REINVENTING YOUR LIFE AT FIFTY-PLUS
“I knew who I was during my career in this organization, but I have no idea of who I’m going to be when I leave here.”
—A 55-YEAR-OLD MALE EXECUTIVE PREPARING FOR RETIREMENT
“I’ve worked hard for the past 27 years doing the company’s work, and now I am desperate to discover what I really want to do in the next chapter of my life.”
—A 53-YEAR-OLD FEMALE PROFESSIONAL PREPARING FOR RETIREMENT
“Retirement for me has been the gateway to freedom.”
—A 65-YEAR-OLD RECENTLY RETIRED EXECUTIVE
RejuvenationIf you’re in the fifty-plus years, retirement no doubt has been on your mind, unless you’ve already made the transition to life beyond full-time employment. As I write this, I am 70 years old—chronologically, that is. I’d put my functional age at fifty-something, and I dislike the word retirement.
Have you ever checked out the definition of retirement? My dictionary defines it as “to withdraw oneself from business, active service or public life; to disappear, to take out of circulation; withdrawn or secluded; difficult to be seen, known, or discovered.” With that definition, why would anyone ever want to be retired?
I don’t want or intend to work full-time for any one organization ever again. But I do want more balance and diversity in my life than was possible when I was fully employed. That sentiment is one I often hear echoed from the hundreds of retirement-bound clients I have worked with over the years. How about you? Where do you stand on the question of how you want to be spending your time in the next chapter of your life?
As a freelance professional counselor and career management coach, I work with individuals transitioning to pension-supported lifestyles. The great majority of these folks are far more interested in life and work change than traditional retirement. My clients seldom mention the topic of retirement. Instead, they think about how to rejuvenate their lives by recreating, reinventing or redesigning the way they live. Retirement has a passive connotation. It sounds like something that happens to you because you have gotten old—through no particular fault of your own. Life recreation, by contrast, suggests a self-initiated action—one that originates from free will and intentionality rather than from an imposed condition. Maybe it’s time to retire the word retirement in favor of a more positive term. I invite you to coin a new term for your exciting new chapter in life!
Exciting? Yes! But not without some work. The big challenge facing most of us in our fifty-plus years is how to recreate a fulfilling and meaningful life appropriate to who we are now, taking advantage of the life, work, and learning possibilities now available. There are at least three compelling reasons to pay attention to your new challenge:
1. At this life juncture, you may now have the opportunity for greater freedom by way of a pension-supported lifestyle.
2. Never before have you been this old, which also means you have less time remaining in this earthbound experience. This sobering reality makes the time we do have a valuable commodity, a potentially rich but limited resource.
3. At this point in our lives, we have more life-enriched experience, along with deeper self-knowledge from which to make more fulfilling life choices than we did in our younger years. This hard-won wisdom provides a reference from which to discern what is going to make us richer or poorer in body, mind, and spirit.
The process of life reinventing often begins around fifty-plus, when we find ourselves mulling over questions about life meaning, personal identity, and our core values. Here are some of the kinds of questions that typically arise in this self-questioning process (check any of these that resonate with you):
What will I do when I am no longer committed to the structure of full-time work?
Who am I now, and who am I becoming?
What is it time to leave behind?
What do I call myself when I no longer have a job title or organizational affiliation?
What do I care deeply about?
Where would I/we want to live if I/we could live anywhere?
How much time do I have remaining in this lifetime?
Why am I here?
Will I become an old couch potato when I don’t have to go to work?
How will I know if I’m being successful when I am no longer being evaluated by my performance at work?
Are my best days behind me?
So, what’s next?
We shall address these issues in depth in later chapters. For now, let’s just acknowledge the reality of our aging selves. At fifty-plus, we have entered the ranks of what traditionally has been thought of as elderhood or seniordom. As we enter a new life era, it’s time to let go of that which no longer serves us well or that which we can no longer sustain for some reason. This includes youthful vigor, self-esteem based on career success, or beauty based on unlined faces. At fifty-plus, it’s time to fit into the skin of fully matured adulthood and create new reasons for being and thinking about ourselves. It also may be time to develop underutilized talents and interests, and possibly even engage in some new kinds of work, paid or unpaid.
Change, Rejuvenate, or Hang OnAre you in a quandary of whether the time has come for a change in life, a change in yourself, or an unchanging hold on what you have? You may not want to jump prematurely into an uncertain path, but you also may not want to stay stuck in a current rut simply because you fear change. If you have reached a plateau in your current situation and are running on the low side of motivation, you are probably facing the choice of whether to get rejuvenated through a big life-changing leap or to undertake a few small adjustments here and there. Big life leaps might include choices such as retiring from work, getting a divorce, taking on an entrepreneurial venture, moving to a totally new culture, or undertaking a major career shift. Smaller, life-rejuvenating adjustments might include engaging in some new interests like joining a meditation group, volunteering as a Big Brother or Sister, leading a Boy or Girl Scout troop, joining a church choir, initiating a new project at work, starting a new assignment within your organization, or enrolling in courses of personal interest at the local community college.
