What do you do with yourself now?
By Elaine Schiff

You’ve got your finances in place. Bought your retirement home in a perfect location with a water view. The kids are grown, settled and taking care of themselves. So, now what are you going to do with yourself for the rest of your life?

It’s not an easy question. Most people spend more time planning a vacation than planning what they’ll do during retirement. That’s a recipe for disaster, since a typical boomer can expect to spend a good 25 years in retirement.

The better approach is to treat retirement like a career change. Consider life post-retirement: No more morning commutes to the office. No more water-cooler chitchat. No staff to take dictation or fetch coffee. No colleagues. No clients. No fancy titles. And no daily adrenaline rush.

You see, money is only half the equation for making sure your golden years are happy ones. To borrow a phrase, we need a purpose-driven retirement. Think about your career. Even if at times you have detested your job, it has given you a great many benefits beyond money — such as structure in your daily life, the opportunity to garner praise or win new friends. In sum, work gives us purpose.

A whole new world
Work also limits the amount of time you spend with your spouse each day. But once you’re retired, your marriage becomes a whole new world. Sharing your entire day with your spouse raises the risk of a lot more conflict. Who will run the household? Who will do the shopping? Handle the money? Do the gardening? Which set of friends do you want to make plans with? The issues are endless.

Finally, there’s the question of what you want to accomplish during your retirement. Some people think of it as a very long vacation. But for most of us, that concept just won’t work. You need something to do. Every day. Golf, shuffleboard or passing the afternoon in a rocking chair probably won’t cut it.

Once you give up your career, you can expect a mourning process. People don’t talk about it, but once they stop working, they start searching for some meaning and direction.

Ask yourself: What are my passions? You may have forgotten them over the years or kept them buried (after all, many people give up on their passions early in their careers once the realities of money and family settle in).

A good idea, say some experts, is to write down: 1) what achievements in your life you are most proud of, and 2) what you would do if you inherited enough to never again have to worry about money.

Maybe you want to hike all 2,174 miles of the Appalachian Trail (if you are, check out Bill Bryson’s classic book, “A Walk in the Woods”). Or you want to take up pottery, or bird watching, or volunteer work at the local soup kitchen. Perhaps you can’t bring yourself to give up work entirely and decide to provide a select group of clients your vast experience on a part-time basis. The key: Be as specific as possible as to what activities will fulfill you — as well as what activities you will be able to afford on a retiree’s income.

For these reasons there is a relatively new market for advisory services in non-financial retirement planning. Coaches and advisors are now available in person and online to help you map out the next phase of your life.

One web-based service that has received generally positive reviews is called My Next Phase. For a fee, My Next Phase will provide you with online tools or even a personal coach to help you identify the types of activities that will make you happiest in retirement. Other online providers include Turning Points Navigatorand Retirement Success Profile.

But before you spend any money on these fairly extensive programs, check out the free Retirement Strengths Worksheet. This site provides a worksheet and questionnaire at no charge that will help you plot out your true interests and types of activities that will make your retirement rewarding.

Finding a purpose
Here’s an example of what these services will help you figure out: Suppose you are obsessed with golf. However, if you play 18 holes every day, life might get a bit boring, even pointless.

But if you got involved in coaching a local kids’ golf team, you’ll probably enjoy playing golf even more and, as a bonus, feel like you have a purpose in the world again. That kind of activity will give you a reason to get up in the morning. And it will leave you feeling that you’ve done something both important and fulfilling. The alternative is a retirement that leaves you feeling aimless and without a role in the world.

The choice, it appears to us, is clear.