Preparing for retirement, finding your identity beyond work and bringing energy, connection, purpose and vision together to shape this stage of life.
Sometimes the question just comes to you. You might be making a cup of tea, looking at the week ahead or returning home from a holiday you had been looking forward to. Nothing is obviously wrong. Your life may be comfortable. You may have activities, people to see and plenty for which to be grateful. […]
A few months into retirement, I remember sitting with my morning coffee and wondering what I was supposed to do with the rest of the day. There was nothing particularly wrong. In fact, this was exactly the freedom I had worked towards. There were no early meetings, no urgent emails and nobody waiting for me
A few months into my retirement, I had a moment I wasn’t expecting. I was sitting at the kitchen table on a Tuesday morning. No calendar pulling at me, no inbox tightening my chest. Just three empty hours and a cup of coffee I’d forgotten to drink. And what I felt wasn’t the freedom I’d
There is a particular kind of silence that arrives when the noise of a busy life finally stops. At first, we may welcome it. No meetings. No deadlines. No one asking us to solve another problem before lunch. But once the relief wears off, the silence can become surprisingly uncomfortable. This is something I discovered
The first weeks can feel like a holiday. The deeper transition begins when the old structure disappears and retirement starts asking you to build a new sense of identity. I remember how strange Monday mornings felt when I first stopped working. For years, Monday had arrived carrying instructions. Get up. Get dressed. Check the time.
The people I’ve watched rebuild their lives in their late fifties don’t describe it as winning anything — they describe it as finally listening to a voice they spent thirty years pretending they couldn’t hear.
When I first started thinking deeply about retirement, I imagined the big questions would be practical ones. How much money is enough? Where will I live? What will I do with my time? How will I stay healthy? And of course, those questions matter. They matter a great deal. But over time, both through my own
I remember the morning after my last day of a long career in education. I woke up, made coffee, sat down at the kitchen table — and had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. For forty years, I’d known exactly who I was. I was the person who led teams, solved problems, coached
Why the first year of retirement is the hardest (and what nobody tells you) Read More »
The people who flourish in retirement share a quiet weekly habit that keeps them engaged with life — and it has nothing to do with staying busy.
