miss connecting with people?
- Do you miss having something to get up for?
- Is retirement what you imagined it would be?
Write down your answers and how you are feeling. Then make a list of things that excite you, things you said you wanted to do but haven’t.
And why haven’t you?
Don’t be afraid to try new things. Don’t be afraid to reach out to old friends and start new habits and new hobbies.
Prioritize Your Health
None of this really matters if you don’t have your health. Retirement should be a time to thrive, not just survive.
Don’t give in to the “you’re getting old” or “this is what happens as we age” spiel we get fed from media and even your own doctors. Take responsibility for your own health.
Look at people like Train with Joan who started working out with weights at the age of 70 and transformed her body and her life. In the beginning she struggled too, but she persevered and didn’t give up. A complete transformation and incredibly inspiring. Check her out and get inspired.
Educate yourself and explore resources from people like Dr. Mark Hyman, who shares practical and research-proven ways to take charge of your health. His podcast “The Doctor’s Farmacy” and book “Young Forever” are packed with life-changing information.
Learning how your body works and what it needs is empowering. Do the research from varied reliable resources that uses up-to-date research and take charge of your own health. No one will have more vested interest in your health than you.
Without our health, we have nothing. What is the point of retiring if you are too sick or weak to enjoy it.
Make it your quest to get healthy and fit.
If Not Now, Then When?
Again, if you don’t do it now, then when will you?
We have been programmed all our lives on what we can and cannot do at a certain age. We tell ourselves “oh, it’s too late now”, or “I am too old to start something new”. But if you are 65, you could still have 20-30 more years ahead of you.
Think about it, twenty years is two decades. Do you really want to spend that time holding back because you think you are too old or for the fear of what others might think?
There is one thing you are too old for, and that is worrying about what other people think.
What Are You Afraid of?
Fear holds most of us back whether we are young or old. But what are we really afraid of? It is usually not the fear of danger.
No, it’s the fear of the unknown that keeps us stuck.
We often feel fear and apprehension over things we haven’t done before. It might feel overwhelming to start a new project or learn something new. But guess what, it’s actually good for your brain health.
Challenging our brain to do new things will keep our mind sharp as we get older.
I am not a baker, so I get intimidated by recipes that seem complicated. I kept putting off making my mother’s cake recipe that she used to make for all our birthdays for years. It had a lot of steps and seemed difficult to pull off. But then one day I just said, “to heck with it, I am doing this”.
I just took one step at a time and to my surprise it came out really good. I was so proud of myself just for doing it and when I look back, I think, it is just cake for crying out loud. How could I let cake intimidate me? If it falls apart, so what, just try again.
The older we get the more limiting beliefs we buy into. We simply think we can’t do something because of our age or because it is too hard. But I am here to tell you that you can.
Take Dagny Carlsson, for example. She didn’t learn to use a computer until she was 99 years old. Yes, you read that right. 99 years old. The following year, at the ripe age of 100 she started writing her own blog.
She became Sweden’s oldest blogger, gained thousands of followers and even met the King and Queen of Sweden and appeared on TV many times. She wrote her blog and inspired her audience until she passed away at the age of 109.
After reading about her, I thought, no one has any excuse for not learning and trying something new regardless of age. I almost felt embarrassed for saying, “I can’t do that.”
It’s usually not the things we do that we regret. It’s the things we didn’t do or didn’t even try doing.
Joy is Waiting For You
Retirement is not the end of your story. It is just the beginning.
You get to write a whole new story of your choosing. Purpose and joy don’t come without some effort. They are created through being open to change and new possibilities. Through curiosity, discovery, and daily choices.
So, start today. Write your list of things you want to do.
Try something new. Create your mornings, your health, your passions and joy.
It’s never too late to start living your best life. Someday has arrived. Someday is TODAY!
What are you going to do today to find joy? Let us know in the comments below. You might inspire someone else to take their first step too.