Of course, no one ever knows for sure what outcome will result from a decision to go forward with a major life change, and only you can determine whether you are prepared to take that leap. The following Life Vitality Assessment can help you determine whether the time has come to undertake a major transition, to make some small alterations in your life, or to remain a while longer in your current situation.
Use the following rating scale to assess your current attitude in response to each of the 20 statements below. Record the number that best describes your response to each statement in the left-hand spaces. When you have recorded your response to all 20 items, tally the sum of all responses in the box provided.
______ |
1. I would be completely content if my life were to continue pretty much as is over the next 10 years or more. |
______ |
2. I have a rewarding work life and enjoyable leisure activities. |
______ |
3. I would continue with my work and life exactly as it is even if I suddenly came into great wealth. |
______ |
4. I continue to have as much or more energy and enthusiasm for my work and/or life situation as I have always had. |
______ |
5. I never experience boredom or self-doubts about what I’m doing in my daily activities. |
6. I feel personally empowered and am a creative force in continuing to make my life and work rich and rewarding. | |
______ |
7. I seem to be running on a full tank of energy and vitality pretty much all the time. |
______ |
8. I am definitely not ready for retirement because there is much I still want to do professionally. |
______ |
9. My love life is at least as full, rich, and rewarding now and for the foreseeable future as it has ever been. |
______ |
10. I have a clear sense of what my core values are and believe they are fully congruent with my current life situation. |
______ |
11. If I lost my work situation tomorrow for any reason, I am confident I could move onto an excellent new situation in short order. |
______ |
12. I feel great about who I am and am taking excellent care of myself physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. |
______ |
13. I find my current life situation highly challenging and feel good about what I’m learning and how I’m growing. |
______ |
14. Those individuals who know me beyond casual acquaintance hold me in high esteem. |
______ |
15. I am optimistic that I can continue on pretty much as I am now and for the foreseeable future. |
______ |
16. I have a great family life and enjoy rich relationships with good friends and associates. |
______ |
17. I am happy where I/we live and have hobbies and interests outside of work that enrich my life. |
______ |
18. I am clear about my criteria for personal success and am on the right track with my life and work. |
______ |
19. I believe that my current life and/or work situation enables me to contribute and develop my full potential. |
______ |
20. My current life and work situation fully uses my best talents and top interests. |
Record your total score from all 20 responses: ______
Old Stereotypes and New Perspectives on Life as a SeniorAt the onset of the twentieth century, if you achieved the age of 50, you were old. A hundred years ago, the life expectancy was fifty-something. But that was then. Today, it’s a different story. In his book The Power Years, Ken Dychtwald reports, “If you’ve already made it to fifty, you can expect to live at least until your mid-eighties, and thanks to impending scientific breakthroughs, these numbers will keep increasing.”1 That means that, if you transition from full-time work in your fifties or sixties, you still have about a quarter of a century remaining to hang around. Not only that, but there is a strong statistical probability that your coming years are going to be lived in good health and financial well-being. What are you going to do with that much time, and with the options and resources available for enjoying these years?
How rich and fulfilling your remaining years are going to be has a lot to do with your mental outlook at this stage of life. In her book Don’t Stop the Career Clock, Helen Harkness, a psychologist in her seventy-plus years, illuminates the difference between chronological and functional age. Chronological age is what the calendar records, while functional age is a more accurate measure of how old you are based on your physical health, your emotional state of mind, and your creative spirit.2
We grow old, Dr. Harkness observes, by buying into the prevailing negative social and cultural expectations about chronological age. One can easily buy into these expectations with the result that we are programmed to begin declining in our fifties and then accelerate the downward trend in our sixties and seventies. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Who says that declining functionality is inevitable in the fifty-plus years? That may have been true for retirement in the Industrial Era. Back then, most people tended to be used-up physically when they retired at age 65, and they subsequently contributed to the stability of the Social Security system by dying soon after. But that is history. In the twenty-first century, we take better care of ourselves, have improved health care, are living longer, and think differently about the post-fifty years. We remain vibrant by being active in mind, body, and purpose.
How old are you chronologically? ———
How old do you feel yourself to be functionally? ———
(Be honest here. How old do you actually consider yourself to be, rather than what the calendar says, or you hope, or perhaps pretend, to be? Use your gut level instincts to see what age comes to mind rather than attempting to figure it out rationally. Some things to take into consideration include your energy level, optimism about your future, curiosity about life and your physical strength and agility.)
