Here are a couple of final observations I have about ‘the retirement conversation’.  First, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no way to adequately prepare for the end of a life-long career, whether you plan a perpetual weekend for yourself or are creating a new type of work.  You have to be done with what you have been doing for a while before a new possible future begins to present itself.

Second, don’t expect that any life issues you’ve struggled with all these years is suddenly going to disappear when you leave your job.

That being said, I hope that you discover a bright and vital for yourself.  Perhaps you’ll join me in PortugalSelf discovery retreats and partake in one of my when the time is right for you! Details are available at http://www.ouicoach.com/rts.htm.

If you don’t want to read through the archives and explore my conversations about The Top 10 Retirement Myths, drop me an e-mail at gwen@ouicoach.com and I’ll be happy to send you a .pdf.

It has been ages since I’ve posted. The good news is that I got very focused on a number of initiatives and the ‘retirement’ conversation started to feel stale. So I moved on to other things for a while, and now I feel a sense of renewal about the topic.

In the past 24 hours I’ve had two very interesting conversations about this period of our lives. One was with a funeral director about the importance of pre-planning our funeral. Definitely a topic that many people avoid like the plague. He made an interesting point: talking about planning your funeral doesn’t mean you are inviting death. Yet many people treat it as if it did. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the planning process and I’ll definitely be exploring that more in future postings.

My second interesting conversation was with a woman who provides non-medical services to those who want to remain in their homes as they age. She talked about a recent study that shows people are more prepared to plan for their funeral than they plan strategies for remaining out of long-term care facilities! So I definitely think that’s a conversation that is very worthy of having.

It might seem strange that both of those topics belong on a blog about retirement. But the reality is that for many people who don’t create a meaningful life for themselves when they leave paid employment, their health starts to fade at an alarming rate …and death moves onto the horizon very quickly.

Scary, eh? I hope you find it so because it may very well become your life experience if you don’t wake up and pay attention to the quality of your life!

I could go on and on about my experience in this retirement haven of Europe.  But suffice it to say that my time away certainly has profoundly impacted my vision of what I want for my future.  I actually started to get fit while I was away.  I had never noticed before how strong a link there is for me between ‘the right conditions’ and getting my body in motion.  The Algarve is hilly so you are seldom walking on flat ground.  Even a casual stroll adds an element of cardio workout to it because you are constantly moving up or down, often in very long, slow grades that don’t seem like a lot of effort but that let you know after 15 or 20 minutes that you’ve been getting a little extra workout.  The dry, warm weather and cool breezes proved to be another big incentive for me.  Ottawa tends to get very hot and humid in summer which I find as much a disincentive to outdoor exercise as are our cold, damp winters.

Being in Portugal to lead retreats was also a wonderful experience.  I went a week early to familiarize myself with the countryside, scout out good restaurants and sights for folks to visit.  Knowing that I was there for a purpose beyond my own enjoyment added a definite dynamic to my experience.  It helped to confirm for me that the later years of life become all the sweeter when we create a purpose beyond our own enjoyment as a central theme to our lives.

In my next few postings I’ll share you with some experiences I had with various people I met on this trip and I’ll include a few extra photos so that you can have a sense of the beauty of the place.  But for today, it feels good to share my re-discovery of exercise …and my confirmation of the importance of purpose in people’s lives.

I had a few quiet weeks this summer. I read, web surfed, ignored the backlog of accounting that needed to be entered into the system, dealt with some technology issues, poked around in my garden, cooked some good meals …and realized that I was bored to tears because there wasn’t enough of the good stuff to really sink my teeth into. And it gave me an idea of what traditional retirement might be like. Things to do, for sure …

…but underneath it all is a vague sense of unease, like something important is missing, like ‘filling in time’ isn’t just cutting it. I had the luxury of knowing that this was just a temporary phase in my life and I could wallow in the glory of it all. But I bet that if I knew this would be my life for the next twenty years or so I’d be feeling quite different about it. Life would start to feel heavy and flat pretty darned quickly, I suspect.

