The Secret to a Happy Retirement

Most of life has a natural structure. From your first day of school to progressing through whatever ‘the career ladder’ is for you. Yet with retirement, the structure can sometimes fall away. After all, isn’t the purpose of retirement to take a step back and not have to have a life under such a regimented path?

While the ‘deep breath’ after retirement is often needed. Retirement isn’t just a financial event, it’s a major life event that inevitably will come with its own challenges. The transition from work to either full or partial retirement can come initially as a bit of a shock. This can be especially the case for those who have worked full-time for decades to then stop abruptly. This after a period of relaxation can lead to questioning what exactly they will do for the next 30 years? How all this newfound time can be spent while maintaining some purpose?

For some, this isn’t an issue. With an endless list of tasks, friendships to reignite and places to travel. Although if you are thinking about retirement and you don’t have an overflowing activity list.

You may want to take time to examine, who you are, what you want and how you can get that sense of overall wellbeing.

Retirement needs to be considered and planned for like all other life events that you planned for, or, were planned for you previously. You should consider carefully how to become happy and live a life of purpose just as much as you did when you were working. The key difference is that there should be one thing - control. If you are retiring I assume you have the financial capability to do so. This means that now you have a choice on you spend your time.

This is a gift, an opportunity and a challenge.

A model to retire well

In the 2011 book ‘Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Wellbeing’ Dr Martin Seligman set out his theory on the PERMA model. A roadmap of how to find true well-being. This takes elements that are believed to be key pillars of human well-being and how applying improvements in these areas can have a profound impact on overall well-being.

The research implies that if you focus on improving each area you eventually achieve the often elusive feelings of satisfaction and happiness. There are 5 areas to achieve this:

Positive Emotion

These are simply about finding environments and moments where we are likely to feel positive about what we do. It isn’t about pretending that everything in life is amazing or underplaying life’s challenges which will certainly continue in retirement. It is about giving ourselves the most realistic chance of creating these states and making the pursuit of them a priority.

This can be any of the typical emotions that we associate this, from unbridled joy, hope, inspiration, love, excitement, anticipation or many others. Can you think of what areas in your life tend to bring up these emotions and is it possible to construct your time so these occur more often? When is the last time you genuinely felt this way?

We have to understand there may be limitations to what is practical. However, as I mentioned in the episode about how money can buy happiness the feelings of anticipation and novelty around certain experiences can be as positive as the event itself. This can be anything from more hours on the golf course, to teaching the profession you’ve mastered. It is about understanding what brings you these emotions.

Engagement

This is simply having interests or pursuit that actively captivates you. Something that perhaps challenges you. Activities that may even induce a ‘flow’ state. Placing us in a non-distracted zone. The feelings that would consume you under normal circumstances (inhibition, hunger, fatigue, or aches and pains) melt away, and all that matters is your dedication to what are doing.

There are genuine health benefits to these states of flow. It can increase endorphins and serotonin and has been shown to lower blood pressure. These are activities that require your focus but aren’t so beyond your skill level that they feel impossible to complete. A challenge that pushes you just outside of your comfort zone, but is achievable.

Relationships

Whether this is friendship or love. Humans thrive on that need to ‘belong’ and be part of the group. In later retirement, managing loneliness and isolation can be a major challenge. The key is to make sure we are conscious of the relationships around us. It is all too easy for friends to drift out of touch or for relationships to be strained by the pressure of normal working life. There is no better time than retirement to invest back into these relationships. 

Meaning

While an incredibly broad and difficult to define topic. We all have to feel that we have contributed to the world in some way and that our actions are worthwhile. It is about finding an activity or cause that we can contribute to that is beyond ourselves.

Often how to achieve ‘meaning’ will be incredibly individual. It has to come from you. This often stems from a personal passion. Something that we would pursue even if we weren’t paid for it. Perhaps it speaks to our values system but ultimately, for it to work it has to trigger that feeling within ourselves.

Achievement

This is a feeling of accomplishment. Through our working lives, we often define ourselves by our professions. In fact, many of our surnames are derived from our family's profession. The challenge in retirement is we can often go from ‘whose who’ to ‘whose she/he?’ The insight here is that as part of our evolutionary journey we have been hardwired to evolve and progress. If you say, have retired from a high-flying corporate life built on targets to an immediate stop. It can worthwhile considering where the next sense of achievement will come from. Whether this is - ticking off those items from the bucket list to trying that thing you’ve always wanted to but never had time to.

Your retirement calendar

Now, think for a moment about how these 5 pillars of your well-being fit into your life. Rate them each out of 10. How would score?

A financial plan is, after all, only the roadmap to a life plan and it fails if it does not support the life you want to lead. Like the compounding of investing, it is about making incremental improvements that over time will yield incredible results. Imagine now you are filling out your retirement calendar. The events for the next year, looking now through the lens of each of the 5 pillars and if we can build into that the below:

P - Be aware of the things in your life that make you feel gratitude, excitement, love or joy. Recognise how this fits into your schedule right now and if you feel this can

E - Seek out activities that keep you busy, interested and in a state of flow. Whether this is a hobby, exercise or a new skill.

M - Get involved in a cause or organisation that matters to you and is beyond you. Think about how you can use your passion to help others.

R - Spend time with the people you care about. Try scheduling more time with friends and family.

A - Find little victories every day, this can start small or be a much longer pursuit. Focus on how it will make you feel once it is completed.

By applying the principles of the PERMA model you can find the structure to achieve the life you want. The goal is that you are looking back in 30 or 40 years at an incredible retirement, one where you have lived a life of purpose, enjoyment and without regret.