There is an alternative to buying into the negative stereotypes about life as a senior. On the one hand, if you buy into the myth that being fifty-plus means being “over the hill,” then you are more inclined to let yourself go—to become an aimless, grouchy old couch potato! On the other hand, if you realize the full potential available in the golden years, you are more likely to live, think, feel, and act from the perspective of well being and vibrancy. A quick Internet search brings up countless numbers of role models of fifty-plussers recreating full lives and looking good in the process. Here are just a few examples (for more, visit The Senior Citizens Journal at www.SeniorJournal.com):
• Art Stander, a retired chemical engineer, started playing the cello at age 70. Now, at age 73, he is an accomplished member of Sixty Plus/minus, a group of amateur classical musicians, mostly age sixty-plus, who meet every other week to play chamber music.
• Lucille Borgen amazed the crowd at the Sixty-Second Annual Water Ski National Championships by winning the women’s slalom and tricks event on her ninety-first birthday. Lucille, a cancer and a polio survivor, was the lone competitor in her age group. She got to the national finals through exceptional performances at regional championships.
• At age 94, Doris “Granny D” Hoddock, grandmother of 16, became a candidate for the U.S. Senate from New Hampshire. Haddock achieved national acclaim when she walked across the country to promote campaign finance reform.
• At age 70, Gene Glasscock completed a horseback journey of over 20,000 miles to visit every state capital in the lower 48 states.
• At eighty-something, newscaster Daniel Shore is still reporting the news and bringing his years of experience to his analysis of the day’s events.
• Now well into his seventies, Arnold Palmer cannot play golf like a twenty-something Tiger Woods. But he still enjoys the game and shoots in the seventies—not the low sixties of his prime golfing years, but he has fun being who he is now, and he still delights thousands of fans when he shows up on the links.
At fifty-plus, we can be more relaxed as we allow ourselves to be released into the experience of fully matured self. In early adulthood, most of us were highly concerned about our looks and the image we hoped to be projecting. We conformed in ways expected by our employment situation and the communities to which we belonged. But in our fifty-plus years, we can let go of our old personas and concerns about how we think we are being perceived. We can let go of youthful narcissism and the need to fit in. At fifty-plus, we’ve earned the right to let go of all that, to free ourselves from old roles. The time has come to explore who we are at a deeper level, to open the door to our unexplored self and our authentic natures. As a wise friend of mine says, “Getting old just means becoming more of who you are.”
Location and the Good Life at Fifty-PlusWhat is the good life in our senior years? Commercials tell us the answer is simple—it’s the “perfect” retirement community. Just move to the right location and you’ll enjoy the good life. Of course, the perfect place just happens to be the one being promoted. Changing location may, in fact, actually be the right retirement prescription for those with a single-minded passion for a golfing and clubhouse lifestyle.
Changing location, however, is not the total answer to everything for those whose interests range beyond golf. Nevertheless, location, along with financial considerations, almost always seems to get top billing for retirement planning. Could this be so because dealing with a concrete choice like location is easier than struggling to define something as intangible as one’s aspirations for a rich and fully engaged life? Location is important, but it’s not the only—or primary—consideration for those seeking self-fulfillment in their senior years.
Self-RealizationWhat is at the core of fulfillment when one moves on from full-time work? The answer is fairly simple—but not so obvious. In the senior stage of life, whether in conscious awareness or not, the desire for self-realization becomes a primary motivation. Many people, when asked about what they want to do in retirement, say things like travel, consulting, volunteer work, or spending time with family and friends. But there is another, less obvious aspect of fulfillment for the golden years—to realize one’s full potential as a unique human being.
Achieving a fulfilling lifestyle involves clarifying your aspirations for what you want to do and, even more importantly, who you want to be. The good news for fifty- plussers is that the potential for self-realization is greater in the golden years than at any other stage of life. Leaving full-time employment offers three core ingredients essential to self-realization—freedom, resources, and life experience. Previously, most of us have been too preoccupied with managing our careers and/or raising families to reflect upon something as seemingly abstract as self-realization.
Self-realization is an instinctive desire to become all that we are capable of and to contribute our best talents in deeply meaningful ways. A good analogy for appreciating the self-realization instinct exists all around us in the world of nature. There are thousands of varieties of plants, with each individual plant bearing within it the make-up of some ultimate potential. An African violet, for example, can become an eyecatching beauty when conditions nurture and bring out its full potential. The violet, however, can never become a rose, nor the rose a camellia. In this regard, people are like flowers. Shakespeare, for instance, could not have become Beethoven, nor could Grandma Moses have become Madonna. Shakespeare, however, might well have become a second-rate knight, a mediocre gardener, or a disillusioned alchemist, had he not realized his potential as a playwright. Unlike flowers, humans must make conscious choices to achieve their highest state of being. That is probably why humans come equipped with big brains in proportion to their body mass, while flowers, lacking such development, must rely totally on good fortune to achieve full bloom.
