People who have loved their work and built much of their identity around it can face an unexpected struggle when their working lives come to an end. They may discover that, without the work that defined them, they no longer recognize themselves.
The identities by which they knew themselves have evaporated, and they face what feels like a void. After a life of striving and accomplishing great things, it’s common for them to feel they’ve somehow been diminished. There’s not a shred of truth in that, but it can feel as real as anything they’ve ever experienced. Wasn’t retirement supposed to be a time of carefree fun and relaxation? When you feel like less than you once were, relaxation and fun lose their glow.
A Place You’ve Never Been Before
This is a place in your life you’ve never been before. The activities you used to enjoy when taking a vacation from your working life can no longer deliver the satisfaction they once did. Back then, they were a break from your usual workload. You always knew you were going back to work, so your identity was never challenged. Once you stopped working, things were different.
When there’s no work to go back to, there’s nowhere to hide. “I don’t even know who I am anymore” is something I often hear from clients who have recently retired. Believe it or not, part of the problem may be that they’ve spent so much time identifying with what they do that they’ve never had much reason to explore who they are apart from it.
Why Success Can Leave an Identity Gap
Busy, successful people often miss this. The more identified you are with your work, the less likely you are to have explored your identity beyond it. These people generally haven’t spent much of their lives looking inward, largely because that’s an activity that can’t be measured in terms of accomplishment. It can seem like a complete waste of time. This is the time bomb of success.
Finding things to do may fill your time, but it can’t fill your identity gap, no matter how fulfilling those activities might be. When the time-filling activities end for the day, there’s still that hollow feeling: “But just who AM I now?”
Discovering Who You Really Are
In this chapter of your life, your sense of yourself can either expand or contract. Retirement can become a time when you feel increasingly disconnected from the person you once knew yourself to be. Or it can become the most rewarding chapter of your life.
The difference may have very little to do with what you do with your time. It may have everything to do with what you discover about yourself.
You don’t have to construct a new identity to replace the one you’ve lost. You may simply need to discover who you really are, apart from everything you’ve spent your life doing.
If you’re approaching retirement, or have recently retired, and recognize some of what I’ve described here, I’d be happy to talk.
I work with people navigating this transition, helping them discover a different relationship with themselves and with life beyond their professional identities.
You don’t have to figure this out on your own. Feel free to send me a private message here.
Related Reading
If this resonates with you, you may also enjoy The Identity Shift of Retirement, where I look at why retirement can feel so unsettling, even after years of looking forward to it.
