In 2005, Alan Roadburg, PhD wrote, “Life after medicine: The secret to retirement happiness”, a guide endorsed by the Canadian Medical Association’s MD Financial group of companies, and subsequently shared with Canadian physicians nearing retirement. Written as an easy weekend read, in a similar style to David Chilton’s “The Wealthy Barber”, the book’s underlying premise is that, unlike financial planning, the non-financial side of retirement is uncharted territory—often left to chance—yet equally important for structuring a successful and happy transition to life in the slow lane. His book creates a framework (“Life Goal Planning”) for the process, one that complements, and ultimately defines, the financial plan for retirement. Just like planning a vacation, you have to consider first where and when you are going, and how you are going to get there, before you ask how much it costs.
Change the concept of retirement.
In creating a framework to better understand retirement, Roadburg’s overarching concept is to simply rework the “R-word” (retire), to what he calls, “retire with a dash”: To “re-tire”, a concept analogous to “getting a new set of wheels to embark on a new life journey,” or essentially, “a (newly created or revitalized) career earned from, and following, work.” Roadburg’s “re-tirement” is a clear departure from some older concepts–such as being “put out to pasture”, or simply giving up working in favor of being rewarded with daily leisure time—by gardening or playing golf every day. Instead, he emphasizes that it can actively focus on one or several worthwhile pursuits that bring enjoyment; unlike retiring, where you are giving something up, in re-tiring, you are gaining a new direction in life. Your re-tirement can also be thought of as your next, and best, career, because it can integrate the best features of both work and leisure time, can be crafted with a lifetime of accumulated experience, and with the benefit of plenty of time to formulate it.
Money concerns are less important than we think.
Interestingly, research has shown that, among pre-retirees, 75% reported they would most likely be working for pay after they retire; yet only 44% said they needed the income. Staying mentally alert (93%), maintaining social interaction (86%) and feeling useful (74%) were more popular reasons to continue working—essentially to avoid boredom. And among dissatisfied retirees, another study showed the main reasons they missed work were exactly the same (lack of stimulation and feeling useful), with only 9% mentioning money as a problem.
Recognize the common mental roadblocks to re-tirement.
In dispelling some myths, Roadburg first emphasizes the need to avoid conflating health and aging issues with re-tirement. While health is, of course, important to enjoying re-tirement, this premise is true at any stage of life. Re-tirement should not be likened to a terminal disease, as the beginning of the end. Similarly, being a “senior citizen” it is not a reliable harbinger of physical or mental decline—rather, it might be more constructive to associate “senior” with increased wisdom, experience, and maturity. Symptoms often seen in some retirees—depression, loneliness, boredom, poor health, decreased vitality, among others—can also occur at any age. The common story heard about retirees dying shortly after retiring are actually uncommon, and ignores a large number of people who probably lived longer because they retired in good time. As for memory decline with aging—studies have shown that memory can actually improve when given memory training sessions, even in the elderly. Hence, re-tirement only affects memory adversely if the mind stagnates.
Second, Roadburg dispels the notion that re-tirement is just a tipping point to extended free time, or the beginning of secondary or trivial pursuits that lack purpose or meaning. Rather, this staging point is when you change from a work to a re-tirement career—by drawing on past experiences to plan a new path that integrates the best of work and leisure, you can re-introduce goals, draw on well-established needs and skills, and create new challenges. With this perspective, any malaise you might have had being stuck with a lack of direction will soon be replaced by optimism and creativity.
Third, although it is well acknowledged that a physician’s life focus is central and consuming while working, and difficult to compete with, or replace, in re-tirement, Roadburg makes clear that satisfactions derived in a medical career can still be found in alternative activities, even if it takes more than one life focus to replace it. Medicine need not be looked at as the job you can never leave, or the be all and end all as a source of happiness and satisfaction for physicians.
On the contrary, re-tirement now, especially as a Boomer, can be thought of as winning a lottery–it can provide you the time and opportunity you never had when you were working, to find other forms of happiness and fulfillment that may have previously eluded you. Today’s re-tiring Boomers are generally richer, better educated, and live longer than any group before them, and, by virtue of the size of this cohort, will retain political and economic clout–a bandwagon if ever there was one!
The secret to re-tirement happiness for physicians
As physicians approach their retirement years, most will start to identify at least some goals and directions for life after medicine, even if only in broad strokes. If you are in this cohort, you should consider listing these as best you can–they are preliminary or anticipated plans that will be reviewed after the next exercise and then refined further.
In his book, Roadburg’s primary theme is stated as, “The secret to retirement happiness is to find alternative activities that will replace the satisfactions lost that used to be satisfied through practicing medicine.” Most of us have looked at work as simply an activity, instead of as a means of satisfying some of our deeper needs, which, in turn, dictates if our work is enjoyable. The more complex the activity, like a career in medicine, the more needs it is likely to satisfy. Re-tirement activities should be looked at similarly–they are simply vehicles of enjoyment through which we can satisfy our needs, and these are often ones that our work once satisfied. So, to find satisfaction and enjoyment in re-tirement, we will need to find these activities. But since these activities don’t usually fall into your lap, we will have to create a process to discover them. But how?
How to get there.
