What Will I Do All Day?

Friday, November 4, 2016

Going Home

Having recently returned from an Alaskan cruise, I know first hand that travel is a great way to enjoy my newfound time in retirement. With endless places to explore, I could spend weeks, months, even years touring the world—that is if I had endless financial resources. I don't, and so at some point I have to go home.

When I say go home, I'm not talking about my two-story Colonial in rural New York. Instead, I'm referring to a new way of living—a new orientation to life. If you're like me, you've found that retirement disrupts the sense of direction and purpose you knew in the workplace. Abruptly we face a blank calendar and open schedule, with very little to orient our day. This is one reason travel is so attractive. As long as there is the next trip to plan or excursion, we're relieved of the responsibility to create this next stage of life.

So what is home? For now home may feel unfamiliar to you, like you're journeying in an unknown land. As William Bridges says in his book The Way of Transitions, "Things aren't the old way, but they're not a new way yet either." And yet, maybe home is something we've known all along. According to Glinda, the good witch from the Wizard of Oz, "Home is knowing, knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage. If we know ourselves, we're always home, anywhere."

If you don’t feel comfortable taking instruction from a fictional witch, then consider the definition of home from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. In her Ted Talk, "Success, Failure, and the Drive to Keep Creating," Gilbert states, "For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home." Furthermore, "if you're wondering what your home is, here's a hint. Whatever in this world you love more than yourself. Creativity. Family. Adventure. Faith. Service…. Your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies to such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential."

My Alaska trip was a wonderful experience and a reminder that I definitely want to include travel in my retirement years. However, vacations are not going to keep me from discovering the other amazing places my life can go when I'm happy being home.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Returning Freshman

A recently retired woman attending the 50+ Living Expo was lured to my booth by the 10-foot high banner: The Retirement Experiment. Once I explained the symbolism of the chemistry beakers and the concept of experimenting in retirement, she said, "I feel like I'm back in college and choosing a major…deciding what I want to do with my life."

The more I think about what she said, the more I believe that retirement is like being a first-year college student. In retirement, we're back to choosing the next direction for our life. The difference between now and when we were 18 years old is we don't have to choose the right major. We can experiment with different interests and passions. We can change majors—and our experimenting won't delay graduation. This is not a journey to a diploma. It's a journey of discovery and how to orient ourselves to a new way of living.

Last week I was on a college campus to attend a 7-week continuing education seminar series. A rush of college memories returned as I rode my bike to campus, searched for Day Hall, walked into a roomful of people whom I didn't know, and asked two women if I could join them during the lunch break. Everything was new again, but also very familiar.

I have been down this road before, deciding what to do with my life. I'm a returning freshman and on a journey to discover new majors.

How to be a returning freshman?

Put yourself in different situations.
Be the first person to say hello and introduce yourself.
Take notes on what you are discovering and learning about your interests. Don't be afraid to change majors.
Get outside of your comfort zone. You won't discover the unexpected—a new major—if you stick only with the familiar.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

The Retirement Cocktail

"What do you do?"

This is the proverbial cocktail party question that can haunt you if you're newly retired. In my seminars I encourage participants to have an answer to this question before stepping over the line into retirement. And I remind them that the question is in the present tense.

At a recent program I must have been placing too much emphasis on coming up with an answer that protects one's ego, or gives too much power to the person asking the question, hoping to meet his or her standard for an interesting life. That's when a man in the back of the room raised his hand and said, "When I'm asked 'what do you do?' I tell people that I'm figuring it out. I view retirement as a time when I get to create balance in my life. Until now, so much of what I've done has prevented me from living a balanced life."

That's when I came up with the idea of a retirement cocktail—a perfect blend of what you want in your life. Not that everything has to be perfectly balanced. Like a good cocktail, not all ingredients are in the same amount, and yet a little dash of something can have a big impact.

So, how would you like your cocktail? What ingredients do you need to create the perfect balance of flavor? If you have read a wine list, you're familiar with the lengthy descriptions of flavors and characteristics. I encourage you to write your own cocktail description. Have fun with this exercise. And mix it up—you don't have to stick with the same drink year after year!

