It is hard for many people to know when to retire. While I believe there is a shelf life for leaders, most of us struggle with letting go. Unless there is an early retirement incentive package with a deadline, there is often not a definite date to retire.
For my monthly podcast “Becoming a Sage,” I interviewed Dave Ulrich, the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He is the author of The Why of Work. We talked about how retirees miss the social aspect of working. His experience has informed him that “retirees miss the people more than the work.”
Yet even if we don’t miss our day jobs, retirement can be uncomfortable because we often don’t know what to do next. Ulrich described it this way: “We thought the 60s and 70s would be an age of certainty, but it is an age of absolute uncertainty. The 20s are more certainty because you have a pattern of college, work, and life patterns.” He continued, “Most [retired] people feel better when they are pulled into something than to be pushed out.”
The key is to be pulled into something meaningful rather than feel pushed out.
The question becomes: What are we being pulled into? Since retirement and how we spend our time is personalized, it takes time and intentional thought to figure out what’s next.