Taking full advantage of your opportunity for self-realization requires self-knowledge, an energizing vision for your future, and awareness of your best options for applying your knowledge and vision. For Christina, the self-realization process involved taking an early retirement from her administrative position to express long-pent-up creative needs.
For Carl, self-realization involved retiring from a full-time medical practice to a life of variety that allowed him to engage the full range of his interests and talents. To express his musical talents, Carl sings in a men’s chorale group that travels all over the country. Teaching a college math course enables him to stay abreast of the subject and enjoy the challenge of turning students onto mathematics. Hosting foreign exchange students keeps him involved in international interests, while helping young people feel welcomed in a strange setting. To sustain his community-building interests, Carl engages in local service activities, such as the Rotary Club and consulting with Project Hope.
The urge to become self-realized doesn’t fully impact most of us as a developmental priority until later in life. My younger clients are more likely to seek counseling for career-development concerns, which usually means getting a better position, more money, a more congenial boss, or a job better suited to their interests. Seldom do my younger clients bring up the issue of self-realization. I have observed over many years in my counseling practice that it is usually the fifty-plussers, especially those preparing to retire, who are most concerned about self-realization, even though they may think of it in other terms. My older clients are apt to say that they have spent their younger adulthood doing the organization’s work, but now it’s their time. Moreover, they intend to make the most of it! When we discuss what making the most of it means, the conversation inevitably turns to deeper self-understanding as a basis for making new life choices.
Barriers to the Good LifeThere is one rather large barrier that stands in the way of resolving the “so, now what?” question: This task can be a complex challenge. Clarifying one’s aspirations and talents is difficult work for most people. Furthermore, even when these have been clarified, identifying the best way of making them happen in a world of unexplored possibilities can be perplexing. Because the task can seem so daunting, all too many of us simply avoid the self-introspection and exploration of options required. Or, even more likely, we narrow the issue to something overly simple, such as where we want to live. Although a new home or new location can be engaging, at least temporarily, an overly narrowed focus or premature jump into something new seriously jeopardizes the potential for expanded new directions in life, work, and learning.
The complexity of this challenge, combined with the need to redirect our lives toward an uncharted future, means that many forgo the opportunity for self-realization and settle for something less fulfilling. Achieving the good life, from the self-realization perspective, doesn’t just happen. It requires time, introspection, and a willingness to make life-changing choices.
Undiscovered vs. Discovered SelfAs the title of this section suggests, we are each a unique entity composed of both a discovered and an undiscovered self. For that reason—and this is important—we are always more than we think we are. Although the discovered self is our everyday consciousness, the undiscovered self represents a whole new source of untapped potential. The undiscovered self is a new realm available to be explored and exploited, especially in the fifty-plus years when we are freed from the obligations of full-time employment and the responsibilities of earlier life.
The discovered self is how you have come to know and understand yourself. You should be aware, however, that your self-understanding is unavoidably limited, if not, in fact, flawed. You are, in some ways, like a fish in a fishbowl. You have only been able to understand yourself from within the limited confines of a bowl-bound perspective. Your self-view is a mentally contrived understanding composed of decisions, assumptions, and insights derived from life experience. In other words, your reality of self is completely a perceptual creation. Its development began in youthful programming and was altered thereafter through mind-filtered interpretations of identity-shaping experiences. Such interpretations are prone to misinterpretation and to subjective error.
We all possess an amazing faculty for dramatizing significant events in our lives in overly positive or negative ways. That, in turn, often leads us to crystallize our reactions to them into self-beliefs. For example, I remember concluding as a young child that I was oversized, awkward, and socially inept—all from one skating incident with neighborhood kids. We were playing hockey on the local pond, and I, clumsy on my new skates, kept getting in the way of a smaller, more verbally advanced girl. About the fifth or sixth time that I lumbered into her way, thereby keeping her out of the play, she yelled at the top of her lungs, “You’re just an eighty-pound baby!” With that, she stomped off the ice. I felt foolish, offish, and thoroughly embarrassed. This was not, as you might imagine, a confidence-building experience for shaping my youthful identity.
Even today, all these years later, there remains a small voice in my psyche occasionally reminding me in certain interactions with women that I’m awkward, inept, and fully capable of instantly embarrassing myself. That voice has, I’m sure, been an inhibitor for me in certain social activities (dancing, for instance).
I also acquired the message from my small-town Minnesotan culture and too many cowboy movies that it was unmanly to express feelings of love and affection, or to have aesthetic needs of a creative bent. The results of those foolish understandings have put a crimp in my ability to freely express feelings of tenderness or to explore any artistic talents I might possess.