Here's my version of the Retirement Cocktail: A beautiful life full of gratitude. An expanded life full of energy. A creative life full of awe. A shared life full of connections. A meaningful life full of service.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Default or Design

As you're leaving Starbucks™ a researcher approaches you and asks, "Would you describe your life as living-by-design or living-by-default?" The question takes you by surprise. Before you retired, there wasn't much time, or much use, in thinking about this philosophical question. Mostly you had to show up to work each day and get the job done—preferably by yesterday!

But now that you're retired, the question of design or default has everything to do with the satisfaction and happiness you experience in this next stage of life. According to the MacMillan Dictionary, "if something happens by default, it happens only because someone does not do something else." Default is an automatic selection in the absence of a choice made by the user (Merriam-Webster).

In retirement it's easy to get caught up in the web of living by default. If we don't decide and commit to what we want, others will choose for us—it's the default option. In my opinion, living by default is lazy living. Lazy living is easy—easier than intentional living. And yet, happiness comes from putting forth the effort to live by design.

How do you live by design? Start with being deliberate and purposeful about how you invest your time. Decide what you really want in life. Make a list of what matters most to you. Commit to something. Put yourself on the hook. Be accountable to yourself. Think big. Your life depends on it.

In the end, it's your life. Don't be absent. Show up. Now is the time to make deliberate choices. Default is not good enough.

"That's the bell I keep ringing, to live a bigger and broader life. The smaller your life gets, the smaller your mind gets." —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Pretend to Work

A retired friend and I were talking about her need to do something more with her life. Julia said, "I feel like I'm floundering. I need some direction. I look at my neighbors who go to work and I realize how much I miss the benefits of working. I really don't want to be back in the rat race, but I yearn for more focus and direction."

When I asked Julia, "What do you love to do?" and "What brings you joy?" her face lit up. Without hesitation she described the fun she recently experienced from baking cookies for a friend—beautifully decorating the cookies and wrapping up the container with white paper and ribbon.

Once we tapped into Julia's love of baking, we talked about opening a bakery business. That's when her energy plummeted. A business means she would have to get up at 4 a.m. and meet other people's expectations. Customers would insist on a wide assortment of cookies, not just the cookies that she felt like baking. There wouldn't be time, nor would it be cost effective to decorate the containers. Customers might complain about the price rather than express their gratitude. All the little things that bring Julia joy were threatened when she considered creating a business out of what she loved to do. This is when I suggested she "pretend to work".

Pretending to work is a concept I came up with while writing "What Will I Do All Day?" I noticed that workshop participants had fun coming up with an idea for pretending to work. Their energy levels remained high when we kept an idea at the pretending level. That's when I realized pretending to work, works!

Why does pretending to work, work?

It's a great way to start today doing the things you love to do, and only those parts.

When you pretend to work you don't need success to keep at it. The "quarterlies" don't determine if you continue or not. If it's fun and rewarding, you do it.

You don't have to wait until you have an advanced degree. You can't claim to have credentials you haven't earned, but you can do what comes most naturally when using your gifts.

You can be patient when you pretend to work. If you had to make money or increase your customer base by 25%, then you might get discouraged. Instead, you can wait for good things to come your way.

You can be generous when you pretend to work. Giving away what you love to do means you'll get to do it more often, which means you'll have more opportunities to experience joy.

Pretending to work has many of the benefits found in real work. You set goals that stretch you. You learn new things. You lie awake at night thinking about your work because it's fun to think about!

What about the money? This is the one difference between real work and pretend work. In pretend to work you do something for the love of it, not the love of money. It's what you do whether you are paid or not. It's possible that a pretend job might end up being quite lucrative and lead to a "real" job. On the other hand, it's very likely a real job will not come around if you don't first pretend. Pretending gets you over the fear, the first steps, the beginning of the beginning, and the critical voices that say you can't do it or make a living at it.

If you wish to create meaningful work in retirement, what can you begin to do now, even if you are just pretending?