Just Retire Different: Managing the Retirement Transition

We want to help you live a future life fulfilled by preparing for all aspects of the retirement transition. So here are some key practical, psychological, and emotional things to think about alongside the finances.

To work or not to work?

Do you fully retire or keep working in some capacity? The notion of gradual or 'phased' retirement is catching on - a recent Just survey showed that midlifers are almost twice as likely to be planning to phase into retirement than take the ‘hard stop’ full retirement option.

The 'half and half' approach of working part-time can offer the best of both worlds. It’s maintaining the connections, activity and mental stimulation of a job while enjoying more time to focus on our social and leisure lives. All while bringing in an income.

It sure sounds win-win, but it’s not for everyone. You may be eager to call time on work completely so we can pursue passions, plans and personal growth.

There’s no right or wrong way to retire. It’s about individual choice.

Identity and purpose

Another variable is identity. For many people, work isn’t just work. It’s not just 'doing a job' or 'earning a crust', it’s more about 'who we are'.

We Brits love to start a conversation with “What do you do?”, so imagine having to answer that question without reference to a job title. This may be particularly unsettling for men - perhaps because of traditional gender roles, but also because men are less likely to take career breaks to have children. Job and identity are as one for decades.

But if 'lost purpose' is the challenge, then surely 'found purpose' is the solution. There’s no better time than retirement to fill the purpose vacuum.

Mentoring, volunteering, activism, meditation, writing, painting, poetry, running - even if you don’t ever find your thing you can have a lot of fun trying. And the important thing is that you try.

There's plenty more on finding purpose in the Living More section of this app.

Social and emotional prep

People will generally talk about the earliest phase of retirement in one of two ways:

1. It’s awesome: no routine, no emails, all this free time
2. It’s awful: no routine, no emails, all this free time

Either way it’s an adjustment. So you’ll have to adjust. Trick one is carving out a new routine that works for you.

Trick two, interestingly, is people.

Think of a workday. The people you see on your journey to work, the person who serves you in the coffee shop, the quirky receptionist… most of us have several social interactions before even laying eyes on an actual colleague. You may miss the safety, routine and familiarity of all that.

But even so, your work relationships are largely there by default. Retirement, on the other hand, offers time and space to curate and create a fellowship based on genuine kinship. On shared values, hobbies, interests and experiences.

Building that community can be vital for your mental and emotional health, not least because you have networks we can regularly tap into for fun, learning, support and personal growth. You can also consult people further along the retirement journey and absorb their wisdom.

Forming new social circles can be daunting, but there are like-minded people are there. You can join clubs, groups and organisations based around a common theme. Volunteering, communities, classes and groups – online and off – are all there for the exploring.

As a last word, don’t forget your nearest and dearest. Retirement can be a wonderful opportunity to deepen ties with existing friends and family and advance those relationships too. It’s important – for selfish and selfless reasons – that you keep your social connections strong and strengthening.

Allow yourself time to prepare

People often say they don’t like change, but is that true? Or is it truer to say we don’t like the changes we don’t like? The changes we can’t control?

Here at Just, our aim is to give people the inspiration, tools and support they need for a rewarding retirement. There’s plenty to be found elsewhere in this app.

Because given some thought, planning and consideration, many of the changes retirement throws up are controllable… or at least anticipatable. The key thing is to try and give yourself enough bandwidth to do so.

This article is provided by Just Group, a FTSE-listed financial services company and a leader in defined benefit de-risking, individual retirement income and care markets. They've been trusted by their customers to carefully look after £27 billion of their pension savings and helped them release more than £7 billion from their properties.