Rewirement – linking your drivers to your desired activities

What's next?

Retirement! Last Monday I woke up and nobody called me, no clients complained and nobody tried to sell me their latest ideas – I’m sitting in the sun, disconnected from the world.  Former advertising executive.

Consider this – rewirement uses the energy and drivers you have identified to lead a life of meaning and purpose. However when you do stop working full-time, your work-related activities stop also. You may be left with ‘nothing to do’. What work are you willing to do now, to build a new life that is driven by the motivators and energisers you identified earlier? What work-related activities support and fulfil you in your rewirement? These activities may be grouped into driver results; that is, the outcomes of your doing fulfilling work and activities.

Analysis of your driver results


The results of analysing your drivers to seek desirable, fulfilling activities have three common features. These are Activity, Audience and Applause.

Activity is looking at what drives you and what activities fulfil those drivers.  You are directed to use a calendar analysis technique described later. This technique invites you to look at every one of your activities and know where each of them meets your drivers.

Audience is the social side of seeking desirable activities that fulfil you. In this analysis, you think about those people you like to be active with. You think about how important these people are to you, what social groups you feel comfortable with and what kinds of communities do you want to be involved with. In a nutshell, you ask yourself when you give or donate your money and/or your time, what do you want to achieve?

Applause is about recognition of your efforts. This recognition may be about the money you work for or acknowledgement for the work that you do. While Audience refers to the people you like to be with, Applause refers to the feedback and the connections in associating with people.


Analysis of your daily activities


Thinking about what activities, people you like to be active with and what feedback you want in being active, the last step is to look at what you currently do and how it meets those three analyses. Look at your calendar of appointments, free time and work time and decide for each activity what people you enjoy working with and what acknowledgement you receive.

This work is not about time management; that is, helping you to master your time more effectively. This work is about your standing back and asking yourself what fulfilment do you get from what you do. You may have a weekday and a weekend calendar of activities to analyse – take your time.

After this work, take a new sheet of paper (or page in your electronic document). Write your calendar entries without your work related activities (use both your workday and your weekend calendars). Ask yourself – what is left, what activities do I still do that are in no way work related? Are you pleased with the result – that you have a seamless pathway to transitioning to retirement – your rewirement?

After your analyses


There may be six scenarios that you are left with, after your examination of your daily work-related and leisure activities and your calendar with no work-related activities. Your response may be:
  • to keep working at your current job because you are being fulfilled with it
  • to slow down to build your transition to a life of part-time work and leisure
  • to get another job that will meet your needs for fulfilment
  • to start your next career/active life that you are keen to pursue
  • to get ready, but are not yet ready, for what you will do
  • to get out of what you are doing – it may be time to seek fulfilment elsewhere
Lastly, you may want to consider how you use/will use your free time. A suggestion is that you take a longer period to look at your weekday/weekend calendar of activities. Perhaps you might take a two or four week period to analyse your Activities, Audience and Applause results from your work.  Look at the free time in your calendar. Identify now to plan what you will do with that free space and more of it when you stop working full-time. In the end, it’s those activities that provide you with the most fulfilment that you want to pursue.

Can you do this on your own?

Are you ready to investigate what it is that fulfils you now with work and leisure and what will fulfil you after you stop work full-time? What is the first thing you will do? What if you need some help? Contact us for a complimentary consultation to focus on how you can plan for your rewirement. We work with you to discover what you want for your life and how to transition to a life of meaning and purpose. It will be the best 30 minutes you spend to get started.

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Reference

Sedlar, J & Miners, R 2007, Don’t Retire, Rewire!, 2 nd edn, Alpha Books, New York.

© 2011 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.)