Some of us come to positive conclusions about who we are early in life. Such was the case with Winston Churchill, who, according to William Manchester in The Last Lion: William Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932–1940, concluded at a young age that he was a genius.3 He then proceeded to operate from that assumption. Although Churchill’s conclusion seems to have been accurate, if a bit arrogant, Hitler’s early conclusion that he was an artistic genius appears to have been woefully misguided.4 One can’t help but wonder what role Hitler’s misperceptions about himself played in leading him to perpetrate the horrors of the Holocaust. For most of us, the outcomes of our choices are not so dramatic or catastrophic. But who knows how your self-knowledge—or lack of it—could change the world? What early life experiences (from about the age of 1 to 21) can you recall that have influenced your self-concept?
For the sake of life-satisfaction, reassessing what we think we know about ourselves in our fifty-plus years can be a valuable activity. In this regard, it’s worth reminding yourself that you are no longer who you were, and beyond that, you were probably never actually who you thought you were anyway. At fifty-plus, therefore, it is worthwhile to get your conceptual foundations right. It’s essential in order to proceed on the path of self-realization.
Tapping the Undiscovered SelfWhen my graduate school psychometrics professor led a discussion on the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), he related a story about the highest I.Q. score he had ever recorded, out of the thousands of WAIS assessments he had administered over the years. The intelligence of a cleaning woman at the university had come to the attention of an observant faculty member, who persuaded the psychometrist to test her. Alexia, the cleaning woman, had been born in Greece, the only daughter of a family with several sons. In that family’s culture, sons were expected to become educated and have lives and work that capitalized on and developed their potential. The daughters were expected to remain uneducated and learn how to clean, cook, and take care of her family. Naturally, Alexia’s perception of her potential became what her family expected of her—at least, until she immigrated to the United States and encountered the psychometrics professor. Shocked by the extraordinarily high I.Q. score she achieved, the professor encouraged her to begin taking courses at the university. At first, she was reluctant to do so. After all, she saw herself only as a middle-aged cleaning lady. Eventually, however, she was persuaded to try taking just one course. She excelled in the course and began enrolling in additional courses. The process of intellectual self-discovery proceeded slowly with one successful course completion after another. Alexia finally earned a bachelor’s degree and then went to graduate school. In time she also reconceptualized herself as a highly intelligent woman.
Alexia’s story is similar to an ex-dockworker acquaintance of mine who, in walking by a community college one day, out of curiosity stopped in to see about enrolling in a course. He ended up registering in an English course and, much to his surprise, received an A. On the basis of that success, he decided to take another course, and once again received an A. To further test this amazing achievement, he took another course, and then another and another, until he earned an associate’s degree, followed by a bachelor’s, and then a master’s. Now he is a successful Ph.D. psychologist in California with a large and flourishing practice. Had he not stepped outside the comfort zone of his self-perceptions, however, he might have remained a dockworker, using only a small part of his intellectual and creative abilities.
These two stories may be unusual, but I believe they illustrate a common reality: how unaware so many of us are of our unrealized capabilities and potentials. We may not all possess the extraordinarily high I.Q. of Alexia, but the limited views most of us have of our unrealized possibilities may have blinded us to our own genuinely remarkable interests and potentials. It is this unrealized self that gives us the intriguing dimension of self-discovery in our post-fifty years.
Revealing the Undiscovered SelfFor any individual, the fullest measure of life is probably going to remain unrealized as long as the undiscovered self remains a stranger. The challenge of becoming acquainted with this stranger can be exciting; however, it may not always be an entirely pleasant experience. If you have ever had the opportunity of receiving behavioral feedback from colleagues at work, you know what I mean. Some of the feedback may validate what you already know about yourself; some of it may come as a shock. Feedback that comes as a surprise is an indication that you are being introduced to an unrealized aspect of yourself. That is true whether the news seems positive or negative. Some of us have as much difficulty accepting unrealized capabilities as we do in accepting our unacknowledged faults and shortcomings. Your undiscovered self includes some sludge and some gold. Whether sludge or gold, though, it may be worth mining.
The more we know ourselves, including our potentials and limitations, the more we are able to manage or change our less desirable elements. All of us have our fair shares of negatives and positives. When we are unwilling or unable to own our negatives, however, we are more likely to harm ourselves and others. Those of us unable or unwilling to uncover our unique gifts also may be hurting ourselves or others by depriving us all of something useful, unique, or beautiful. The vibrant little college town in which we live is full of interesting restaurants and boutiques, music and theater festivals, training and retreat centers, and parklands and hiking trails. Each one started with someone’s vision, someone willing to share a passion and take that first step toward making it a reality that everyone could enjoy.
