Oh my goodness — there are only three months left until I stop going to the office every day. My ‘to do’ list has been prepared and I am working on completion of projects for which I have responsibility. I am also starting to prepare transfer notes for my successor once that person is named by the Board of Directors. I know that staff members are beginning to plan a retirement reception for people in my network and another party that will be for the staff only. I can feel myself detaching from some of the people around me and I can also feel that they are detaching from me. It is exciting and scary at the same time.
Certainly this dilemma has been faced by so many others: what will I do after work? That is the theme of this blog — as I embark on this personal journey I will share the learning with readers. That will include honest assessments of what is working for me after 35 plus years in a fast paced professional career as well as what is not working. I will write about the highs and the lows as I re-discover the person behind the career and as I learn to live my ‘post work’ life.
Like so many who choose retirement I have my bucket list but I am reserving my right to chuck the list and just follow my instincts and interests. After so many years of setting personal professional and organizational goals and measuring myself as well as facing measurement by others, I don’t want to set goals or follow plans too closely. Perhaps I can learn just to ‘be’ — no agendas, no time lines, and no accountability except to myself. What an exciting and scary possibility!
The excitement will be created as I discover the ‘new’ lifestyle free from the incessant schedule of appointments and meetings and reports that need writing. And the flip side of discovering the ‘new’ lifestyle is the scary part as I will need to create a schedule that conforms with my deepest longings for joy in this phase of my life and finding personal, social and emotional fulfillment through sources other than the office.
I hope you will share my journey and also that you will post your own ‘post work’ experiences.
The best part of my post work experience was leaving the country of my birth, leaving the crime and corruption, and settling in Canada with my daughters and grandchildren. Every new experience makes my life interesting. I now have the freedom to do whatever I please or go where ever I wish. My options for the future are open. I wish you the same opportunities.