As long as you’ve got enough money retirement is going to be a walk in the park, Right?

Wrong!

Whilst having enough financially is definitely a major part of the puzzle I’d suggest there’s one element of stepping into retirement (or whatever happens next) which is vital to get right…and it’s one that a lot of people don’t talk about.

There’s loads of people talking about money, about physical health, about community and social wellbeing, and they are all really important elements of planning for ‘what happens next’ in your life.

However, there’s one thing which is worth thinking about before we discuss any of that…and it’s mindset.

So, in this blog I want to talk about your retirement mindset and explain why your attitudes, beliefs, stories you tell yourself about the world and the decision-making frameworks can either massively contribute to a retirement of your dreams or a retirement of your nightmares.

I’m also going to share a bunch of practical tips to help you plan and prepare your mindset for your best next chapter ever.

It’s interesting.

When I think about the biggest difference between someone who is living their best ‘what happens next’ life and someone who isn’t enjoying the next stage there’s normally one major difference.

It typically isn’t money. Whilst having ‘enough’ is definitely a hygiene barrier, someone with loads more money isn’t exponentially happier.

It typically isn’t physical health. You assume that those who retire with decent health WILL enjoy their lives more,  but this isn’t always the case.

It isn’t even about social connections or family. 

Often the biggest difference between someone who is having a great retirement and a mediocre or poor one is mindset. It’s the stories we tell ourselves about the world. It’s our beliefs, attitudes and mental frameworks which have a massive impact on the quality of the next stage of our lives.

So, in this blog, I want to share what mindset shifts allow us to live the retirement (or what happens next) we truly want and the action you can take to get you closer to your ideal retirement or ‘what happens next’.

Let’s start with Ambition and Curiosity.

There’s a great explanation from neuroscientist Anne Laure Le Cunff about having an experimental mindset and this is something I believe is an important idea when you’re navigating what happens next in your life.

An experimental mindset involves trying low-cost experiments to better understand what sort of live you might want to live in the next chapter.

However, before we talk about what practical things you should consider with an experimental mindset it’s worth exploring the two traits you need to develop so that you’re able to develop.

The first is high levels of curiosity and the second is high levels of ambition.

In the video, and I think she’s right, Anne Laure talks about the fact that people with low curiosity and low ambition to live the lives you want are typically the cynical ones. They’re the ones among us who like an argument about irrelevant matters, focus on doom scrolling and continuously reading negative news and because of these traits it’s not particularly the most healthy quadrant to live in.

The next quadrant is the Escapist mindset where you’ve got high curiosity and low ambition. This is the mindset with lofty goals but not much action towards acheiving these goals.

The next quadrant is the perfectionist mindset. One where you want to take action to move forward, but you’re not making enough mistakes and learning enough to do this effectively.

Anne Laure argues powerfully in the recent Big Think presentation that high ambition and high curiosity, you want to try new and exciting things but appreiates you are going into this project with a willingness to fail and learn something from this failure.

Having an experimental mindset means trying new stuff, appreciating failure and incrementally designing your life consciously to head in the right direction.

However, if you find yourself stuck in a cynical, escapist or perfectionist mindset there’s one more mindset shift worth discussing. The shift from ‘fixed mindset’ to ‘growth mindset’.

I first read about fixed and growth mindset in an amazing book simply called Mindset by Carol Dweck.

A fixed mindset is a belief (effectively a story we tell ourselves) that our talents, abilities, and intelligence are fixed traits. You’re either born with them, or you’re not.

In contrast a growth mindset is an understand that your skills and capabilities can be developed over time through effort, learning, and persistence. This mindset shifts your internal narrative from “I can’t” to “I can’t yet”, creating space for incremental growth and discovery.

If you have a fixed mindset and change is a risk, including being more experimental whereas a growth mindset ees each challenge as a chance to learn. As Dweck’s research shows, those with a growth mindset activate their brain when faced with mistakes and use those moments to improve, whereas fixed‑mindset individuals often don’t take action.

Also, a fixed mindset also demands perfection. After all, if it’s not perfect, what’s the point. This leads to procrastination, paralysis or quitting. A growth mindset has a more experimental approach and the ability to iterate and evolve from the experiments.

As we’ve discussed if we’re approaching our moment of ‘what happens next’ then an experimental and growth mindset are a dynamite way of starting the next chapter, whereas a perfectionist or cynical mindset along with a fixed mindset…erm, not so much!

One of the easiest ways to embrace a growth mindset is to understand the areas of your wellbeing you might work on and improve on. The good news is that we’ve developed a quiz you can do for free over at www.whathappensnext.life to really understand where you want to improve on.

I know that I took the quiz, It was an eye opener which provided me with an interesting insight onto where I can make a lot more effort to improve my wellbeing. 

That starts, I believe, with an belief that you can invest time to get better not that you’re destined to never make positive change. That’s growth vs fixed mindset in action

There’s also a few additional things to do to embrace a growth mindset. First use the world yet.

Instead of saying “I can’t do this” try “I can’t do this, yet”

Secondly look at tough situations through a lens of learning. Try “what is this experience teaching me” instead of “Why is this happening to me”

Thirdly, and this is also a big one for the kids and grandkids in your life too, praise effort not talent.

Instead of “You’re so clever” try “You made a real effort”. That not only applies to what you tell others, but how you talk about themselves.

The third big mindset shift I’d recommend you consider when you’re thinking about ‘what happens next’ is from an identity fixed in work to an identity rootes in skills and values.

One of the hardest shifts for many people is letting go of the identity they held during their working life. We often underestimate how much of our self-worth is wrapped up in job titles or how we answer the question I and probably you often start with…

“So, what do you do?”

The mindset shift here is moving from defining yourself by what you did, to anchoring your sense of self in who you are and what you value and what you can bring to the world. Maybe it’s creativity. Contribution. Learning. Family. Nature. Whatever it is, this shift allows you to design a life that still feels meaningful and energising even if the structure is a bit different to how it looked previously.

The good news is that, if you’re struggling with the shift in identity the next chapter often brings, we’ve got a video just for you on this subject and you can find this here

And

In this video I explain the concept of Eudaimonia and how it’s an important factor you need to know about to flourish in the next chapter of your life.