The New Retirement

Today, the New Retirement offers a unique chance to move towards something new, rather than away from something old and out-moded. Retirement should be the beginning of a new life stage which is about letting go, moving on, learning and changing.

The New Retirement is a time of personal change and unimagined growth, which encompasses the internal and intangible depths of our psychological and spiritual convergence. The New Retirement means “living your dream,” as a result of a process called "individuation." This is the process in adulthood of becoming all that you can be, or making the most of who you are as you mature. A new philosophy would call this movement "authenticity" - our truest self, the self beyond ego, the self beyond self-esteem or high self-regard - the real us. Retirement under these conditions becomes that specific time in our lives when we can become our true individual self or authentic self. This is not a process that happens in a life stage that is synonymous with taking a vacation or taking a rest. The New Retirement is an opportunity for us to find out who we really are at our deepest level and, as a consequence, finding a new self-value beyond what we have experienced in life thus far.

This new self-value can find its expression outside the traditions and conventions of the typical Work-Retirement continuum, to embrace new definitions of work and/or volunteering. While many of us would like to retire early, the uncertainty associated with pensions and other financial worries may postpone it. But retirement doesn’t have to mean the end of working as we’ve known it: A different approach to work can play a vital role in our new retirement.

But let’s get back to the New Retirement as a life stage of change and growth rather than a post-working period of rest and relaxation. If the New Retirement is marked by the process of “individuation” and “authenticity,” it is also defined by the nature of our “uniqueness” in adulthood. It is well-known that as we grow older the uniqueness of our personality comes to the foreground. This is certainly true of the New Retirement years where this fact becomes all the more relevant. In the New Retirement, no one will live as you will, nor have the same interests, nor have the same gifts, nor do the same things. Your retirement needs to be as unique as your fingerprint or your self-portrait - your creative experience is as unique to yourself as your self-directedness, your passion, your perseverance, your prerogative. In short, you can damage your very soul or spirit if you live your retirement by someone else’s standards.

The New Retirement© Download

To read more about the New Retirement, its unique characteristics and the 15 factors that can contribute to a successful Retirement, begin by reading: "The New Retirement - Your Mature Career/Life Plannshifting Guide" by Richard P Johnson, Ph.D. The book describes in detail the 15 factors that constitute a successful retirement, whatever that may mean to you. It also provides the guidelines for constructing your retirement mission statement and development plan.