Over the years, I’ve coached a number of clients as they approached retirement. In almost every case there’s a period when the person about to retire freaks out a bit. Isn’t it ironic that there’s so much anxiety around retirement, a time of life we’ve been taught to look forward to?
I’ve become convinced the primary reason for this freak-out has to do with just how much our identities (who we believe we are, and who we’d like others to believe we are) are shaped by what we do. For a majority of us, our sense of worthiness is inextricably tied to our profession.
This sense of identity is essentially a time bomb. It seems to be adequate while we’re working. When we stop working, our “identity” is revealed to be shallow and rootless. The person retiring experiences a world where everything is changing too fast, and there’s nothing familiar to make them feel everything’s OK. It’s almost as if the directions of the compass had shifted, and what had been north is now southeast.
So what do retirees do? Often they make a mad rush to do too much or too little, as though the important question were simply, “what’s going to fill my day?” But filling your day will not give you a sense of identity. It’s a great example of people asking the wrong question, and expecting to get the answer they’re looking for.
A New Way to See Retirement
Retirement is not about losing who you thought you were. It’s an opportunity to find who you really are. The only way to take advantage of that is to look at some of the areas of your life you’ve likely been avoiding your whole life. Don’t be worried or deflated if you see yourself in this. The most dependable way I know of to figure out who you really are has nothing to do with rifling through your personal psychology in an attempt to cobble together some sort of emergency identity.
The reason that won’t work is simple — your thinking mind is at the service of your ego, and one of the ego’s jobs is to keep you from recognizing your true identity.
At this point in your life, doesn’t it make sense that the emerging you is much more interesting than the historical you? Not going to work everyday doesn’t mean something’s wrong. It means you’re in a new chapter of your life and you get to make it all up.
Realizing who you really are can sound frightening. But that realization promises to give you something you may have been looking for your whole life: peace, freedom, and a sense of complete well-being, something that an identity based on your profession can never give you.
If you like this article, you my like Identity After Retirement: More Than What You Did
If this brings something up for you, feel free to book a free exploratory conversation today.
