Challenging assumptions and expectations of ourselves
I love meeting new people and hearing about their life story.
It’s often a humbling experience for me and a reminder not to make assumptions about people.
This is an approach we can benefit from by applying it to ourselves.
When I first meet people, I explain what I do as helping them to work out what they want from retirement, their next stage of life, and breaking it down into manageable pieces to make it happen.
It’s important to know what we want, and as important to understand what we don’t want.
This means challenging the assumptions and expectations that we put on ourselves. It might also be challenging the fears or desires that family, friends and society project onto us.
Our vision of the future can become limited by believing we ‘have to’ or ‘should want to’ stop working, play golf and travel the world. Of course this is not going to be everyone’s life. And if this is what you want, find a way to do it.
If you want to do something you’ve never tried before, find a way to do that too. Don’t let other people tell you ‘no’ or allow them to persuade you that you ‘can’t’.
Do allow yourself to really think about both what you want and what you don’t want for yourself in your next stage of life.
If ‘hobbies’ isn’t a word that works for you, what interests you? What do you enjoy from working, being with people, or doing by yourself?
Notice how it makes you feel. Are you excited? Scared? Indifferent?
What is this telling you? Are you afraid because you do want to reach for something and it’s scary but could be wonderful, or do you feel pressured to live your life in a way that you don’t want to?
For a supportive, non-judgemental process to focus your future and clarify both what you want and what you don’t in retirement, contact me for a conversation about how we can work together.
P.S. To receive weekly emails to your inbox with blog articles, resources and Second Spring service information about retirement life planning, sign up to our newsletter here.
You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link at the end of emails.
