Dont be afraid to retire

Don’t be afraid to retire. Retirement is a blessing don’t turn it into a curse. Retirement doesn’t mean you are tired. It means you now have the opportunity to take advantage of the greater things life has to offer. It means you can now go on and be all you can be.

Watch the YouTube video for this post through this link. https://youtu.be/8PlNHpSgvXQ

But I am afraid because I don’t know what to do next?.

When you were between age 23-30 about the time you left the university, you weren’t sure of where to start in life. (At least for me that was how I felt). I kept my mind open, left my father’s house, headed for Lagos (one of the cities in Nigeria) to hustle out my own portion of life. So at 63, for example, you are not as clueless as you were maybe 35 years ago.

But I am now older and have responsibilities?
Yes, but you also know more now. You have experience and exposure from all the trainings and time you spent working at your former office. As an experienced man or woman, you won’t make the mistakes that a 23 year old greenhorn will make. You even have to your advantage the connections you have built up all your working years.

Don’t put a limit on your life because you are 60 or just lost a job at an older age. Who even decided that at 60-63 you are no longer productive. I know people who started their businesses at over 60 and are still thriving. Ernestine Shepherd is still into bodybuilding at 82. She started when she was over 50. Read my first blog for more details on this by following this link. How to remain young forever

Don’t believe that company manual that says at over 60 you are tired. Don’t believe them when they say you are old and rigid. Evaluate yourself and you will see that it’s not true. As long as you are healthy and your mind is active, don’t believe the company’s conclusion concerning your life. You and God have the final say.

Also, stop talking the “I am retired-talk”. Stop saying “I will be retiring soon”….”I won’t be having enough money as before”. People start talking themselves down when they ought not to. Soon, their minds starts to shut down because, by your manner of speaking, you are indirectly giving instructions to your body/brain to preparing for lack/slowing down.

So what should I do as a retiree?
Don’t prepare to live on pension and tension. Prepare to live happily after retirement. After retiring you can do anything, achieve anything, become more valuable than you ever thought.

Start to redefine yourself.
Start to think of all the things you really wanted to do but you weren’t able to do all these years. You have valuable things in you. When you were working what were the things people came to you for? What did men seek you out for? What grieves you that you want to be solved? What gives you joy when you do it? What is your former company doing wrong that you have figured out? You could take this back to them and get paid for it. You could, in turn, sell the solution to other companies and make your money. You can even turn your hobby into a legitimate business. There is so much to do if you think out of the box.

Find the value in you. Look for how to make it practical, then watch how honor and money will chase it instead of you chasing them.

Work on your Mind
Move your mind away from shutting down to rising up.
You have to put on the “can do spirit”. Start seeing yourself the way you want to see yourself. Not as a retiree. There is nothing called retiree in creation. It’s an invention of the modern man. Everyone has the capability to keep going if they chose to. You have the right to keep going on. No company executives or manual has a right to tell you it’s over. There is still much you can give.

Everyone came here to give something. Everyone has a path destined for him to take. You still have something to do/give to this world be it in the area of career or business. Now is the time to do it. Change the way you think. You thought of yourself for a while as a company executive. Now you have to learn to see yourself not as a retiree that the company said you are, but as an Entrepreneur, Blogger, Counsellor etc whatever you want to be.

In your career, you were once called an Intern by the company. So you operated as an intern. After a while, then they said you are an Executive Assistant. So you behaved as an Executive Assistant thought and lived as an Executive Assistant. Then over the years they said you are now a Manager, Senior Manager, Divisional Manager, Director etc and you kept adjusting your actions and thoughts accordingly. All these decisions were not yours. What they said was what you accepted. Now, they said you are a Retiree. Well if that’s what you want, no problem. But if that’s not what you want the for once, say no. Say I am the Chairman, Managing Director of Solo effort group inc. and go start it. Choose who you want to be after having them chose for you for over 40 years and go do what will make it happen.

If you are at a job now, you will need to start redefining yourself as who you really want to become after you leave the organization and start making plans in that direction. If you look around, the workplace/life can be very cruel. One day you are on top of the ladder the next day someone says go for early retirement or they bring some tempting money and buy-out your remaining years and the next thing is reality tells *you have been retired. What do you do want to do now” ?

I know the feeling having had two jobs I wanted to build my life around suddenly shut down due to economic adversities. I had to redefine myself. I know how hard that can be but it can be done. You have to work on your mind and start seeing yourself differently. I am a Christian and so I brought in my Christian values-prayers, meditation, counselling, positive and practical steps/actions etc till I re-defined myself to become who I wanted to be.

Understand this-The work model has changed. Before, the pattern was going to school, get a job, marry and work until you are retired. It’s no longer so.. Life has evolved. You could be retired at 40 if the company chooses to buy-out your remaining years. You don’t have to let whatever happened to you get you down. You have to do something with the remaining years of your life.

Also start working on your self esteem before you retire

Before you drew self esteem from being called Project director or Permanent secretary in your former company etc. Transition to seeing yourself now as an Entrepreneur or Movie Director, Music Director etc. Draw your self esteem from the new thing you want to become and go do something about it. Life is full of stories of people who after their working years became greater than who they were before they were retired. Don’t be afraid. Many have passed through that path before and are celebrities today.

I mean create a vision of your next move. See it in your mind’s eye. When something forms an image in your mind, that image will create a goal and that goal will give birth to a plan and the plan will give you something to do.

Conclusion

Look life is all about change. Stuff happens. Some good, some bad. Marriage may break, a loved one dies, the company may close down etc. So when the break called retirement comes you have to realise that it was the virtue in you that made them call employ you in the first place. Tell yourself that virtue is not dead. Pick yourself up and look inwards. Don’t prepare to sit down at home with pension and tension. Get up Sir and re-create a new and better life.

SEE YOU AT THE TOP-ZIG ZIGLAR.
Selah.

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