We spend decades learning how to work—but retirement asks us to unlearn a few things too

Jeanette Brown

November 3, 2026
5 min read

You sit down with a cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon. There’s nothing particularly urgent to do. You could read a few chapters, go for a walk or simply stay where you are.

And yet, somewhere in the back of your mind, a question appears: shouldn’t I be doing something useful?

I suspect many of us recognise that feeling. We can leave our jobs, hand over our responsibilities and clear the calendar, then discover that some of the expectations we lived by have come home with us.

After decades of work, that’s hardly surprising. We’ve spent years learning how to meet deadlines, solve problems and make ourselves useful. Those habits don’t disappear because we’ve stopped receiving a salary.

I love the idea of “learn, unlearn and relearn”, associated with Alvin Toffler’s writing about education and change. Those three words particularly interest me when I think about retirement.

We tend to talk about what we might learn when work ends. I’ve come to think that what we’re willing to unlearn deserves some attention too.

Learning has always been one of my values

Being open to learning is one of my personal values. Curiosity matters to me. I want to keep asking questions, exploring ideas and being willing to reconsider what I think I know.

That was part of my working life throughout more than 40 years in education, and it continues through my writing, creating courses and making YouTube videos. There’s certainly no shortage of things to learn when you start working with technology that seems to acquire a new feature every time you look away.

But retirement has also given lifelong learning a different meaning for me.

For much of our working lives, learning has a fairly clear purpose. We need to do our job better, understand a change or prepare for another role. Even when we enjoy it, there’s often an outcome attached.

In retirement, we have more room to follow an interest without knowing where it will lead. We can read about something because it fascinates us. We can try an activity without needing to turn it into an achievement.

And we can become curious about ourselves. What matters to me now? Which parts of my former life do I miss? Which expectations am I following simply because I’ve never thought to question them?

A worthwhile day doesn’t always come with something to show for it

One belief that deserves a closer look is the idea that a good day is a productive day.

At work, there are usually visible signs that we’ve contributed. A problem gets resolved. A project moves forward. Someone thanks us for our help. Retirement can remove many of those markers, leaving us wondering how to assess a day that has been pleasant but produced very little.

Perhaps we walked with a friend, spent time in the garden or read something that made us think. We enjoyed ourselves. Then someone asks what we’ve been doing and we hear ourselves say, “Oh, not much.”

It’s an interesting answer, isn’t it? How easily we can dismiss a day we actually liked.

I still enjoy accomplishing things. Writing an article or finishing a video gives me satisfaction. But I don’t want achievement to be the only way I recognise that my time has been well spent.

There’s a difference between enjoying a sense of progress and needing proof that we’ve justified our existence before dinner.

Being needed is only one way to feel that we matter

Another adjustment can come when fewer people need our decisions, knowledge or help.

After years in a responsible role, being needed can become so familiar that we barely notice how much it contributes to our sense of ourselves. Then the requests stop, and the freedom we wanted may arrive with an unexpected feeling of being less important.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to contribute. I think it’s deeply human. The question is whether we can recognise contribution when it takes a different form.

A thoughtful conversation, a regular visit or sharing something we know may matter a great deal, even though there’s no formal role attached. And relationships can be valuable simply because we enjoy each other, without either person having a problem to solve.

This is also where rest comes into the picture. If we’re accustomed to being useful, we may feel uncomfortable taking time for ourselves. We keep adding little jobs before allowing ourselves to sit down.

The trouble is that there’s usually another little job. At some point, we may need to ask who is setting the conditions for that cup of tea.

We can carry our values forward without keeping every old expectation

Unlearning sounds rather drastic. It can suggest that we need to discard everything we’ve been and start again.

I don’t see it that way. Our experience still matters. So do the values that guided us through earlier stages of life. What may need to change is how we express them.

My commitment to learning hasn’t disappeared because I’ve retired from education leadership. It now finds expression in different work and interests. Someone who loved bringing people together might find satisfaction in organising a small gathering. A person who enjoyed solving practical problems might discover a new outlet in a community project.

A 2023 study of 170 Australians transitioning into retirement offers a useful perspective. Researchers found that maintaining some existing group memberships and gaining new ones were linked with better retirement outcomes, including wellbeing and life satisfaction.

