What will your retirement look like? What will you do with your days? Your retirement lifestyle is yours to create. There are many choices. But you need to do a bit of planning. Unfortunately, a rich, fulfilling retirement isn’t going to happen by itself.
Retirement is the end of one chapter of your life and the start of a new, fresh one. For most of your life, you’ve been told what to do and where to go most days of the week-first in school, then at your job.
Now, your days, weeks, and months are all yours. You decide what to do (or not do) each day and where you want to be. It’s a big transition.
Many people feel lost after retirement or when retirement is approaching. Retirement syndrome is a combination of feelings including stagnation, confusion, and lack of purpose and direction.
We’re here to help you make the transition and create a plan for an enjoyable and meaningful next chapter.
Making the Transition to Retirement
You might think of retirement as a permanent vacation. You get to travel, finish your honey-do list, visit your children and grandchildren, sleep in, read a book, and take a nap on a weekday afternoon. And for sure, retirement is the time to do all of those things.
After a while, however, many people long for something more. The “honeymoon period” of retirement is fading, and you wonder, “Now what am I going to do with all the years I have left?”
Routines Are Important
While you were working, you had routines. Your day and week were organized around your job and possibly around the kids’ school schedules. Many people find continuing to follow routines in retirement can be helpful. Routines can improve your health and help you manage stress and anxiety. Even though you no longer have a daily ritual for getting ready for work, you can develop other routines to start your day in retirement.
If you’re wondering what routines to incorporate into your day, here are some ideas to consider:
- Physical exercise. Consider aerobic exercise, flexibility, strength training, or a combination.
- Meditation or mindfulness. It’s easy to become distracted nowadays. These help you focus.
- Staying in touch. Keeping relationships with friends or relatives, even if it’s over the phone or online
- Gratitude. Thinking of what you’re grateful for. Gratitude lifts your mood and improves your health.
- Staying light. Reading or watching something humorous.
- Mental exercise. Working on a hobby, puzzle, or something that challenges your mind.
Rekindle Your Passions
What were your dreams and interests earlier in life, that maybe you had to set aside? Now is the time to consider reviving old hobbies and passions.
One person retired from a multinational chemical company and indulged his lifelong interest in photography. He posted his photos online and gained thousands of followers in a couple of months.
Another man had worked as a Mississippi River boat pilot and, after retirement, wrote a memoir about a trip he took with his father. He reads from his memoir at libraries and book clubs and meets many people with similar stories.
And one man fulfilled his lifelong dream and became a medical doctor at age 62.
How to Find Your Passion
Psychologist Paul O’ Keefe recommends thinking of passions as interests to be cultivated, rather than innate interests to be discovered. In other words, they’re not innate, fixed attributes that you possess, but rather things you could become interested in and directions in which you could grow.
You might have had a lifelong passion for painting, gardening, or another hobby, but never had the time for it. If so, you can consider picking it back up in retirement.
If not, now’s a good time to explore different things.
Maybe you never spent much time reading classic literature or exploring the outdoors, but are those activities you might be interested in?
You might talk with your friends and family members who know you well about what might interest you.
Another way is to browse through local university catalogs and see what subjects are offered. These might spark some ideas.
It can also be helpful just to take time to reflect, take time out from the busyness of life, and think about what your passions might be.
You can also experiment with different activities, such as by joining a club or taking an adult learning class, to see what might interest you. Even if you think an activity “just isn’t you,” consider giving it a try-you might enjoy it.
You might make a list of things you were interested in when you were younger, or a child, and add a few random items, things you’ve always wanted to try. Then try each one. You may not enjoy them all, but each experience will bring you closer to your true passions.
If you find you lose track of time when you’re doing or working on something, that means you’re interested and engaged.
Henry Ford said, “One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do.”
Remember that there’s no pressure to find something immediately or to get it right the first time. Just the process of looking at different choices can be fulfilling in itself.
If you’re looking for some specific suggestions for hobbies in retirement, this page has some ideas.
You can also try one of the many retirement personality quizzes available online to help you find the best retirement lifestyle that fits you.
The VIA Institute on Character offers a free survey to help you find your strengths. These can provide clues to what activities might build on those strengths that you would find rewarding.
And this video shares five ways to find your passions in retirement.
Lifelong Learning
While you’re in the process of uncovering your passions, you’ll learn a lot about both yourself and the world. Lifelong learning, in fact, is one of the best ways to stay healthy and youthful. Another quote from Henry Ford says, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
Whether you want to finally get that degree you never got to finish, or you simply want to pick up a new skill, lifelong learning helps you live a more purposeful and satisfying life. Without continually learning new things, you tend to get stuck in a rut. Lifelong learning also increases your self-confidence and sense of satisfaction.
Today, there are more ways than ever to engage in lifelong learning. With the Internet, you can even learn new hobbies and explore the world without leaving your home.
Here are some options to engage in lifelong learning:
Take a local college course. All states offer free or reduced-tuition courses at four-year or two-year colleges for older adults. There may be restrictions on registration and additional fees. You can join the more than half a million adults aged 50 and over who are enrolled in postsecondary institutions.
You can check the availability of higher education programs for older adults in your state through an advanced Google search, for example:
Here is a list of 60 schools that offer tuition-free degree programs for people over the age of 60.
