In a recent podcast, Michelle Obama discussed the speculation that she and former President Barack Obama were on the road to divorce, simply because she was not seen with him in public on a few occasions.
On the “Work in Progress” podcast, she explained how since leaving the White House she has enjoyed the freedom to do more of what she wants to do. On those who were commenting on this in a negative way, Ms Obama said:
“They couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself. That they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing. That this couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself. But that’s what society does to us.”
On my own
The same could also apply to couple where both have recently retired, and are doing their own thing separate from their spouse or partner. It could be easy to assume that they were not getting on anymore, rather than carving their own time and space, probably for the first time in decades.
Part of that is about working out who they are in retirement. Ms Obama had previously said that she was “moving towards retirement” and that:
“Now is the time for me to start asking myself these hard questions of … ‘Who do I truly want to be every day? And that changes.”
Who am I now?
I love that idea of “Who do I want to be every day?” being in a state of flux. It recognises that it’s not just our goals but our circumstances and outlooks that change over the years.
We may start our working life wanting to be the best teacher/lawyer/doctor. That might change into being the best parent AND the best (insert job title here). By the time you approach retirement as an accomplished professional, you are pretty much defined by the last major position you held at work.
When you retire, you lose the work identity that you have spent the best part of your life creating. Michelle Obama may have been First Lady for eight years, but that was always a time-limited job. So much so that her Wikipedia entry currently describes her as “An American attorney and author”.
So, she may well ask herself, “Who do I truly want to be every day?”
Not what, who. The person, not the position.
Not many people ever ask that question.
That’s a big reason why I became a retirement coach, to ask the questions people just were not asking themselves. Over the years, and many conversations with clients, I found that very few people retiring from work had considered who they wanted to be when they retired. Most hadn’t even considered what they were going to do from day to day, let alone what their overall goals were.
That’s why my ‘Retirement Game Plan’ covers the core elements of living a successful and fulfilling retirement, namely:
- Family
- Social
- Health (Mental and Physical)
- Personal Growth
- Giving Back
- Leisure
- Purpose
- Financial
I have put “Financial” last deliberately. As I said in a previous article on the Retirement Iceberg:
“Many people approaching retirement concentrate so hard on the numbers that when they do retire, they have absolutely no idea of how they are going to spend their time. Without the rest of the areas planned for, a non-planned retirement will drift aimlessly with the currents until the enjoyment starts to melt away.”
If you have no plan, no passions and no purpose, it’s difficult to know who you are today, let alone every day.
Start your planning with a Discovery Call
If you feel adrift or not sure exactly who/what/where you want to be in retirement, I can help. Simply book your complimentary 30mins Discovery call with me to talk through your current situation, goals, aspirations and financial provisions. We’ll then know where you are now, and what your options are to create a great retirement.
