Retiring Without Regret
A friend of mine, when he was in his mid-20's, told me of his plan to retire by 45. I was still using the old definition of retirement and since 45 is well short of 65, I deemed his plan to be a joke. His words, though, stayed with me over the years as I, too, contemplated how to get out of the rat race early. It took a random conversation with a new friend to help me replace a faulty definition with a new one. Here's how my retirement at age 55 came about and what I’ve learned after one week in it.
For the last 5 years, I had been working a full-time job while building a coaching business on the side. Being a life coach is my passion, my life's purpose. While the full-time job had components of my purpose in it, the bureaucracy and not-so-fun-stuff brought me down. I wasn't loving the job anymore. It was taking valuable energy from me, leaving only scraps to use for brainstorming, networking, and executing steps to grow my business.
One day, I was having coffee with someone I'd just met who I now call a friend. She was telling me her story and mentioned retiring so she could work on her current project. Somewhere in that conversation she mentioned the age 55. Like a baseball bat upside the head, it dawned on me that I'm 55! Being that age and the fact I had 16 years of service to my employer, I wouldn't have to quit, I could retire! The next day I made a few phone calls and in less than a week, plans were in place to announce my last day. It was the scariest and most exhilarating thing I've ever done.
It's funny how the word "retirement" doesn't mean what it used to. Our parents and grandparents used the word to mean the end of their career and the steady income that came from service to an employer. They then spent time playing golf, traveling, watching grandkids, gardening, etc. Now it means transitioning from one career to another, often times from a job to a passion project.
Do I expect leaving secure employment for the sake of my dreams will be all rainbows and butterflies? Not at all. So why would I put myself through this? Because I fear regret!
I am a self-proclaimed self-help junkie. I read books, listen to podcasts, and watch almost every free webinar that comes across my feed. I listen to the success stories from people just like me who made their dreams come true. I don't fear snakes or mice or spiders but I do fear laying on my deathbed regretting my choices and the chances I didn't take. For me, failing at this coaching business would be far less devastating than not giving myself the chance to try to make it work.
I used to worry about what other people thought of me. I was a follower in high school who accidentally became a leader in college. I never, and I mean never, knew my purpose in life or what I wanted to be (yes, even though I went to college). I was 49 years old when I figured it out! I spent some time being really frustrated about that fact but have since come to believe that it happened exactly the way it was meant to. It's been the right amount of urgency to fuel the visualization of my dream life and the development of a plan to get there.
Retirement, little did I know, was the culmination of my reinvention process (Read my reinvention story in this blog post). It was the missing piece I didn't know I needed to become the next version of myself. It was the piece that ensures my career won't be a regret when my time on Earth is over.
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This blog was written by Tracy with absolutely no use of AI.