So what are these satisfactions, these personal core needs that make working as a physician worthwhile? Essentially, why do you go to work? Money, for sure, but what else? Create a list identifying some common needs–such as the one below–you may well be able to add to it:
MONEY FRIENDSHIPS ROUTINE STIMULATION CHALLENGE SATISFACTION IDENTITY STATUS POWER ADMIRATION RESPECT LEARNING
After creating a work-related needs list (such as the list above), you will need to build a skills list as well. Skills are also important because enjoying an activity is often a satisfying opportunity to use our skills. Many of your general work skills are often taken for granted because they are second nature—business skills, problem-solving skills, communication skills, etc. If you are having difficulty, imagine having to hire someone to replace you—what skills would they need? E.g., computer skills, problem-solving, teaching, leadership, time management, writing, etc.
And then, for more ideas for your needs and skills lists, also identify your current leisure activities, and ask, specifically, why you enjoy them–these are needs and skills you satisfy that are different than work–and add these to your lists. These skills could include carpentry, cooking, mentoring, parenting, writing, sports, music, languages, art, coaching, volunteering, etc. Do the same with any recalled leisure activities that are from your distant past, even before you were beginning adulthood and working for the first time–to supply more entries for your lists. Finally, list the things you are looking forward to when no longer working, e.g., regular sleep, working out, home cooking, travelling, reading the paper, more time for friends, spouse, kids, etc.
Now review your preliminary anticipated plans list and compare this with your needs and skills list. You may notice that some of your needs may not be satisfied by your current plans and activities. Identify the needs and skills that are not being met by your plans, which will cause you to change something, to search for, or create alternatives….in re-tirement, you have the time! Even if the list looks well covered, there may be a “honeymoon” period after which your plans lose their appeal, and revisions are necessary. You may have to wait until after you re-tire to better assess if your plans actually do satisfy your needs and skills. The development and progress of your re-tirement career is much like sailing a boat (or even your working career)—you may have a good idea of the destination, but you may not know the exact route until you are on your way. You likely have to make several adjustments to your course of discovery, since replacing satisfactions lost from work can be a tall order, and opportunities and interests also change over time. What you wind up doing may be far removed from where you set out—but just an alternate route to get to your re-tirement destination.
What about working in re-tirement?
Some people, including many physicians, will want to continue to work, whether full or part-time in re-tirement—there is nothing wrong with that, as long as their non-monetary needs and skills are ALL being met. For some it may be justified as a transitional step. For others, it may be fear of letting go of the familiar over a willingness to explore new activities; or perhaps it may be pessimism or even laziness –not wanting to commit time and energy to consider other options. It is important to consider than working in re-tirement is not always a panacea, and that it may remain a barrier to accessing other important needs that have not been met–it is worth asking, is a career in medicine the only way to be happy?
When to leave.
For most physicians, there is no magic age to retire, whether by choice or by decree. So what does the critical mass look like, the tipping point for the determined decision to re-tire?
There are “push factors”—things you are happy to give up at work—and “pull factors”—things you will look forward to in re-tirement, that will have to be analyzed to determine when you are ready to retire. Consider retiring when your needs—pull factors–met in retirement are equal or greater than those currently met at work. If they are not, then re-tiring could be a mistake. Just like buying a car, planning to re-tire requires doing your homework—advantages, disadvantages, needs, health issues, family issues, working environment issues, etc–a thorough analysis may yield different results as circumstances change. Generally, the 3 main factors to weigh can be reduced to push, pull, and money issues.
Some unexpected considerations in re-tirement.
Retirement can affect friendships and spousal
relationships, especially when they are people still at work. The ground rules in a marriage may be
challenged as well—the daily rhythm of time together and at home usually
changes—therefore communication becomes vital to clarify your feelings about
the transition, your goals of shared experiences, and your goals of time
together and apart.
To keep your relationships strong, respect
others’ space and their needs. Re-tirees
are going through a transition, including lost satisfactions from work. Retirees may now feel a need to get more
satisfactions from home, and that can upend the balance at home.
Retirement, though, is a good time to expand your friendship circle. You may find you have less in common with some friends once you do not have work in common, so you may need to be willing to find new friends in some of the new areas of interest that you have.
On whether to retire together with your spouse, there are many factors that play in to whether that is even possible, but it requires complete discussions of mutual expectations, what you want to plan to do together, and what each person’s central life focus will be in re-tirement, not just what they will be busy with.
Regarding a major change in scenery, Roadburg suggests to not be in a rush to burn your bridges by moving to a new community before you know the new community is right for you. If you can, do a trial run by renting—you may not initially realize the things you might miss—your doctor or dentist, certain friends or shops, parks, etc. Individual needs vary: Not everyone needs to move, although some may want to return to a childhood community, or move to a community that offers more opportunities for satisfying needs and skills; others may want to build a bigger home, or to downsize (some may need the money to support their re-tirement goals). To be a successful move, both spouses need to be in favor of it in terms of push and pull factors.
Summary
Roadburg’s book is one of several he has published that provides a clear, if overly simplified, framework for transitioning into “re-tirement“. However, since Roadburg is a Ph.D. and not an M.D., his guidelines fall well short of recognizing the many unique difficulties that physicians have with retirement, both in their “push” and “pull” factors. For example, he makes no mention of the many unique skills that physicians have developed in their career that are simply not transferrable to a non-medical activity, and he provides no commentary on how to transition from the high level of sustained commitment physicians have to maintain throughout their career. The next post will unpack some of these issues–from a retired physician’s perspective. Stay tuned.
