It happened again the other day. I bumped into someone I know in the street and he asked, “How’s retirement going?”
I could feel my blood begin to rise and boil. Not his fault, he doesn’t know the full story of what I am doing. I respond as I usually do with an impassioned, “But I’m not retired! I’m working from home on my new business.”
Or sometimes I say, “I’ve started a new business as a life coach and writer.” The conversation then goes further into what life coaching is and how I work globally with women on finding deeper purpose and creative self-leadership. It’s not always the easiest work to describe in these contexts.
My response to the word ‘retired‘ always surprises me though. It’s a visceral reaction to the word. I am trying to understand why I have such a strong response. Perhaps you understand and feel the same or maybe you embrace the idea of being retired. Here are my thoughts n the word ‘retired’. Love to hear yours.
The word ‘retired’
For me, the word ‘retired’ itself is not inspiring. Tired. Tired over and over again. Reinventing tired. I feel tired just hearing it.
It does not inspire me at all. It’s not a state I’ve ever aspired to.
And in some ways, I am just beginning to stretch my wings. I’m 57 and I don’t feel all that tired. Of course I get tired at times, but I feel alive and energised by this new phase of my life. It means getting back to what I have always wanted to be doing. That is writing, creating, working from home, coaching, connecting with others deeply, researching, working with ideas, having time for community and family.
Working with technology is something I love too. I love creating websites, blogging, ecourses and working with tools that help me be organised and streamlined. I write and coach via technology and it supports me to connect with others and organise my life how I want it, showing up, being productive and learning.
Lifelong learning and reading
I’m a lifelong learner from way back. I have multiple ecourses on the go at any one time. Currently I’m part of: the Teachable Creator Challenge working on creating quality online courses; the Gentle Business Mastermind; Ellie Swift’s Soulful Sequences about funnels and business flows and Susannah Conway’s The Inside Story Summer School. If I’m not learning and connecting with others through this, I feel like I’m not living.
I’ve invested in my skills over time. All these skills go into the rich melting pot of my body of work, the skills I already have to help me create new offerings and ways of working.
I love to read and usually have a fiction and a non-fiction book on the go. Reading in different ways via my Kindle, audiobooks and hard copy, I am completely lost without a book. I hardly ever leave the house without one. When I go swimming is one of the few times, because you can’t read underwater (as far as I know).
I’ve just finished Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers which I loved and Dawne Gowrie Zetterstrom’s Lusciously Nurtured which I’ll share more about here soon in a conversation with Dawne. I’m currently reading The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock because I know the hero’s journey does not exactly fit for women. I’m thinking and writing about this right now.
I used to be a teacher of reading to adults. Sharing my love of reading, I now help others via my blog to read for more creativity, productivity and pleasure. My two free ebooks in the Wholehearted Library here are all about reading: how books have shaped my story and a reading wisdom guide. I hope they help and inspire others.
My days are busy
So my days are busy and full in line with my passions. The word ‘retired‘ conjures up a different paradigm and one that doesn’t align. Like ‘redundancy‘ and my job being ‘deleted‘ as happened to me last year, the language feels negative implying no longer feeling of value, or having a place.
I know it can just mean no longer working outside the home, no longer being in that job of 30 plus years that I was in. When people use the word ‘retired’ in conversation, I know that’s often what they mean. But I am far from retired or retiring in the work that I do.
My days are busy with writing. Right now, I am 40% through the second self-edit of my book ‘Wholehearted: Self-leadership for Women in Transition’. I write blog posts here at Quiet Writing, guest posts for other websites and feature articles for other publications like the Beautiful You Inspired Coach Magazine and a piece in the anthology I Wrote It Anyway.
I wrote 50,000 words in one month for NaNoWriMo in 2017. I’m loving finally getting writing into the heart of my days. My heart feels full as I sit here with my Tide Pomodoro App and the sound of rain and thunder in my ears as my fingers play the keyboard like a piano. How long have I longed for this?
I’ve learnt new skills as a life coach and personality type practitioner. Training with the Beautiful You Coaching Academy and becoming a certified coach was a big step in my life transition journey. Becoming a Personality Type Practitioner was also one of my three key pillars for my transition. I have loved deepening this knowledge and sharing it with others to support transition and self-understanding.
Never too old
In my response to the word ‘retired’, there is definitely something in there about age and being old. That paradigm or life story of going to work for one employer for a long time, investing so much time in exchange for money. Then ceasing that in a delayed gratification of life and being able to do all the things you couldn’t do before. I lived in that paradigm for a long time, always waiting for the weekend or the holiday. I’m so glad to be out of it.
But I never saw the end of the journey of paid work via a job as a full stop.
I see it as a new beginning. A time to get back to the creativity I long desired, expressing myself through my writing and my work. But meaningfully, in line with my sense of purpose and desires. I want to write the novel that is in my heart, that I have cultivated in my mind, thought so much about.
I struggle with my age sometimes in creating this new life it’s true. It comes as a fleeting sense of “I wish I’d started earlier” or “How am I going to be able to get all this creative work done?” But you really are never too old to find courage and skill to empower your dreams and start working on the deeper intentions and creative work of the heart. Starting and moving step by step on whatever you desire to do or create is the best antidote for tackling these kind of thoughts.
