Retirement and Tips to Help You Prepare

Making the transition from working life to retirement can be difficult. Many retirees say it’s more complicated than they expected. Some things will make transitioning smoother and easier to adjust to. Some things can be more difficult than expected. The key is to know what potential problems could arise so that you can be prepared for them and even avoid them if possible.

Why is Retirement so Stressful?

We spend years imagining what our ideal retirement would be like, whether that means traveling, spending time with loved ones, taking up new hobbies, or simply being able to relax. Although we typically spend a lot of time thinking about the financial side of retirement, we often forget about the psychological effects of retiring from work.

At first, it can seem great to get away from your daily routine, a long commute, workplace politics, or a difficult boss. However, many new retirees find that they start to get bored after a few months of being on “permanent vacation.” If you lose your job, you may miss having a sense of identity, feeling like you have a purpose, or the social interaction with co-workers.

Instead of finding liberation in your new circumstances, you feel trapped and unhappy. You may feel sad about losing your old life, stressed about how to fill your days, or worried about the effect that staying home all day is having on your relationship with your spouse or partner.

What Factors Affect our Ability to Adapt to Retirement?

Theories that aim to explain our ability to adapt to retirement are based on different factors. The following are easy-to-understand summaries of these theories.

Role Theory: Disruption in our current roles in society impacts our well-being in retirement.

Role Theory suggests that a person’s identity is determined by the various roles they play throughout their life.

How we react and adapt to the potential changes that retirement brings defines how well we will adapt to retirement as a whole.

Retirement can have a big impact on our well-being, depending on how it affects our roles in society and how well we adapt to changes in those roles.

Continuity Theory: Maintaining non-work-related roles and relations are crucial.

Although Continuity Theory is over 50 years old, it seems to be still relevant in today’s rapidly changing society. This theory posits that the disruption to an individual’s roles after retirement is not as important to our well-being during retirement as the Role Theory suggests.

The study suggests that our self-identity doesn’t just come from our job, and that other aspects of our life are just as important for a successful retirement.

This theory suggests that our social relationships and other aspects of our lives, such as the roles we have in our families or among our friends, have a stronger influence on our lives after retirement than our jobs do.

Life Course Theory: Our personal history determines how well we’ll adjust.

This theory suggests that people will adapt to retirement based on their life trajectory up to that point. This more complex theory is based on the fact that people and their lives are complex.

In other words, this theory suggests that we view retirement as a part of a person’s overall journey through life, rather than as a distinct phase. The way we adjust to retirement is affected by events that happened throughout our lives that were related to our work, family, and social network, instead of just our work roles.

Here are some tips to help you transition into this new chapter of your life, reduce stress and anxiety, and find new meaning and purpose.

Some of the conclusions that arise from this theory are:

Men with unstable careers or who experienced long periods of unemployment tend to suffer from more psychological stress and depression during retirement.
Women, in general, have a more discontinuous job history because of maternity and other factors, which sometimes hinder their ability to climb up the corporate ladder and access better pension plans. This ultimately affects how well they adapt financially to retirement.
The discontinuity in many women’s work lives and their frequent transitions between different roles sometimes makes them better than men at adjusting to the role changes implied in retirement.

Find New Purpose and Meaning

Working provides many of us with more than just an income; it also gives our lives purpose and meaning. The job can make you feel good by making you feel needed, productive, and useful. It can also provide goals to strive for, or simply give you a reason to get out of the house every day. Having a purpose in life helps keep your brain and immune system healthy.

After you retire, it’s important to find things to do that make you happy and give your life more meaning. It can be helpful if you have something to retire to, not just from. Whether that’s a hobby, volunteering, or learning.

Retirement may not have to be all-or-nothing. Many people find that it can help to gradually transition into full-time retirement rather than jump right in. If your job allows, you could take a sabbatical or extended vacation to recharge your batteries and see how you deal with the slower pace of life. You can also use the time to gauge how well you can live on the budget you’ve allocated for retirement.
Find part-time work after retirement. Another way to make retirement more of a gradual transition is to incrementally reduce the hours you work in your existing job, switch to a part-time job, or work for yourself in some capacity. As well as providing purpose, part-time employment can also supplement your income, keep you socially engaged, and ease the adjustment to retirement without you having to endure the demands of full-time work.
Volunteer. Donating your time and effort to a cause that’s important to you can add meaning and a sense of accomplishment to your retirement life, as well as benefit your community. Volunteering can help expand your social network, boost your self-worth, and improve your health. It can also be a great opportunity to pass on some of the skills you’ve learned during your professional life—or learn new skills, keeping your brain active as you age.

Build Sources of Passive Income

Some people retire because they want to stop working. This is perfectly understandable. However, you will no longer have a steady paycheck coming in every month. If this were to happen, financial stability would become an issue, especially if you did not save enough money for retirement.

