Gone are the days of rushing to work, fighting traffic, meeting deadlines, skipping lunch, and working overtime. Retirement is the time to slow down, relax, and play. This is your reward for all your years of hard work. The question for you now is this: What are you going to do with your leisure time?
It’s quite common for new retirees to spend many months in at-home vacation mode. It feels great to not have to set an alarm. It’s nice to pull on jeans instead of a suit. It’s wonderful to hit the links when the course isn’t busy, to read the books that have been piling up on the nightstand. These retirees think they can pull off total unstructured leisure. But can you imagine playing golf six or seven times a week, or watching TV for hours at a time? Most of us would begin to hate the game, or would eventually want to throw the TV out the window.
After years of enjoying golf only once a month (if I was lucky), I looked forward to playing as often as I wanted. Joined the local club. Entered every tournament. Bugged my working buddies to play hooky and went on as a single when that didn’t work. I was thrilled to see my game improve, but after a couple months, my scores crept up. Lessons didn’t help. Eventually, I realized that I was bored.
—Reg H., former manager
In addition to attempting to live in vacation mode, it’s very common for new retirees to tackle their “honey-do list” with unprecedented gusto: clear out the garage and sewing room; fix the squeaky doors; paint the spare bedroom; hang the new curtains; weed, plant, repot. But even if you have a very long list, you’ll eventually run out of things that need doing around the house.
When I retired, I immediately began to address a long list of repairs and improvements in my home. Immediately! This was quite gratifying, at first. But when my daughter laughingly accused me of repeating to-dos, I had to acknowledge she was right. I did not know what to do with my time.
—Cecil D., former tool and die maker
When we run out of things to do, we often begin to lose our sense of self, our feeling of usefulness. We often also lose structure in terms of time, and largely unstructured days, for days on end, can have negative effects. This is true at any age, as those of you who raised children can attest. For adults, especially older adults, the negative effects can include anxiety and even depression.
These negative effects tend to accumulate slowly overtime and can be extremely difficult to recognize. This is just one reason why proactively building a balanced leisure lifestyle is so important. So just what does balanced mean?
A balanced leisure lifestyle includes at least one regular activity in each of these categories:
1. Entertainment
2. Education
3. Travel
4. Exercise
5. Social activities
6. Hobbies
In the next blog, we will look at how you build that balance.