It makes me wonder if we shouldn’t be making “trial retirements” available to people: 3-month periods where you get the opportunity to live like you think you want to during retirement. A trial marriage sort of arrangement. I wonder how many of us would end up changing our plans for the shape our retirement would take or even changing our minds about retirement and working longer if we had the opportunity for a trial run?

I’ve been aware for some time now that I haven’t been posting to this blog. And when I just checked I was totally shocked to see that my last entry was in early July! Yikes …where does the time go?

I offered a free retirement preparation seminar last evening in conjunction with a financial planner friend. We talked about 2 retirement myths: “retirement as a permanent weekend” and “I’ll be a different person when works isn’t a distraction for me”. One of the participants commented that she loves to spend her weekends reading and catching up on sleep …and she realized that if she didn’t do something soon to change things that would be her future in retirement! Another noted that her husband was a workaholic all his life. He has retired several years ahead of her …and he is still a workaholic, even though he doesn’t really have any work. He keeps creating ‘projects’ for himself to obsess about and now he gets to stay up half the night because he can then sleep during the day.

As I reflected on those conversations and my discovery that months have slipped by since I wrote, it dawned on me just how easy it is for life to pass us by when we are too busy with other things to notice its passage. …and then we wake up 10 years older and no wiser! It’s a good reminder to me to stay present to the things I’m committed to …if I want to blog, I need to be present to that process and not allow time to slip away. My question to you is this: what are the things that you hold as ‘important’ but that you aren’t paying any attention to and life is simply slipping by, like grains of sand in an hourglass? What might be passing you by that you might one day wake up to and regret not having engaged earlier?

I ran into some folks in a coffee shop a few days back. They seem like very nice people yet in the few moments we had to chat with one another it became clear to me that they had made a classic ‘retirement’ error. They had moved to another city to be close to their adult child …and now one of them is experiencing considerable frustration, disappointment and dissatisfaction with life.

We didn’t have enough time, and even someone as boldly curious as I am didn’t feel I had permission to probe too deeply. But it was a reminder to me of how many people waste years of their lives living a life they don’t really want for themselves. And how often we presume that simply being in physical proximity to someone we care about is the answer to life’s challenges.

Are you thinking about moving across town or across the country to be closer to your child/children when you retire? Have you talked with them about your interest? Are you all clear about what that means for everyone involved? And don’t rely on vague generalities.

I was talking to a young couple the other day. The young woman’s mother had said to her at one point that she’d be happy to baby-sit anytime she could help out. But now that the kids are getting bigger, she’s finding the whole situation awkward. Her mother is frequently busy when she call upon her services and mom doesn’t hang around very long when she does commit to sitting duties, wanting to know exactly when her daughter will return to relieve her of her duties. The stress between them is building quickly.

There definitely needs to be a straight-talk conversation in both of these situations. Each person involved needs to be honest about his/her expectations, the time available/required, and what alternatives are possible. Otherwise everyone lives with growing frustration and stress; nobody is being honest and life starts to feel very difficult.

So if you have intergenerational mixed messages, I encourage you to gain clarity on them before committing to anything that impacts the retirement (or non-retirement) you plan for yourself. I am certain that one of the reasons I had such a great relationship with my mother-in-law was that she continued to live 120 miles down the road. Even though that was sometimes inconvenient for us all, overall it worked best. Each of us developed an independent life and we shared aspects of our lives as and when they worked for us.

A client was recently talking about her concerns for her mother. Since her mother retired 3 years ago, my client has noticed a precipitous decline in her health and overall functioning. Her mom doesn’t dress as well as she used to. She isn’t as involved in following activities in the world. She complains more than she ever did. And she is getting noticeably more feeble and developing lots of conditions of aging.

Her mom is a woman who never was a traditional stay-at-home mom. She became a medical specialist at a time when it was rare for women to become doctors and she maintained an active practice until well after the traditional retirement age of 65.

What gives you might ask. Lack of meaning in her life I’d be inclined to answer. My client’s mom is experiencing an escalation in the downward spiral that we typically attribute to aging. “What can you expect?” we say to ourselves. “The woman is in her 70′s.” But we easily ignore all the people who are still vibrant at the same age. And it is very easy to dismiss the speed with which decripitude has set in.