The study examined social connections, rather than unlearning beliefs. What it brings to mind for me is that we can find room for both continuity and change. We don’t have to choose between holding on to everything and becoming an entirely different person.

Curiosity helps when we’re a beginner again

Of course, exploring something unfamiliar can feel uncomfortable after decades of knowing what we’re doing.

We might like the idea of learning a language or trying a creative activity, then find ourselves impatient with the awkward early stages. We’re used to being competent. Suddenly, we need someone to explain the same thing twice.

Curiosity can help us stay interested long enough to move beyond that discomfort. What happens if I try this? What haven’t I understood yet? Do I enjoy it enough to keep going?

There’s research behind the value of sustained learning in later life. In the Synapse Project, published in 2014, older adults spent around three months learning demanding skills such as digital photography and quilting. Those in the demanding learning conditions showed improvements in episodic memory—the ability to remember events and experiences—compared with groups doing less demanding activities.

Participants devoted substantial time to learning, averaging about 16 hours a week. It wasn’t a test of occasionally trying a new hobby, and it doesn’t mean every activity will produce the same benefit. But it offers an encouraging example of older adults benefiting from sustained learning.

For me, enjoyment and interest are already good reasons to begin. We don’t need every new pursuit to come with a promise about our brains.

The four ingredients give us something to be curious about

The four ingredients I write about—energy, connection, purpose and vision—offer a way to explore these questions in everyday retirement life.

With energy, we can notice what leaves us feeling well and what pace suits us now, rather than assuming we should maintain the rhythm of our working years.

With connection, we can consider where we feel comfortable and involved, and which relationships we want to give more attention to.

With purpose, we can explore what feels worth doing without expecting it to resemble a career.

And with vision, we can stay open to possibilities without insisting on knowing exactly how the next ten years will unfold.

Our answers may change. An activity that once suited us may lose its appeal. Something we dismissed a few years ago may become interesting. Remaining curious gives us room to notice.

If you’re curious about how these four ingredients are showing up in your own retirement, my free Retirement Thrive Score quiz offers a starting point. It takes about two minutes and gives you a personalised reflection on your energy, connection, purpose and vision. You might recognise something you’d like to give more attention to—or discover a possibility you hadn’t considered.

Perhaps the learning becomes more personal

I still want to learn new things. I hope that interest stays with me for a long time.

But I’m also interested in recognising when an old assumption is making life unnecessarily difficult. The belief that I should always be useful. The temptation to measure a day by how much I’ve achieved. The expectation that I ought to know what I’m doing before I begin.

Retirement gives us an opportunity to look at these things with a little more time and perspective. We can appreciate what helped us in the past while asking what suits the life we’re living now.

Perhaps that’s a question worth sitting with over that afternoon cup of tea: what am I still carrying from my working life that I no longer need—and what might there be room for if I put it down?

A fulfilling retirement needs both pleasure and purpose, something my former colleague discovered after 18 months of travel

31st Oct
Jeanette Brown

Psychology says people who reach retirement without a clear sense of purpose aren’t lazy or lost, they were often the ones who defined themselves entirely by their usefulness to others and forgot to want things for themselves

29th Jul
Jeanette Brown

People who thrive in retirement aren’t the ones who planned the most holidays — they’re the ones who found something that needed them

9th Jul
Jeanette Brown

The most grounded people in their 60s and 70s aren’t the ones who stayed busy, they’re the ones who let themselves be uncomfortable long enough to figure out what their life was actually for

16th Jun
Jeanette Brown

There’s a version of retirement nobody talks about — the one where everything is fine, but something still feels missing

9th May
Jeanette Brown

If retirement feels like standing in an empty room after a lifetime of crowded hallways, the solution isn’t to fill it with noise — it’s to learn what your own voice sounds like

1st Apr
Jeanette Brown

Trending around the web

Retirement can give us the time to travel more slowly—what a longer stay may offer beyond a packed itinerary

Jeanette Brown

A smile returned can be enough: in a study on a busy university walkway, passers-by who got even brief eye contact from a stranger felt less disconnected than those who were looked straight through

Jeanette Brown