Just a short post today, thinking about the different reports of retirement I’ve heard in the past 2 weeks.
My doctor friend, who retired in November, is so happy being retired.
We did attend the ACP together, and looked at various recruiting tables in the convention hall. Canada is recruiting internists with great interest.
She let me know she would be happy to visit me in Nova Scotia, or British Columbia, but has no interest in going back to practice. She is very happy waking up without an alarm clock, exercising regularly, and catching up on things at the house that she hasn’t had time for in decades.
Several days later, I saw a patient of mine for a physical.
At her last physical, roughly 12 months ago, she was looking forward to retiring and putting her feet up. However, when I saw her, she was still on commercial insurance, and employed. She had just come from her overnight shift.
She told me she had, in fact, retired last fall. She moved back to her hometown, and rested for a bit. After a few months, she was so bored, she decided to find another position. It’s part-time, and at a better facility. But she likes feeling that she is doing something productive with her days.
I wonder how I will feel in a few years about my own retirement. How about you?
This sounds a lot like the “good vs. bad retirees” conversation I have with my coaching clients.
Your physician friend is still in the “honeymoon phase” of her retirement. Eventually those jobs around the house will run out and the novelty will wear off. I would advise her to start thinking ahead to what life will look like a year or two from now.
Your patient’s story is all too familiar. So few people think ahead to what their day-to-day life will look like after they retire. They get bored and restless, and go back to work. Sometime, if going back to work isn’t an option, they get depressed. In a survey done by the Retirement Coaches Association, 9 out of 10 retirees said it would have been helpful to have a plan for their day to day life heading into retirement. Yet, very few preretirees take the time to do that.
I think my friend is setting herself up for a good retirement. I talked about house projects, but she is also engaging with more activities that offer socialization and meaning–things she never had enough time for when she was in practice.