The golden years – Activities in retirement (I)

Over the last four weeks, we have tried to bring out the importance of having a routine and the principles of building healthy and productive routines that meet our realities and aspirations in retirement. In the process, we discussed some activities that could fit into a retirement routine. Today, we will take up a few more possible activities that a retiree could engage in to help achieve the multiple objectives of purpose, meaning, taking care of health, and living a happy and productive life while keeping a keen eye on finances.

There are many theories which suggest that human beings thrive, or fail to thrive substantially on the basis of what they do or fail to do. Perhaps, that is partly why when we retire from our careers and a large chunk of the activities that we have spent significant parts of our lives are taken away, we may feel empty, even lost. To fill up the void and keep on track, we have to find and do what works, gives meaning, and makes us productive, connected with others and happy.

My late maternal grandfather was born in the 1920s. He was educated in the Islamic sciences, going through both the traditional schooling system of his time in Northern Nigeria and the modern one that was just introduced in Northern Nigeria in their youth. He capped everything with a degree from Al Azhar University in Egypt and became an expert in the Sharia of Inheritance. Before his degree, he taught in a teacher training college in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After his degree, he taught briefly before he was appointed as a Sharia Judge. While serving as a judge, my grandfather taught other judges and students of knowledge gratis in a makeshift ‘classroom’ at his home on selected afternoons and evenings every week. He spent most of his career as a judge before resigning voluntarily to take up teaching again in a school on a paid basis while his home/free classes also continued. When he reached statutory retirement age, he was offered to continue teaching on a contract basis at the school. My grandfather, the ‘born teacher’ he was, was happy with that. It earned him legitimate income and he was as active as he reckoned he needed to be. Unfortunately, another administration revoked all contract appointments. However, my grandfather was not ready to be ‘idle’, so he offered the school a free teaching service!

Self-Determination Theory, SDT: Before we can come up with activities and succeed at them, we need to have the right motivations. SDT is a general theory of human motivation that was developed by Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci in 2000, and it defines motivation as the psychological energy that is directed at a particular goal. Now while many theories of human behaviour account for the direction of behaviour, most fail to account for how the behaviour is energized. The SDT attempts to distinguish between the extent to which our behaviours originate from the self (relatively autonomous) versus to which extent our behaviours are pressured (relatively controlled).

But we are complex creatures that are hardly driven by only one type of motivation. Our different goals, desires and ideas in different situations and over time can shape and be shaped by different motivations. Consequently, it helps to think of a continuum of motivation ranging from the non-self-determined to the self-determined. At one end is amotivation (in which an individual is completely non-autonomous) to ‘external regulation’, followed by ‘introjected regulation’, ‘identified regulation’, ‘integrated regulation’ and ‘intrinsic regulation’ (in which the individual is self-motivated and self-determined) at the other end.

The highly self-determined person has a number of qualities such as:

• The belief that they can have control over their lives (i.e. they have an internal locus of control)
• The feeling that their behaviours will have an influence on outcomes
• High levels of self-motivation, meaning that they don’t rely on external rewards or punishments to motivate them into taking actions
• They base their actions on their own goals
• They take responsibility for their behaviours and their consequences

At all points in our lives, we need to have the right levels of self-determination for what we want to do. This can be achieved by improving our self-awareness, engaging in self-regulation, finding social support, and gaining mastery in areas that are important to us. Furthermore, to help others or indeed ourselves, we need to create an ecology that supports the person, or ourselves, to develop their own or our own self-determination. Creating this ecology involves intentionally building the conditions that will encourage others or ourselves to find their or our inner motivations. The SDT posits that human beings have three basic needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness for optimal functioning. When there is support for these needs, individuals will be intrinsically motivated to undertake tasks for their own sake because they are enjoyable, interesting and rewarding.

From the perspective of the retiree, autonomy, competence and relatedness should be sought after by engaging in interesting activities for which the person is competent (or can develop the competency), that create value (for the retiree and others), are rewarding, enjoyable and which connect us with others. Thankfully, as I always argue, people approaching retirement tend to be highly competent having spent years in their businesses and careers, attending trainings and handling issues. Where hitherto unfamiliar activities are to be pursued, their learning curve is likely to be steep.

We will take up a few of the possible activities that a retiree could consider engaging in.