Retirement Preparedness: Move Toward Retirement Not “Away” from Working

February 21, 2011

Retirement is not simply ceasing to work but rather a step toward something – a whole new phase in life.  Many people don’t realize that until it is too late.  A friend of mine was discussing this with me over the weekend.  He works for a utility company in upstate New York as a project manager.  He was exclaiming that these guys who recently retired are coming back to work for him as part-time retirees.

He likes it because he can tap into the expertise and he hasn’t experienced the “brain drain” associated with retirees but when he looks toward his own retirement, he wonders why they would come back – it doesn’t make sense to him.  Why retire and come back especially to the same job making less money with no benefits?  Why retire in the first place?

I think what happened to these guys is a pretty common example of human nature.   They were probably focused on the pain associated to working and retirement was the way to get rid of the pain.  You know what I am talking about – every Sunday night many people dread their Monday mornings thinking about how they have to get up early and go into work.  They dwell on negative aspects of their job and probably think to themselves, “When I retire, they can’t make me…(insert annoying thing here).”

The reason these retirees came back to work is that they never focused on replacing the positive aspects of their job.  No matter what your job is, work involves making some kind of contribution and for many, a huge social element.   Think of the amount of time spent at work and the positive benefits of having a schedule.  These positive aspects need to be replaced in order to prepare for an enjoyable retirement.

Replacing these three things is a great place to start.  If you are close to retirement, ask yourself these questions:

How will I contribute to others in my retirement – family, friends, neighbors, and community? This would include what is important to you, in a measure that works best for you.  In others words, some people do a few small things and are very satisfied and some people are constantly on the go and are only happy that way.  Either way, think about how you’ll replace that sense of making a mark in the world.

What are my social outlets? In a landmark study by Cohen and Doyle in 2003, people who had more social interactions were less likely to develop not only colds but illnesses.  Think about how many social interactions a person has at work compared to being retired – for many the difference is vast.  Consider your hobbies and how you enjoy spending your time.  How can you maintain a full social life in retirement?

What is your routine? In retirement, you have the choice to pretty much do whatever you want when you want, which is very different from working for most people.  Consider what activities you enjoy and when you would schedule them to create a routine that has flexibility and gives you the best of both worlds where you are the boss of your time but also have some kind of a schedule.

The financial aspects of retirement are extremely important because without funding, retirement is a dream, not a reality.  However, as we are often told, “money isn’t everything” and it must be true if retirees are quickly returning to the very place they were dying to get away from.  By recreating the positive aspects of working, in retirement you can have everything.