The self-realization challenge is to acquaint yourself with the full measure of your limitations and potentialities, especially those that you have not acknowledged previously. How then, you might ask, do you discover your undiscovered self? There are many ways, ranging from expensive therapy on the one end, to inexpensive self-reflection work on the other. Whether expensive or not, the process takes an investment of work, intentionality, time, and, above all, a willingness to explore your inner self.
The right therapist for you can be a big help in this journey. As a professional counselor, I am, of course, inclined to recommend therapy for those of us who have issues from the past that may be impeding our moving forward with the freedom we would like to have. I know that therapy has helped me let go of old scripts that have limited my horizons. I also know how important it is to find—be able to afford—a good therapist. If you are in the position to do so, I recommend checking with people you trust who have had positive experiences with therapy to get references. Then interview two or three, or more, until you find the right fit for you.
If therapy is not for you, there are other resources that may be as helpful. Feedback from others can be a useful source for the self-discovery process, especially if you are a good listener who appreciates the gift of someone who takes the time and energy to be thoughtful and honest with you. Many people could serve in this role—family, friends, pastors, colleagues, and supervisors, to name a few. It is helpful to have feedback from several people, since no one person knows you in all your work, play, and relationship roles. But each one will, no doubt, see strengths and shortcomings that you haven’t seen or haven’t been willing to recognize. There are a couple of other caveats to keep in mind with free-ranging feedback.
Not all of us are great at giving unbiased and accurate feedback. And some of us do not excel in receiving it. I believe, for example, that I am pretty good at giving people positive feedback that helps to validate their strengths. However, I find it rather difficult to give people negative feedback, especially if it appears that they may have a difficult time accepting it.
Another problem with feedback is that we can only provide feedback on observable behavior. Although behavioral feedback can help you to eliminate or change things that undermine your effectiveness, you also should remember that there is far more to self-knowledge than your observable behavior. The realm of the unrealized, undiscovered, and untapped self may not be readily apparent in the you that you have thus far presented to the world. Only you can uncover and clarify your innermost values, your deep-seated interests, and your unrealized capabilities. But in that you may still need some assistance.
There are many excellent books to help you with the process of self-discovery. I’ve listed several in the reference section of this book, so I will point out only a few here. One is Dick Bolles’s perennial bestselling book, What Color Is My Parachute, along with the Web site www.jobhuntersbible.com for additional resources. I also highly recommend books and resources developed by Helen Harkness, whose Web site is www.career-design.com/. There are also many excellent self-assessments that are useful tools for self-discovery. These include the popular Myers Briggs personality profile and the Strong Interest Inventories, both of which can be obtained from most counseling professionals. Another assessment that many individuals have found helpful is the Passion Revealer, which can be accessed at http://passion.career-nsite.com. I developed this process specifically for adults who want to find the optimal situation for expressing their unique interests, talents, and skills. Many clients I have counseled and coached have found this assessment to be especially beneficial in helping them discover and validate their passion. The best approach, however, is to use a combination of approaches and assessments in your search for self-discovery.
Some people find that life coaches are also an important checkpoint in their journey. Coaches can be especially helpful after you have dealt with any therapy issues, uncovered your passion, and are ready to proceed with some concrete goals. I definitely recommend coaching at this later point in the process. Most coaches, however, are not licensed professional counselors or therapists and, therefore, are not equipped to provide the kind of help you may need to get to the point of setting goals that coaches can help you achieve. As with choosing a therapist, it is important to choose a coach that is a good fit for your personality and situation. If your budget doesn’t allow paying for a coach, you may be able to enlist a friend or colleague to serve in that role.
It is also helpful to simply write out your goals in clear, unequivocal terms. No fudging! If your goal is to be a famous artist, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever reach it if you write a goal that is less than what you actually want. We’ll talk more about this later in the book, when you will have an opportunity for writing out your goals in terms that are achievable and fulfilling. For now, just remember that most things are doable if taken one step at a time.
Never Too Old for OrgasmsDo you think that people in their fifties, sixties, or later are too old for orgasms or other activities that engage passion to the fullest? If so, you may be stuck in a mindset filled with once-held myths about the limitations of seniors. Everywhere I look, I see advertisements promoting the “blue pill,” stories about amazing athletes in their eighties and nineties, and research documenting the expanded longevity and health of older people today. Fifty-plussers by the thousands are redefining our concepts of aging. One such a person is Julia, a minister whose joyful presence was infectious and inspiring. My then-to-be wife and I were delighted that she agreed to officiate at our wedding 18 years ago. She was in her eighties then. I won’t report on her sex life, but I can tell you that she was passionate about her work. She didn’t even become an ordained pastor until the age of 65. One of this vibrant little woman’s favorite stories, the kind she loved to sprinkle her sermons with, was being stopped for speeding while cruising “out west.” As she told it, a stern patrolman pulled her over for speeding through the high plains country and informed her that he had clocked the vehicle she was driving at 84 miles per hour.