If you want to secure your finances in retirement, one solution is to start generating passive income streams before you retire. That way, by the time you retire, those sources will cover most, if not all, of your costs for the rest of your life.

There are dozens of options for generating passive income. There are many ways to make extra money, such as investing, blogging, renting out your home or extra bedrooms, renting out your car, etc. You can make as much money as you want.

Embrace Change

Although change is an inevitable part of life, it is rarely easy to cope with. The older we get, the faster life seems to move. You might experience some negative things as you get older, such as losing friends and loved ones, having physical and health challenges, and having to retire. It’s normal to feel a range of emotions when your life changes. These emotions might seem contradictory, but they’re all valid.

It is possible to transition from working to retirement.

Adjust your attitude. Think of retirement as a journey rather than a destination. Allow yourself time to figure everything out—you can always change direction if necessary. You can also adjust your attitude by focusing on what you’re gaining, rather than the things you’re losing.
Build resilience. The more resilient you are, the better you’re able to cope with challenges like retirement. You can improve the qualities of resiliency at any age to help you keep a healthy perspective when life is at its toughest.
Acknowledge your emotions. There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to respond when dealing with a major life change, so don’t try to bully yourself into feeling a certain way about retirement. Whether you feel angry, sad, anxious, grief-stricken, or a mix of emotions, by acknowledging and accepting what you’re feeling, you’ll find that even the most intense or unpleasant emotions will soon pass. Talk to a close friend about what you’re going through, record your feelings in a journal, or use HelpGuide’s Emotional Intelligence Toolkit to better cope with your emotions.
Accept the things that you can’t change. Railing against events that you have no control over can be as exhausting as it is futile. Whatever the circumstances of your retirement, by accepting them you can refocus your energy to the things that you do have control over, such as the way you choose to react to obstacles. Look back at examples where you’ve coped with changes in the past to remind yourself that you’ll be able to manage this change as well.
Redefine your identity. Many of us define ourselves by what we do for a living. After retirement, you can find new ways of defining yourself through non-work-related activities and relationships. Where you were once an accountant, for example, you’re now a mentor, volunteer, grandparent, student, memoirist, or artist.
Set new goals. You may have already achieved many of your professional goals in life, but it’s important to keep setting yourself new ones to strive towards. Having goals can energize you, provide a sense of purpose, and help to redefine your identity. Set goals that challenge and excite you and keep you moving forward in life. Many retirees find that now they’re no longer the family provider, they can focus more on their own hopes and dreams.

Manage Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Retiring from your job doesn’t mean that your life will be void of stress and anxiety. While stress at work can have serious consequences for your health, especially if you are unhappy with your job, damaging stressors can also follow you into retirement.

You may worry about managing financially on a fixed income, coping with declining health, or adapting to a different relationship with your spouse now that you’re retired. When you lose your identity, routine, and goals, it can negatively affect your self-esteem, leave you feeling directionless, or even cause depression.

No matter what difficulties you are experiencing, there are positive methods for handling stress and anxiety, adapting to change, and improving your mood, outlook, and general welfare.

Adopt a relaxation practice. Regularly practicing a relaxation technique such as meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, yoga, or tai chi can help ease anxiety and stress, lower your blood pressure, and improve your overall sense of well-being.
Get active. Physical exercise is a very effective way to boost your mood, relieve tension and stress, and help you feel more relaxed and positive as you get older. No matter your age or limitations in mobility, there are still ways for you to reap the benefits of regular exercise. Aim for 30 minutes of activity on most days.
Practice gratitude. It can sound simplistic when you’re in the midst of a major life change, but noting the things you’re grateful for is a quick and easy way to improve your mood and outlook. Take a moment to appreciate the small things in life, whether it’s a phone call from a friend, a moving piece of music, or the feeling of the sun on your face, for example.
Spend time in nature. Spending time in green spaces can relieve stress, put a smile on your face, and deepen your sense of well-being. Try hiking, fishing, camping, or walking in a park, along a beach, or through woods.
Break the worry habit. Chronic worrying is a mental habit that you can learn how to break. By challenging your anxious thoughts and learning to accept uncertainty in life, you can calm your anxious mind, look at life in a more balanced way, and reduce the time you spend worrying.

The Bottom Line

We should not look at retirement as an event that occurs in isolation. You should not see it as a separate entity, but as part of our development as human beings. We need to be aware of it throughout our lives, not just at the end.

Everything from the career choices we make early on and the roles we play in society and in our families can impact our golden years in different ways, just as much as our choices on what we eat when we’re young affect our health later down the line.

Retirement is not only about avoiding being old and broke. Many will spend 20-30 years in retirement. Your quality of life during your retirement years will, in large part, depend on how well you’ve prepared physically, mentally, and emotionally preparing for your transition into retirement.