Try an online degree.An increasing number of colleges and universities are offering online degrees in various fields. Learn.org offers a list of suggested online degree programs for older adults.
Take a noncredit course.If you’re simply looking to explore new areas of learning or considering a new hobby, noncredit courses are immensely popular among older adults. Your local community college may offer a variety of short-term, low-cost courses throughout the year. Your local senior center and library may also have classes available.
Self-study.If you want to take a self-paced online course to increase your knowledge, there are numerous options.
Here are some of the most popular online learning platforms:
- Coursera: offers courses, certificates, and degrees
- OpenLearning: short courses and certificates
- Udemy: learn skills needed in the marketplace
- Khan Academy: free online courses intended for students from pre-K through college
- org: free online university courses available to the public
- Masterclass: online courses in a wide variety of academic and personal enrichment subjects
- CuriosityU: hundreds of courses and lectures by top educators
- Skillshare: video courses provided by freelance course creators
Additionally, Road Scholar offers a range of learning options ranging from online lectures to week-long online programs to virtual trips, all intended for older adults.
Entrepreneurship in Retirement
You may have years of accumulated knowledge and experience in your chosen field. Even though you’re retired, you may still feel you have something to contribute. You may miss the sense of productivity you had when you were working. Although you may not miss going to work every day, you may miss the structure and goals you had in the working world.
Entrepreneurship is an attractive option for many retirees. Fidelity Investments’s 2024 State of Retirement Planning found that two-thirds of older adults look forward to a ‘new retirement’ in which they work for pleasure. The increasing popularity of remote work has made this popular among retirees.
Entrepreneurship offers several benefits, including:
- Enables you to stay productive and contribute to society
- Gives you a sense of purpose and confidence
- Provides additional streams of income
- Gives you the flexibility to live in different locations while continuing to work
Older adults are often more successful entrepreneurs than younger people because they have more financial resources, experience, and self-awareness. They may also have a wider network of contacts. At the same time, entrepreneurship requires effort, commitment, and a strong awareness of what your purpose is for starting a business. There will be unexpected hurdles and roadblocks, and you have to power through them.
There may also be unexpected opportunities that arise and take you in different directions than you originally planned. You will want to remain flexible and keep your eye on what your goal for starting a business is, even if the path is different from what you imagined.
The knowledge and experience you have from your career are tremendous assets, even if your business is in a completely different field. Helene Godin drew on research skills she’d developed over two decades as a lawyer to found a successful food company that specializes in dairy-free and gluten-free bakery items.
When starting out, you’ll need to think about the nuts and bolts of your business, such as:
- What product or service am I offering?
- Who is my target market?
- How do I reach my target audience?
- How do I convert leads to customers (sales funnel)?
- How do I keep in contact with customers, leads, and prospects, for example, on social media or with email lists?
- What are my sales, revenue, and profit goals? What is my vision for this company?
Regardless of what business you’re in, marketing will have a key role. Business coach Johanne O’Halleron suggests thinking of marketing not in terms of salesmanship but as building and cultivating business relationships with your prospects and customers.
Visit our page, ‘Starting a Business After Retirement,” for more information about entrepreneurship in retirement.
Marital Relationships
Many couples find they have trouble adjusting to retirement. The divorce rate among couples aged 65 and over has tripled since 1990. Here are some ways you can stay close as a couple after retirement.
Discuss interests you can share. While you were both working, raising the kids, and caring for the home, you may each have developed your own interests and activities. After retirement, you can think about interests you can share, such as travel, watching movies, or evening walks.
Share household responsibilities. When you were younger, one spouse may have worked outside the home while the other took care of household chores. Now that you’re both retired, sharing tasks can make people feel appreciated and prevent resentment from setting in.
Widen your social circle. Rather than depend just on each other for social connection, it is healthy and natural to have other interactions. If you each have your own hobbies and social circles, this can help bring you closer. You each feel more invigorated by your new interests and have more to talk about, and your spouse may even want to participate as well.
For more suggestions on having good marital and social relationships in retirement, visit our relationships page.
When Life Throws You Curveballs
As you know, life can throw surprises and roadblocks at you, often totally out of the blue. You may have an illness or injury, experience a natural disaster or a pandemic, or have a sudden change in your financial situation. These are hard to manage at any time; in conjunction with the transition to retirement, they can be particularly jarring. How do you cope?
First, when possible, prepare in advance. Ensure you and your spouse have the necessary estate planning documents in order and know where they are safely stored. Our estate planning page has more information about these documents. Also, make sure both of you know how to manage your financial and other household affairs, in case one of you becomes unavailable.
Second, in the wake of a sudden life change, it’s important to be flexible. Adjust your plans to fit your new situation. If you can’t ride your bike each day like you’d planned, walks in the park or nature trails might work instead. If you can’t travel the world, a road trip around the state is also nice.
Maintain a cash reserve to prepare for unexpected expenses. This way you won’t have to tap into your investments at an inopportune time to take care of a home repair or medical bill. The amount depends on your situation, but many advisors recommend keeping three to six months’ expenses in cash.
Take care of your physical and mental health. These are keys to coping with life’s unexpected changes as well as making the most of your retirement.
You will also want to maintain relationships with relatives and friends. These are people who can help you enjoy your retirement activities and support you when the unexpected happens.