“When you think about leaving work, who comes to mind as possible retirement role models?” This is one of the first questions I ask when meeting with new clients, who are wondering what life will look like when they bring their career as they knew it to a close. What I often observe are pauses, furrowed brows, and quizzical downward glances. Some folks think about their peers who recently left their jobs, or mention what their parents did, followed by a host of explanations why those models won’t do.
“My friends bought a condo in Florida, but that isn’t what I want.”
“My dad stopped working completely and watched a lot of TV. I’m determined to stay active physically and contribute in some way.”
“My mother’s life became all about the grandchildren. My circumstances are totally different.”
It’s understandable that we look outside ourselves for a roadmap directing us on a journey we’ve not made before. Throughout life, one way we learn is through observing what others do. When it comes to crafting a life after work, many people realize that the examples available to them don’t answer the call they hear deep down, asking what a fulfilling life looks like, at this moment, in their context.
Why External Models May Not Fit
Retirement is not a standardized stage of life with an agreed-upon script. Unlike the era when retirement was conceptualized, many people have decades ahead of them after leaving full-time work. Some want, and need, paid work to remain part of their lives, while others are ready to turn to family, community, creativity, spiritual pursuits, and causes they care about. Research reinforces this notion that retirement is not a single, uniform experience: one’s approach, and definition of well-being, is shaped by one’s health, financial circumstances, relationships, sense of agency, and evolving stage of transition. (Kim & Moen, 2002).
This is why someone else’s model can offer inspiration without being an actual blueprint. Their model was built for their life.
Your task is to build one for yours.
A Different Question About Retirement
Instead of asking, “who’s my role model for retirement?”, it may be more useful to ask, What model of retirement do I want to build?”
This question asks that you shift retirement from a process of following instructions to authoring a life. You work with many of the pieces from earlier experiences, such as interests, relationships, strengths, core values, but you may be assembling them in a completely new way.
The absence of instructions can feel disorienting, and it can also feel liberating.
Three Skills of Building Your Own Retirement Model
Creating a retirement that fits you requires more than making a list of activities. It asks you to develop a different way of approaching this emerging era.
1.Authoring your own life
For many years, your decisions may have been shaped by external demands: professional expectations, family responsibilities, deadlines, financial goals and the need to build security.
Now, new questions arise:
What matters to me now?
How do I want to use my time and energy?
What parts of my identity do I want to carry forward?
What am I ready to let go of?
2. Experimenting without certainty
If you’re an achievement-oriented person, you’re probably accustomed to researching a problem, developing and plan, and executing it successfully.
Life after a career may not respond to that approach.
You may not know in advance whether volunteering will feel meaningful, or whether consulting will offer the right amount of engagement, or whether a class or community group that sounds appealing will actually fit.
Sometimes the only way we learn is to try. We have to let go of the promise of guaranteed success out of the gate, and accept an experiment as a way of gathering data. You might volunteer for one event rather than immediately join a committee. Take one class before enrolling in a certificate program. Accept a consulting project before deciding whether you want an ongoing practice.
The question shifts from, “Is this the right answer?” to “What did this experience teach me about myself?”
Are you willing to move forward without knowing exactly how everything will turn out? And give yourself permission to change direction? That’s the beauty of experimentation: it helps you understand what gives you energy, what drains you, and what you want to try next.
3. Reconsidering what’s important now
The priorities that served you well in your career may not be the ones that guide what’s ahead. Consider the possibility that achievement may take a second seat to contribution. Productivity may become less important than being present. A tightly structured calendar may give way to days that are partially scheduled and objective-free.
These kinds of shifts in focus and rhythm, while welcome, can feel disruptive, challenging a person’s sense of meaning and raising questions about what does matter now (Wood & Pachana, 2025). In working with clients moving through this transition, I see a host of seemingly contradictory responses, from grief combined with freedom, to joy with sorrow, to feeling paralyzed and yet light. In this paradoxical space of moving from the known to the unknown, there is an opportunity for active meaning-making, asking questions such as:
What is important to me know that was less visible before?
What do I want to contribute?
What do I want to experience rather than accomplish?
What would make my days and weeks feel satisfying?
These questions don’t always have quick or obvious answers. But they will invite you into making a model of retirement that is truly your own.
You Don’t Have to Build Your Model Alone
Authoring your own retirement doesn’t mean figuring everything out by yourself. In fact, reflecting with other people who are asking similar questions can help you discover possibilities you might not have considered on your own. Research has found that maintaining social group memberships that you care about, and developing new ones can support one’s well-being during this unique life transition. New groups can even help you develop fresh sources of connection and belonging (Haslam et. al., 2023).
That is one of the aims of Purposeful Transitions, my small group coaching program for people approaching retirement or adjusting to life after full-time work. Past cohorts have delighted in hearing others ask the same questions they’ve been asking themselves quietly. Some have gained a language for their experience that they weren’t able to previously name, and in that experience, felt less alone. Others have gained the courage to test an idea they’ve been considering and enjoy the support of others to give it a go.
Personal retirement model building, in real time, in community support. We use guided reflection, practical tools, and thoughtful conversation to explore what matters and how you want to live in the years ahead.
The next Purposeful Transitions group begins in September. The only question you need to bring is, what model do I want to build from here?
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