“Lady, do you know what the speed limit is out here?” he asked in accusatory tones.
Julia was not intimidated. In her sweet and gracious manner, she said, “Well, officer, I was just going my age.”
Her answer did not keep her from receiving an expensive ticket—one resembling her age. But it did illustrate the way she lived her life. Julia was a loving role model for many—including my wife, Pat. Seeing the way she conducted a vibrant ministry and lived her life with passion helped Pat to realize that exploring her own passion for ministry was not beyond reason, even though she was nearing the age of fifty. She is now a Presbyterian minister, ordained at the age of 55.
Some of us seem to have a knack for knowing exactly what we want and how to go about getting it. Ely Callaway, formerly of Callaway wines and now of Callaway golf, appears to be someone who did. Poet and writer Maya Angelou, astronaut and Senator John Glenn, movie star/President Ronald Reagan, TV journalist Barbara Walters, singer/painter Tony Bennett, and author James Mitchener are all individuals who appear to have fully engaged their passion in their senior years. But how about the rest of us? What if we are not as blessed with fame, fortune, or other resources to support our creative visions? What if we feel impoverished by a lack of imagination, confidence, or chutzpa? What can we do to clarify our vision and make it happen? The processes in this book are designed to help you with that. But it also may be important to get support. How and where to find that support is a topic we address more fully in Chapter 2.
Too many dreams end up dying on the vine for lack of confidence and/or skill in implementing them. Many of us live half-realized lives because we have failed to create a vision that would put our unique gifts to full and enjoyable use. We go though life with our life energy thermostats set to the moderate position rather than turning up the “heat.”
What are we waiting for? Are we conserving our personal energy in case we need it for some big, unexpected event? Some of us may not be ready for a highly energized state. Maybe it sounds too much like being in state of perpetual orgasm—and who would want that? But wouldn’t you rather enjoy a life with orgasms than one with none at all? Wouldn’t you rather have a life with passion than without? Based on my thirty years of professional counseling experience, I am of the opinion that orgasmiclike living is available to almost everyone in the fifty-plus stages of life. We all have the potential for activities that turn us on in work, learning, and leisure.
Recreating New Life Through AdversityRecently, I took a financial planning seminar from a vibrant lady. Being a child of the late 1950s and early 1960s, I have never been terribly excited about a life focused on money. It wasn’t that I was opposed to money—although I did grow up Lutheran in a small Scandinavian community in Minnesota. That means I grew up hearing some scary messages about money. They had to do with things like money being the source of all evil and leading to eternal damnation. You might say that my conditioning included a bit of an anti-money message. Then one day I sat in on Clarisse’s workshop. A financial educator, she helped me view money differently. I began to see that in itself, money was not evil and that, in fact, it could be used for great good. When invested wisely, it could, for instance, provide new opportunities for those living in developing countries. Clarisse helped me understand that a poverty-bound mindset or apathetic attitude was actually much more detrimental to the individual and the planet than a savvy approach to finances ever could be. I became convinced that failure to make far-sighted decisions about money would probably be a terrible disservice to me—and my family—in later years. I got serious about reprogramming the way I had thought about money, and soon I began to see it as a concept, a medium of value exchange, and a resource for abundant life. I began to see investing in my personal future and the collective future of humankind as an important component of financial well being. For me, this was also interwoven with another new awareness in my life—my spiritual journey.
We are always changing, whether we want to or not. The question is how much conscious choice we want to exercise over the directions we pursue in our development. When I was in my twenties, for instance, I never gave the slightest thought to my spiritual development. That has changed over time. My participation in a Buddhist meditation group, yoga classes, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are important new dimensions in my spiritual journey. For those of us interested in this aspect of our post-fifty development, there is a chapter focusing on this later in the book.
Some of us may have no interest in anything even remotely connected to things of a spiritual nature. Others of us may just want to focus on the concrete elements of our retirement. That’s okay, too. I have one client whose only goal after shedding his career identity is to play golf. Another simply wants to fish. Obviously, those activities give them great pleasure. But even though these particular individuals might not use such terminology to describe their love of golf and fishing, isn’t it possible that there is also a spiritual dimension to being out on a golf course or in the middle of a tranquil pond on a beautiful spring day? Isn’t it possible that they have chosen these activities because they know, on some level, whether they verbalize it this way or not, that these are the things that feed their souls? Clarisse, for example, never used the term ministry when she talked about her deliberate choice of vocation or the adverse circumstances that led her to reassess her life. But if you listen to her story, you can certainly hear how she came to embark upon a mission.
