How to avoid boredom, monotony in retirement
When winding down a long career, it’s tempting to want to scale back on the multitasking that inevitably creeps into the final years of a job.
Whether the career footprint was large or small, chances are there will be some kind of transition planning and wrapping up of current special projects while continuing to perform regular duties. Perhaps, also, while helping launch adult children and figuring out how to live on the nest egg and Social Security.
The urge to flee the multitasking in retirement and narrow the focus of life to a single idea — gardening, golf, working a job you could do in your sleep for some extra cash — is certainly understandable.
Understandable, and fraught with the potential to induce depression, experts say, as formerly active workers descend into boredom and monotony in retirement as they learn to live without the power they once wielded in the workplace.
Over two decades coaching senior executives of large companies as a management consultant, Leslie Braksick saw that in many cases their transition to retirement wasn’t going well.
“They found it difficult to know what to do” after work ended, said Braksick, co-founder of My Next Season, a firm that provides companies with transition programs for retiring top executives. Though some clients go on to paid second careers, the company typically matches executives with nonprofit organizations for volunteer executive assignments and donates back 20 percent of its fees to the nonprofit.
Add to that the stress involved when retirement happens not on the individual’s timetable but on the company’s.
“Companies are under increased pressure to deliver results, and they spend time recruiting younger talent they don’t want to lose, so to keep moving people up, that means moving people out,” Braksick said.
Unlike a traditional outplacement firm that focuses exclusively on the next job, My Next Season puts executives through comprehensive health evaluations, interest exercises, conversations with spouses or partners, ghost writing services for publishing articles on the client’s expertise, and personalized networking, in addition to matching them with a nonprofit in need of their skills.
The multipronged approach resonated with client Mark Little, General Electric’s chief technology officer and leader of GE Global Research before officially retiring at the end of the year. Working with Braksick’s team, Little has begun conversations about working with some venture capital firms, stepped up plans for the foundation he and his wife, Terri, oversee and is planning a volunteer trip this year to the Dominican Republic with Habitat for Humanity.
Getting projects going on multiple fronts creates an energy that easily fills the void from his previous work without putting him back in the daily grind, Little said.
“To go from 100 miles an hour to zero was frightening,” Little, 63, said of retiring. Braksick’s team “helped allay those fears, and I’m finding myself quite consumed by very interesting projects to think about on the social side. On the business side, I’ve had way more overtures about opportunities than I expected.”
My Next Season typically gets paid by employers, with the most comprehensive package totaling $100,000, so it’s typically reserved for the most senior executives. The concept of getting multiple irons in the fire, however, can be replicated.
On the social-good side, for example, there are about 600 U.S. locations with volunteer programs through RSVP, formerly known as Retired and Senior Volunteer Programs ( seniorcorps.org), said Betsy Werley, network expansion director for Encore.org, an organization that offers programs for retiring workers looking to engage with nonprofits. Encore offers fellowship programs with $25,000 stipends in about a dozen cities. It also partners with the Executive Service Corps ( escus.org), which has locations in about 20 markets.
Braksick is exploring ways to bring some of her coaching to the masses. She is creating a mobile networking app, has developed an online assessment workbook and is exploring possible phone-based consulting services geared to more middle-market executives.
All of these programs can have substantial value as people retire and consider next steps, Werley said. “They can be extremely helpful in walking people through the reflection period, letting them experience new things to try,” she said. Share your journey to or through retirement or pose a question at journey @janetkiddstewart.com.