 To your second half transition
Aren't transitions about new beginnings?
What we call the beginning is often the end/and to make an end is to make a beginning. /The end is where we start from. T.S. Eliot
Consider your life as a series of transitions, from childhood to adulthood, from adulthood to late adulthood, to becoming an elder. What about the transitions in between these major transitions; moving home, forming relationships, travelling and working overseas, having a family and making a career and your way in the world, and then retiring to a lifestyle that offers more meaning and purpose than ever before?
A colleague of mine who received a promotion is challenged that she had to give up what she perceived to be a less satisfying job. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘all I am giving up is poor pay and a junior position, whereas now I will have the income I deserve and the authority and power that goes with the promotion. What’s this talk about endings mean?’
The endings are about finishing with her old work role, the rituals of working within a team and being told what to do. Her new position requires more responsibility of leading a team and being responsible for the results, quite a shift! What skills and experience earned her the promotion were not the skills that would make her effective and satisfied in her new job. She has to recognise to ‘let go’ of the old to make room for the new life she was starting.
What about the endings in a transition to retirement?
A number of words spring to mind in considering the time that you stop working full-time. Your endings may involve disengagement. Similar to earlier major transitions, this ending involves you removing yourself from environments that has been familiar and sustained you, during your working life.
Another feature of ending involves dismantling the habits, behaviours and practices of your previous employment, perhaps experiencing loss along the way.
For those of you who have experienced such loss, you know that you take it one stage at a time, steadily releasing yourself from the attachment to your work, and even experience dis-identification, loss of your old identity.
When you become separated from your old identity and your old workplace may lead you to experience disenchantment. Coming to the reality of the present moment may cause you some disorientation about what you enjoyed and thrived on. You may feel that while your old ways of looking at life were sufficient for that time, you are leaving that time and are ready to move on.
What is it time to let go of in a transition to retirement?
Transitions start with letting go of what no longer fits or is adequate to the life you want to lead, after stopping work full-time. This time of ending may involve external features of the old life, such as not spending your time in your work place, or with work colleagues or customers or having your life divided into work and non-work.
This ending may involve also reviewing your behaviours, attitudes, assumptions and images of yourself. This review offers you new ways of forming relationships and tackling new activities or work opportunities. Alternatively, you may feel overwhelmed by the transition and find it difficult to comprehend how you will get through it.
How will you experience this ending at the start of your transition to retirement?
There is no normal order of reactions to this ending. You may look forward to planning this transition a long time before you actually retire and look forward to letting go. Others may have retirement thrust upon them, through redundancy or termination, and experience distress in dealing with the transition. Remember that you are not the first person who has experienced this transition but telling you this may be no help. You just can’t let go, you have to work through the ending.
Endings are the termination or finalisation of what has gone before, such as your work that has sustained you through adulthood. But think about the ending as the way of beginning a new process. Endings are the first stage, not the last, of your transition to retirement.
Can you work through a transition to retirement on your own?
Are you ready to plan for managing transitions, to understanding and dealing with the endings that are the start of the transition? What if help were available?
Contact us for a complimentary consultation to focus on your transition. We work with you to discover what you want for your life as you grow and develop. It will be the best 30 minutes you spend to get started on leading the lifestyle you want in retirement.
References
Bridges, W 2004, Transitions: making sense of life’s changes, 2 nd edition, DaCapo Press, MA.
© 2009 Helene Strawbridge, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the Second Half Success material in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read: By Helene Strawbridge of Second Half Success. Please visit Helene’s web site at www.secondhalfsuccess.com.au for additional articles and resources. (Make sure the link is live if placed in an newsletter or in a web site.)
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