Being less tied down
Being location independent, being able to work and write from anywhere is helpful. Not having to commute three plus hours a day as I used to, I am less tied and tired. Working from home is the greatest joy and I can be flexible about how I work each day.
I have the time to enjoy where I live instead of leaving early and coming home late as I used to. I can choose to swim three mornings a week and afterwards, connect with others over coffee. Then start working on my business, writing and coaching later in the day when I feel refreshed and grounded.
Working from home and via technology means being free in many ways. I love working from home but I aspire to be a digital nomad more. Being able to work from anywhere, combining travel, writing and self-employment is a huge plus in the new life I have created.
Aspiring and time to evolve
Part of my reaction to the word ‘retired’ is about aspirations. There’s so much I want to do in my life. I aspire to so much. It feels like the beginning of a new time when I can bring all my skills and experience to bear to write, coach, make a difference, communicate and share my learning to help others.
Retiring to me feels like a shutting down of aspiration. ‘Shy and retiring‘ is another phrase that often goes together, so a sense of blurring into the background, having less to say and do. Perhaps it involves enjoying life by relaxing, travelling and having more free time. But can we not have these generous aspects of life alongside working productively with deeper meaning and purpose, getting to the work of the heart we’ve always aspired to?
Sometimes too, especially for introverts, it takes a long time to find our voice and not be shy and retiring. The word ‘retire’ clashes for me with this time of life when I have something to say and contribute. When all my learning can be brought together into ways of providing insights for others. When I have found my voice and feel more creatively confident. Crone Confidence as my friend Diana Frajman calls it in her wisdom work in the world.
Later bloomers
I love stories of people who finally get to what they always wanted to do or who learn new skills later in life. Debra Eve has a fabulous website, Later Bloomer which reminds us that age and timelines are not definitive measures of what is possible. Sometimes it takes time, like a vintage wine or the lessons of a love that deepens over the years, to really weave together the stories and skills we have developed in our lives. It takes time to work out our purpose and meaning, what we are here for.
Being a later bloomer reflects the time it takes to mature those deep skills and passions that only we can bring together. It recognises too that we can reinvent ourselves in new ways over time.
What if a mindset of being retired means you don’t get to do that work that is so important to you? Or that someone else needs to hear?
Many ways to create
There are so many ways to work and create these days. It does not have to be a magnum opus, though it could be. Turning up on social media and sharing thoughts can be powerful work. Just the right quote or perspective honed from deep experience can turn someone else’s thinking around.
Voluntary work, pro bono work, can be a way of giving and receiving, realising in a new way what we have learned and how to apply it. Blogging can reach so many people in a powerful way as we craft our own digital space and voice in the world.
Writing that book you’ve always wanted to write and share is now easier to do with independent and self-publishing options. It’s not a vanity story any more. You can work with others in a hybrid or partnership model to get your work out into the world too. There are so many options and ways to create.
Exploring ‘retired’ and life options
So whilst for some retirement might be a worthy goal to aim for, I don’t think I’ll ever be truly retired and nor do I want to be. I want to be busy reading, writing, learning, sharing my learning, coaching, creating online courses, publishing, understanding personality type deeply, swimming, walking, connecting, travelling, enjoying life.
The life options are endless and people choose to focus in different ways. It might be spending time with the grandchildren and taking a more active role there. Sometimes there are situations that arise such as supporting aging parents which can be important work but incredibly challenging.
Through it all we search for deeper meaning and purpose and learn lessons about life as we go.
I know that creating and sustaining a new way of living has been hard work. To get to this stage in my life has taken hard inner and outer work over many years. This is another reason why I am not so keen to label my new self-created life as ‘retired’. It is all very active and intentional and about choice and self-leadership more than luck. My friend Kerstin Pilz writes of this eloquently in one of my all-time favourite blog posts: Why luck has nothing to do with a self-directed life.
What are your thoughts on the word ‘retired’?
I know not everyone will feel the same way I do about the word ‘retired’. Perhaps the concept of ‘retired’ carries a different meaning for you. Are you happily retired? Or is it a word you run a mile from? Is there another word you use for this time post paid employment elsewhere? I’d be interested in what that means for you. We are all different.
It might be something you long for but find it hard to reach for different reasons. Life circumstances can make it tough for us to reach our desires whatever we call them.
But let’s explore this. What does ‘retired‘ mean to you? I would so love to hear!
- Are you retired and happily so?
- What does the word conjure up for you?
- Is it something you aspire to?
- Are you someone who does not feel the word ‘retired’ fits with your view of life?
- Do we need another word?
- What are you aspiring to do at this time of your life?
- Are you a later bloomer in some areas of your life and what does that feel like?
- Do you ever feel ‘too old’ and how do you counter that thinking?
If you are interested in exploring deeper meaning and purpose in creative ways with self-leadership and a community of other women, the Sacred Creative Collective might be for you! The next round starts soon but places are limited and it’s filling up fast, so don’t delay and book a free Discovery Call here to discuss.
You might also enjoy:
Work in progress – being one and creating one
Life Coaching – making meaning in times of transition
New life, new wings, new opportunities – making the most of it
