‘Setting the cue ball up for the next shot’
Lee Iacocca, ex-President and CEO of Chrysler, said, about retirement, ‘Everyone says you’ve got to get ready financially. No, no, you’ve got to get ready psychologically’
It must be a little like having your first child. Nothing can really prepare you for the experience. Having said that, there are some important things you can do to plan your next few steps. Whether this means focusing on finances, leisure and/or health and well-being, being one step ahead is a major consideration, i.e. being proactive rather than reactive. Someone once said, ‘If you don’t have a plan for your own life, you will always be a part of someone else’s’
As you will see in subsequent posts the three areas of focus I’ve just referred to aren’t the only important areas for focus. You need to choose how you are going to show up in the world in your next chapter.
Do you know which direction you are going in, where you want to get to and who you want to be? If you haven’t begun to think about these sorts of questions or have but haven’t started formulating a plan yet, I suggest you get cracking!
If you have already retired, are did you take time to consider these questions beforehand? Does your game plan satisfy your deeper needs? Are you going on a fulfilling and meaningful path or is something missing? It’s never too late to re-evaluate and change the plan.
Too many people who step away from the workplace drift and meander through life because they haven’t planned anything. Now, I’m not necessarily advocating that you run the rest of your life like a military campaign, although you could, I’m simply suggesting that laying down some stepping stones will go a long way (pun intended!) to giving you direction, purpose and meaning. You can, of course build in time for your leisure pursuits. Why wouldn’t you!
Why Lee Iacocca’s quote scores so highly in my book is that it underpins my belief that the more we know about what we want our ‘next chapter’ to be like, the more control we’ll sense we have and the more confident we will feel. We are then far more likely to live a happy life.
