While financial planners help hundreds, if not thousands, of people retire throughout their career, they don’t get the personal experience of retiring themselves until the very end of their career. While they may lack personal experience in this regard, it doesn’t mean they don’t understand their clients and where they’re coming from. The hours spent planning for their client’s retirement, and listening to their goals, hopes and wishes give financial planners an insight into retirement that the general public doesn’t have.

Watching all of these people retire successfully, and then hearing their advice about how to have a happy and fulfilled retirement, provides financial planners with a wide range of opinions and knowledge around the most common themes in retirement planning. One of the most common themes, ultimately is surrounding your job, because during retirement, you’re ending the working period of your life.

You’re Not Your Job

For many retiring, they need to hear this piece of advice – you’re not your job. While it may feel like you’ve spent your whole life devoted to your career (because you likely have spent many of your waking hours for the past 40 years or more at your job), your sole purpose in life is not to work. You may have so deeply ingrained your identity to your profession, career or job, that you don’t know what to do when you’re not working anymore.

For anyone that feels like this, separating yourself from your job in retirement can be a dicey process. Who are you when you’re not “work” you? If you don’t have your career, how do you define yourself? It goes beyond just how you spend your free time now, but more deeply into who you really are when you aren’t associated with your career. This can be especially tricky for anyone that has built a business or is an entrepreneur. Our society in general often puts so much value on your production and contributions that it can be difficult to step back, and place your own value on yourself just for who you are as a person.

If you’re someone that is still planning on working in some capacity during your retirement, either as a consultant or by starting something new, it’s important to keep work out of your identity if possible. Your job does not need to define who you are, and your retirement may be the perfect time for you to focus on what you enjoy and want to spend your time doing outside of work. You may choose to spend your time with a charity, or with your family or friends. It may be a good time to explore new hobbies or work on your fitness. Or you might want to pick up all of the books you’ve been meaning to get to but haven’t had a chance to yet.

Whatever you choose to do in retirement, spend the time in a way that makes you more fulfilled and brings you joy. Life is short and very few people wish they had spent more of it working.

 See the article here. 

By Andrew Rosen, Contributor at Forbes

Published February 1, 2024