How I stopped focusing on retirement and leaned into my ‘rewirement’

You’ve just retired, and in the blush of that found time, your life seems to be taking a decidedly positive turn. You are freer now than you’ve ever been. You can sleep later, take a leisurely shower, and plan trips whenever you want. There are no deadlines to meet, no meetings to endure, and no clients or other stakeholders to manage.

But there are also no appealing challenges for you to ponder or triumphs to celebrate. Eventually, in the honesty of your most objective moments, you know something is “off,” and you are starting to feel adrift. Your calendar has now opened to days of mostly blank space. Metaphorically, it is something between desert and forest. Dry and dark … and getting darker.

It is a particular derangement, a silent assault on your sense of identity, and you have no passport away from it. This life state called “retirement” has occupied you completely, and it is not what you might have expected. It feels more like an ending, a loss, an uncertainty, an inert state in which your energy is no longer directed toward anything challenging or meaningful.

As a psychologist and an executive coach, I have always eschewed the concept of retirement, and the word, too. Retirement — it just didn’t seem apt for anyone who, in the words of a global CEO whom I coached before he retired, “… still had a lot of juice left.”

Some years before I was approaching my own retirement, I started thinking about a more apt and ego-syntonic way to refer to it. Eventually, I hit on the neologism “rewirement,” and whenever I used it in conversation — especially with retirees or pre-retirees — it elicited immediate and positive reactions, strong resonant reactions, and even fervent reactions of gratitude for this term.

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Many of the retirees had had demanding and truly successful careers, but they were now feeling flat and at odds with themselves. Uncertain. Unhappy. While they had no financial or physical or familial concerns to worry about, I detected a distinct, almost depressive angst that had been triggered and sustained by their status as a retiree. Their conversation dwelled on “what was before” with no trace of “what could be now.” While they weren’t clear about the concept of rewirement, they brightened at the sound of it.

Of course, not everyone falls into an emotional abyss after retirement. There are people who move through their adult development phases successfully and for whom that growth helps propel them into a state of rewirement upon their retirement — they just didn’t have a word for it. These rewired people serve as role models in that their postretirement journeys are characterized by self-compassion, humor, optimism, curiosity, resilience, and self-expression.

As I’ve come to see it, rewirement is the postretirement life phase during which the retiree identifies pursuits that foster a state of renewal. These pursuits may be new, or they may be “back-burner” dreams or interests that one finally has time to explore.

Rewired people serve as role models in their postretirement journeys.

This state of renewal is sustained by a sense of meaning and contentment. This is comparable to or may even transcend the sense of accomplishment experienced in their previous work-related role.

I am reminded of the former global business executive who became a fine art photographer, the nonprofit leader who joined a community group in which members mended the clothing of low-income and homeless people, the psychotherapist (and former priest) who became a chaplain to hospital patients, and the human resources professional who became a master gardener.

The factors that identify the difference between these successful rewirements and those who get stuck in a conflicted or discontented state of retirement await the scrutiny of research. There is much to discover here.

However, in the meantime, I highlight the concept of rewirement as a possible neutralizer to the quotidian malaise that can seize us in retirement. I see it as a mental compass that can help us progress to renewal. And I’ve also identified three guideposts for those seeking a new sense of meaning as they transition out of their careers.

This is based on one overarching question: What’s my aspirational self now? Exploring the answer to this question involves a concerted reflection about what pursuits one aspires to focus on now in this newfound time they’ve been calling retirement. In short, it’s the identification of the pursuits that will yield challenge and be meaningful in postretirement. This may be clear and even obvious for some, but it can be difficult for others; serious discussion with people who know us well (e.g., colleagues, close friends, partner, executive coach) can help clarify the path forward.

Regardless of how we address this fundamental question, the answer will significantly inform efforts toward achieving rewirement — efforts focused forward on possibilities vs. getting stuck in feelings of loss, despair, emptiness, or even unrequitedness. This is a time to build, not mourn.

Greater discernment about time can prove especially difficult because we are habituated to our daily routines and priorities. Our routines and priorities are deeply ingrained. We trust and value these habits. They have abetted our success.

However, true rewirement necessitates an abandonment of certain habits — especially those that could interfere with what we really want to pursue during this life phase. For example, pleasing others and an inability to say no, even to requests for spending time and doing things we really don’t want to do anymore, are particular blockers to rewirement.

The necessary behavioral shift here is to deny requests for our time that are not in the service of achieving our aspirational self. While it may sound egocentric, asking yourself the question “Does this really deserve my time given what I’m trying to do now?” is a proactive habit to cultivate on the path to rewirement.

Achieving rewirement often requires a difficult reflection about the quality of our relationships. Who’s supportive? Who’s not? Who’s a time drain? Who fuels our progress, happiness, and sense of meaning in postretirement? If we have a partner, do we need to have a courageous conversation with them about how we can successfully navigate this next life phase together?

Like habituated work habits that can block progress toward rewirement, certain relationships may also need to be changed or even let go in rewirement. As a successfully rewired business leader once told me: “I realized I had to prune my relationship portfolio as if it were a business. There were so many people from the past with whom I had little in common now.”

Ultimately, to achieve a successful rewirement, retirees may need to change some habits, they may need to manage their time differently, and they may need to adjust some relationships. However, as difficult as these efforts may be at first, they should be rewarded — rewarded because they support the retiree’s tilting toward what can be now vs. slipping into the emotional abyss of what was.

Sigmund Freud maintained that a human life is primarily about two spheres: love and work, and if there’s trouble in one sphere, or surely if there’s trouble in both, that’s a scenario for a depression.

As a sturdy and adventuresome bridge between work and love, a retiree’s personal renewal — fostered by their rewirement pursuits — is a reliable antidote to depression.

Yes, you are freer in retirement, but you can be even freer — and happier — in a state of rewirement. It is an oasis in the desert. Moonlight in the forest. So, are you in your rewirement now? And if not, what will it take to get you there?

Karol M. Wasylyshyn is a consulting psychologist happily in the midst of her evolving rewirement.