I know many others for whom medical issues develop amazingly quickly after they leave the workforce. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether the leaving happens in their 50s, 60s or 70s. These folks frequently claim that they love their life of leisure, being able to get up when they feel like it, travel at whim and will, lunching or dining as the mood strikes. And never once questioning the link between their failing health and the fact that they are no longer really of use to anyone. Research is beginning to show that there is a strong link between retirement and onset on the diseases of aging.

When are we going to get it? We can sit back and say that it is because people don’t stay fit or have eaten a lousy diet most of their adult lives and it is finally catching up. Or we can begin to consider that there is a link between feeling useful and having a sense of purpose and our health.

I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to become very tired and bored of hearing the same old, same old conversation amongst people 5 years away from retirement: I can’t wait to hit the golf course/garden/sailboat whenever I want; it is going to be so wonderful when my days are my own; life will be glorious when I no longer have a boss breathing down my neck. …Don’t these people read? Don’t they look around at the folks who’ve proceeded them and notice that the ones really having a good time have started businesses, gotten part-time jobs, created volunteer work for themselves?

Maybe we are all colluding with one another, just like we’ve colluded most of our lives. If you don’t pretend to notice how old I’m looking, I won’t tell you how awful it feels to think about spending another 25 or 30 years with nothing more profound than another golf game or fishing expedition to look forward to.

A good friend of mine shared privately with me that she’s becoming embarrassed to go shopping with her husband. He’s been retired several years now and he’s turning into one of those old men who can’t shut up in stores. He chats the ear off any sales associate or check-out clerk, telling long stories and anecdotes where 5 years ago he’d have paid his bill, wished them a nice day and gotten on with his life. When not haunting the stores he spends much of his time working out to keep the physical plant in shape, but it is clear to her that his social skills and his mental frame of reference have been negatively impacted since his retirement. She’s trying to convince him to get a part-time job before he becomes the geezer dreaded by every retail clerk in the vicinity!

If you haven’t yet retired, I exhort you to seriously give thought to what is going to give purpose and meaning to your life when work is no longer there. Even if you hate your job and can’t wait to leave, do not overlook this profoundly important examination. If you are recently retired, be honest with yourself before you wake up one day and discover that your blood pressure has sky-rocketed, your hearing is going, you have heart palpitations or skin lesions or arthritis. From what I can see, the downward spiral sets in amazingly quickly. I’d feel remiss if I weren’t extremely forthright and direct about this aspect of retirement that nobody seems to want to talk about!

It’s been a long, long time since I last posted to this blog. And it isn’t that I haven’t been involved in my usual (and unusual) conversations with folks about this time of life that is rapidly becoming a unique expression of living for so many. In fact, it is partly because I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been posting.

One thing that has been keeping me hopping is getting ready for a couples retirement retreat I am hosting in The Algarve, Portugal this autumn (http://www.ouicoach.com/wor_retire.html). It is very exciting for me to think about spending time in this great part of the world with a small but committed bunch of folks who haven’t given up on one another or their desire to learn and grow, despite their age.

I can only imagine the conversations that will unfold in the week that I’ll get to spend with 6 couples this November …letting go of long-held issues, discovering new ways of communicating with one another (as well as employees, business partners, clients, children), exploring new possibilities and potential for each as individuals as well as them as a couple …whatever it is going to take for the renewal they seek. Coming alive again, beginning to stretch into a future of new possibility and potential.

I think that is the thing about this retirement conversation that I find so exciting: watching people who had, in many respects, put their lives on hold for a long time begin to reclaim their lives so that they feel like they are once again in charge of them. I get goosebumps just thinking of how great the experience is going to be for me, as well as retreat participants. Because that is another thing that I’m noticing many of us are discovering as we move into our geezer/geezerette years …our unwillingness to any longer engage anything that doesn’t satisfy and gratify our personal needs anymore. We are much more comfortable in claiming our need for personal satisfaction first …having finally discovered that when we ensure that our needs are met it becomes easier for everyone around us to also get their needs met.

