Retirement a “life transition

Planning for retirement is not just a financial process, it is a transition to do something else, whether it’s travel, or living a dream — it’s a new period of personal discovery.

Doing nothing gets boring quickly and is unfulfilling for most people. Those who have outside interests and hobbies while they are working are going to adjust better to retirement. For individuals whose whole lives are consumed with work, there will be a sudden void when they retire. For many, work is where much of their identity and satisfaction is obtained.

After working for years, often at the same job, or in the same industry, people who retire may struggle to figure out how they still fit in and contribute.

The ability to say goodbye and express your feelings is an important process that we all go through when we decide to retire. When someone retires somewhat abruptly or unexpected for whatever reason, there is a lot of unfinished business. 

Professionally, their lives may have concluded, but people want to believe that their “contributions will continue to count and mean something.”

We have an identity when we work for 40 years somewhere. To transition from a work identity to something else that people will respect” is something that should be thought about before retirement.

Transitions by nature are always very difficult. Even so-called good transitions like the birth of a child, buying a home, getting a new job, or going to college cause a lot of change in a person's life, and change is stressful. The key to dealing with transitions is to be as flexible as possible. Anytime you have a significant change in role -- such as returning to work after raising children -- the ability to adjust and assume another role in society is very important.

Retirement planning, Leach suggested, incorporates the “mental, physical, as well as spiritual health in addition to your financial well-being.”

People who haven’t thought out their future properly are easy to pick out — not so much because they didn’t plan well financially, but because they didn’t know what else to do.

People who fail at retirement, go back to work. One of the reasons is that people undergoing transitions becoming depressed. When this happens, their energy levels and motivation decrease, and they may even have problems with their sleep and appetite. When these symptoms persist and people find they are preventing them from actively participating and enjoying life that is the time to seek help.

Be sure, though, to give yourself a little time. For most people after you retire there is some initial euphoria about not having to go to work, but if several months into retirement, you find yourself struggling and feeling depressed, it may be time to seek help. Sometimes just talking to someone and getting an objective opinion about what's going on can help people sort things out in their mind and will help them formulate a plan to help adjust to their change in role

Active living is important to successful retirement. In addition to spending more time on passive leisure, retired women and men also spent more time socializing than when they were constrained by workplace demands. Indeed, the data  from Stats Canada, suggest a dynamic social life. Two thirds of retired women and men got together with friends and/or family outside the household each day.

As well, retirees were more likely to participate in and to spend more time on, active leisure activities than employed mid-agers. More than half of the retired population (50% of women and 59% of men) went for a walk, played cards, or participated in hobbies and crafts each day.

Nearly 17% of retired women participated in activities such as walking, jogging, hiking and running for nearly 1½ hours per day. Participating in mentally stimulating games, cards, puzzles and board games also was more common among female and consumed more of their time Women who were retired from the labour force also were more likely to do home crafts. Participation rates in active sports for women keeping house were also high for retired women.

Retired men were far more likely to walk, hike, run, or jog than retired women. Participation in games, cards, puzzles and board games increased from just over one hour before retirement to more than 1½ hours after retirement. Not surprisingly, golf showed the longest time commitment; participants spent 3.7 hours a week on the game.

Retirees appear to be happier than people who have to work. Factor analysis indicates that happiness correlates strongly with a number of time pressure indicators such as: striving to accomplish more than one can handle; having no time for fun; constant stress from not having enough time; feeling trapped in a daily routine; and finally, that sinking feeling of not having finished everything that was planned at the end of the day. Not surprisingly, reducing the time commitment to the job and having more autonomy in choosing and scheduling activities eased time pressures and led to greater individual happiness. Interestingly, men were somewhat more likely to report they were very happy than their female counterparts

Boomers will be retiring in greater numbers over the next few decades. We  have benefited from medical advances, a prosperous economy and expanded educational opportunities and will become not only the largest retirement population ever, but also the  healthiest, wealthiest, and most powerful politically and economically. Many forecasters have taken the reality of Boomer retirement to mean economic and social catastrophe will befall our society (Thus the need to increase retirement and cut government pensions to put the responsibility on the individual). Others see the upcoming retirement tsunami as one of a cultural transformation leading to a more peaceful and caring society. We can only be sure retired boomers will revolutionize the prevailing attitudes and activities of the “senior” population. Being a senior may well mean becoming a sonic boomer or a zoomer and a very good thing as long as we can make the transition from work to retirement.

Information for this blog was drawn from Days of our lives: time use and transitions over the life course: The transition to retirement:  When every day is Saturday, published in 1998 and the full study is available here and from Planning for retirement is about more than just the money by David James Heis published here