All through my training programmes, personal advisory, talks and now this column on retirement, I posit that after some sixty years on earth, a person about to retire ought to be most prepared for the retirement stage of life. I don’t think there was any earlier stage at which one was as prepared. I mean, with one and half decades of formal schooling, and over three decades at work and/or business building knowledge, skills, assets, and relationships, what more could one ask for? But by the time one is about sixty, they have done some really smart things in life and dumb ones as well, both of which would have taught them certain truisms about life. Earlier than sixty, one or another of those assets might be missing.
As a parent about to retire, you have definitely been telling your children what would help them and what may hurt them, almost with some aura of uncertainty. And it is not arrogance. It is because you have seen what works and what doesn’t and appreciate the cause-effect certainty in life. The point I am just trying to make is that you are ‘technically’ really prepared to live retirement life. The only stumbling block is you – Are you willing to do what is right and wise to create a desired situation or if you find yourself in any undesired situation? If, you don’t even know what to do specifically in a given situation, are you willing to search, and ask the right people to understand what best you may need to do and do it well? No matter, retirement is another excellent stage in life to practice everything right and well you have known, learnt, seen, and done. They include the following:
Drop your employee mindset at your send-off party! Typical employee mindset in our environment can hurt the individual when they retire. As employees, particularly, when persons are middle-level and senior, they get a lot of benefits many of which are taken for granted. Even when they are not taken for granted, employee benefits and privileges have a way of ‘spoiling’ employees and making them believe that that is how life is and how it should be lived. But your employer can afford many things, which you may take for granted, but which you may or may not be able to afford on your own.
It will help you to identify all those privileges and benefits that your employer offers/offered you and ensure that while you enjoy(ed) them, you don’t let them get into your head. Absolutely necessary is that you should drop those you can’t afford at the venue where your colleagues sent you off before you drive back home on your last day at work. Struggling to live the life that your employer provided you but which you cannot afford will spell nothing but likely future doom. I mean, please enjoy your life as much as you can but be sure that you can afford and sustain it responsibly.
Don’t follow the crowd: I think it is okay to copy good things from others as long as they are right and we can do them well. But many of us tend to want to copy what others are doing irrespective of any misfit between us as individuals and whatever it is that we want to copy from others. We see this in our environment in business. The moment some friend goes into oil or rice milling, then everyone around them wants to go into oil or rice milling without much regard to individual capacities, interests, knowledge, etc.
Unfortunately, we see this even with otherwise smart and successful people who are planning to go into retirement. They end up planning to do what their friends or other members of their generation plan to do. Please, get it right, there is nothing wrong with us aspiring and planning to do what legitimate things others are doing. It can, however, be wrong if you are not truly and deeply interested and committed to it. We also need to study it hard and understand it very well before jumping into it. The point is, search yourself. Do what you will be very happy doing; Do what you can learn (or know very well). Don’t just follow the crowd!
Live or create your own identity: Closely linked to the above is the need to live or create an identity that has meaning to you. If you listen well enough to yourself, you will find what resonates with you. A simple way to find what has deep roots in you is to ask yourself questions like, ‘What would you want to be remembered for?’ ‘What would you want to have written by others on your tombstone?’ ‘What would you gladly and passionately do without pay?’ ‘What would you want younger people who interacted with you to tell your children about you when they meet at a time when your children are working or want to go into business with them?’
Creating our identity starts before we retire with everything we say and do with others. We may make mistakes in creating our identities in the past, but we can, thankfully, always make amends. In retirement, we must extend our good identities and correct any not-so-good that we may have. At this stage, we have no one to impress and everyone to teach a thing or two about life. Our children, the children in the neighbourhood, young colleagues and employees can all benefit from our right ways in ways we may not even realise.
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