I keep wondering what the final group will look like, what sorts of interesting and dynamic folks will commit themselves to an intensive exploration of themselves and their future. I can hardly wait for the next few weeks to unfold and my new ‘playmates’ to surface. I know some things about these folks already: they have a sense of adventure, they are deeply committed to growth, they care about one another and keeping their relationship alive and vibrant as they age, they are not afraid to invest in their future, they have high expectations for their physical comfort as well as the types of conversations they expect and they love to have fun. …now who wouldn’t get excited about the prospect of spending a couple of weeks with folks like these! …and I’ll keep you posted with more personal descriptions of participants as registrations come in!!

My buddy Ron did it today.  He is one of that group who has “officially” retired …pensioned himself off after 34.5 years working for the man!

I’m excited for Ron because I know that the future is wide open for him.  All the ways in which he’s felt the need to make himself small in order to fit in over the past three-and-a-half decades are now a thing of the past.  He steps into tomorrow a man with the best part of his life ahead of him.  And if I know Ron, he’ll be making good use of that future.

We haven’t really talked specifically about what his plans are.  I think that he’s looking forward to enjoying a few weeks or months of luxuriating in being in charge of his own life.  But I know that he’s been brewing many different scenarios for some time and I look forward to watching him make his choices and create the kind of life he, like so many others, richly deserve!

I’ll also be interested in watching the dance that unfolds with his life partner, Cathy, who is as committed to not slowing down a whit as he is to taking some time to chill.  It’ll be fascinating to watch how the dance they’ve created for themselves changes, where the pressure points surface and how they deal with them (as I have absolute confidence they will!) and also where the experiences of delight that neither of them had anticipated surface.  With their permission, you may well hear a lot about these delightful folks in the coming weeks and months.

Right now I want to wish Ron all the very best as he steps boldly into his new future …a future which is entirely his to script any way he wishes.  Good on you, Ron.  You’re an inspiration to us all.

I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks that has reconfirmed for me that ‘traditional retirement’ isn’t for me …at least not for some time into the future.

Business has been kind of slow. I’ve just finished working with a number of coaching clients and have several new ones deciding whether to proceed or not. I don’t have any workshops scheduled in the very near future so the usual round of phone calls and e-mails is pretty light at the present time. I had a big spurt of dedication a couple of weeks back and a good bit of the administration of my business that I usually let pile up to critical proportions has been taken care of. Mind you there are still a bunch of things I could be doing, but hey, a girl can only be so good before her halo gets so annoyingly bright that she starts to blind herself, eh?

So I’ve had a couple of weeks with a lot of time on my hands. Now usually this would be the kind of time that I’d get busy playing with my friends. Meeting folks for coffees and lunch, going shopping mid-day, just generally hanging out and chatting the problems of the world away. But my rise in free time has coincided with most of my buddies being right smack in the midst of really busy times. Not one to go quietly into the night I’ve used this time to get some housework done, I’ve engaged several of my hobbies, I’ve done a lot of computer research, I’ve played Spider until my eyes are wonky, I’ve cooked some great meals and baked a few great desserts …and I’ve come face to face with just how boring it all is when the zest that comes from engaging with clients is missing for me.

Truly the work that I have chosen provides me with a deep sense of making a difference in the world and is an on-going invitation to share many moments of deep caring, intimacy and sacredness with other human beings who, like me, are on a journey to becoming more in life. As much as I know that I have the intellect and the will to fill my life with activities that are enjoyable, these past couple of weeks have shown me that the larger context of making a difference is what infuses these activities with meaning for me. Interestingly, today things began to shift. The phone started ringing, e-mails started arriving from folks deciding to move forward. As if on cue, once I had confirmed for myself that the traditional retired lifestyle isn’t for me the people and associated activities began to flood back in.

Today’s picture is one I took only a couple of hours ago. We’re having a warm spell while there is still lots of snow on the ground so everything is shrouded in mist. To celebrate the renewed sense of joie-de-vivre I felt coursing through my veins, I went out and shot a number of photos of which this is one. It reminds me of the possibility for beauty and fun that is possible even when things can seem bleak.

As I move into the future I know that I’ll carry an even deeper awareness of just how satisfying my work is. And I bet I’ll be a little more thankful on those really hectic days that my life isn’t just a round of shopping, cleaning, researching and hobbying. Do you know what that ‘extra something’ is that makes your life sing?