Clarisse’s passion for educating people about wealth came through her sudden and unexpected encounter with poverty. She had been married to a man of means who took care of all their financial matters. But one day he left her and their young daughter for a younger woman. Suddenly, she had no money and no working experience. She went through a series of reactions—shock, anger, and panic. She felt utterly helpless. But being a woman of high intelligence and strong resolve, she elected to do something about her situation. Aware of her ignorance about finance, she decided to become an expert in it and to help educate others about financial management. She found a way to go to the London International School of Finance, where she earned a master’s degree in finance. Then she created a career for herself as a financial consultant/educator. Now she is not only a woman of means, but also an educator of people around the world, helping them see the real value of money for opportunity building.
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Although no one welcomes adversity, that is often the crucible that forces one to discover and draw upon inner reserves of which we were previously unaware. Adversity can be a life teacher, as it most certainly was in Clarisse’s case. A positive response to adversity can be life changing. The annuls of psychology are full of stories of the heroic journeys of individuals who have lost a loved one and used an excruciatingly painful experience to create a meaningful new direction in life. Albert is one such example. Albert had just retired from a successful career as an engineer when his beloved wife, a nurse, died suddenly from a virulent form of cancer. Through his grief, Albert enrolled in a nursing program at the local community college. He confided with me that he was setting off on this new course in his life in honor and memory of his dear wife. He intended to specialize in cancer care in continuation of his wife’s dedication to the work. Albert’s grief “softened” him, giving him a new awareness and purpose. The way he talked made it clear to me that he had recreated a highly meaningful life and that he would be a nurturing presence to cancer patients.
Martha, an executive at a highly prestigious corporation, was about to accept a vice presidency when she discovered she had serious family problems. She had been so invested in her work that she had grown out of touch with her husband and teenage son. She could either accept the vice presidency and lose her husband or devote her time and energy to saving her marriage. She opted to save her marriage. In the process, she decided to take an early retirement and make a career change to follow her heart rather than corporate success. Currently, she is working toward a master’s degree in social work as a prerequisite to her new calling, which is providing therapeutic service to the elderly. She had observed the difficulties that many elderly people were having in managing their lives and was struck by their need for professional assistance. She used the ordeal of discovering her husband’s marital “digressions” not only to save her marriage and the family life she held dear, but also to create a new, more meaningful calling for her life.
I am not suggesting that you seek out adversity as the vehicle for finding your true self and recreating a new life. Adversity happens to us all at various times in life. When it occurs, our only choice is how to deal with it. Some give in to their grief and check out of life. Others have been opened by the pain and prompted to recreate more deeply meaningful lives. As I write this, I have just finished an executive coaching session with an amazing woman. She lost her beloved husband to cancer a year and a half ago. Prior to his death, she had been a successful career-oriented executive with the federal government. She still is, but now she is a different person. Prior to her husband’s death, her commitment was only to the agency’s mission and getting the job done. Now she is committed to helping her staff grow and develop and become their best, a newfound mission for her. Although she is now eligible for retirement, she has recommitted herself to her work with a newfound purpose. She intends to move into the senior-executive core to have an even broader impact in making the government a more humane and nurturing place for people to grow and develop.
My earnest hope for you is that you will find within yourself the strength to use adversity to discover new inner strength and recreate a deeply meaningful new life. Times of adversity call for finding ourselves anew. Weathering adversity—or great success, I might add—involves transition, the subject of the next chapter.
ConclusionAlthough retirement typically means shedding occupational identities, letting go of old familiar ways, and bidding fond farewell to our youthful selves, it also can be a highly exciting time for self-discovery, life reinvention, and discovery of the creative spirit. A life liberated from full-time employment provides unparalleled opportunity for discovering your true passion, bringing forth hidden strengths, and pursuing a freer, more joyful and deeply fulfilling lifestyle.
What are some of these joys of seniorhood? Well, first, we may be fortunate enough to not need to work so much and so hard at what the company wants from us. Second, we may have more time and energy to take advantage of our life experience and self-awareness. Third, we can take charge of our life, work, and leisure. And, fourth, we are now in control of our personal growth and professional development.
Perhaps you now have the resources and experience to create something new and fulfilling. Perhaps it’s time to build your dream house. Or perhaps it’s time to downsize the old dwelling to spend less time on maintenance and more in what really engages your interests. Maybe it’s time to take up French cooking, to get your pilot’s license, or start your own ballroom dance studio. Perhaps it is time now for some soul work, to participate in spiritual retreats, to read and meditate. Maybe you’re being called to the ministry or life as a writer or artist.
At fifty-plus, it’s time to discover and develop your hidden passion. It’s never too late for passion—for the real you to stand up.
