Often when retirement is visually described it’s all pictures of people on benches overlooking the sea and enjoying the tranquility of a life where you’ve got plenty of time to relax. 

But here’s the thing. The transition to retirement, or whatever you choose to do next involves quite a lot of change… and change in whatever shape involves a bunch of complex emotions including shock, denial and frustration. 

Everyone talks about life when we’ve accepted the change we make, often in our 50’s and 60’s, but nobody talks about the complex emotions we often go through when navigating this change. 

So, in this blog, I want to explore what research tells us about navigating change and the four practical things you can do to make sure you can transition into whatever happens next in your life as smoothly as you can. 

If you’ve spent decades being competent, people-oriented, and useful, it’s jarring when the old script stops fitting.  

You’re still you but it feels like something has change. That’s the quiet friction many of us feel in our 50s and 60s.  

From the outside, life looks sorted. Inside, something’s shifting. 

Psychology gives us a helpful lens here: the Change Curve.  

In plain English, it says that major life transitions have an emotional shape. We tend to move from shock and denial, through frustration and the messy middle, into experimentation, decision, and finally integration. 

Originally designed for us to navigate grief and originally introduced by the Swiss American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler Ross, the change curve is a useful model for us to look at where we are in the transition into the next chapter of our lives. 

The reality is that for the majority of us this transition into your next chapter isn’t smooth or quick. It is messy as any fundamental life change is. However by recognising that all change and loss, and let’s face it even if we’re making decision to move into the next chapter of our lives that still comes with a degree of loss, involves a range of emotions, it might allow us to understand that the emotions we’re feeling as we navigate this change are entirely natural. 

If you’ve followed What Happens Next for a while, you’ll know Mike’s story. 

 After three decades in a senior engineering role, he did the numbers, chose freedom, and stepped off the treadmill. A few months later, he texted a photo of a model airplane, and wrote: “Mr Daems. This is what retirement has become. Perhaps I need to get out more?”  

When I spoke to Mike, he told me it was bored but when we carried on speaking, I realised that there was a wide range of emotions which go into navigation this change in our lives 

It wasn’t only about boredom.  

You see when Mike and many other clients tell me “I didn’t expect retirement to feel like this” there was an element of shock about the realities of retirement. 

When Mike originally told me “I’ll be fine in retirement” it’s denial of the change which occurs in this chapter of our lives. 

When clients feel frustrated that what once worked now doesn’t, the emotion is often frustration and on extreme occasions, Anger. 

Then my experience is that as a client goes through a period of experimentation as they work out what they really want to do next. Then making some important decisions about what the next chapter of their lives actually looks like. 

Then eventually Mike and a lot of my clients settle into a new routine in their lives. 

In my two decades as a chartered financial planner, I’ve seen this change happen in many of my clients. It’s never the same but it’s often a pretty similar journey where change is a lot tougher than people think. 

You see many of us plan the financial leap well but the emotional landscape including the identity shift, the loss of structure, the need to design meaning, he hadn’t focused as prominently on… and Mike’s not alone.  

That’s why thinking about how we navigate any change in our life and being able to understand that it is emotionally complex is worth understanding. 

So, in this blog, I want to explore the change curve and then talk about the 4 practical things you should consider navigating this change curve in a way which works for you. 

The first step is awareness that navigating any change can be difficult and that’s why it’s worth looking at the Kubler Ross change curve to appreciate that change often can be a significant challenge. 

Here’s the interesting thing about navigation change. It often feels uncomfortable because it challenges the myth we’ve built about ourselves. We should be capable and competent enough, after several decades of learning, to navigate ‘what happens next’. 

However, often in the next chapter of our lives we’re beginners again. It often feels a bit weird. 

So, let’s talk about the 4 practical things you can do to navigate this change. 

1. Understand the discomfort is entirely natural 

There’s a concept Psychologists call identity discontinuity. This is when the story we’ve told ourselves about who we are no longer fits the facts. 

But here’s the reality.  

Every major transition includes a period where our old identity unravels and morphs into a new one.  

William Bridges, in his brilliant book on Transitions, calls this the Neutral Zone. That’s a strange in-between place where one chapter has ended but the next hasn’t quite started. It’s the messy middle where we’re not living our previous life, but we’ve not really settled into the new one…and for a lot of people it doesn’t feel great. 

However, knowing you’re not alone and everyone goes through this painful period of change might make the transition just a little bit easier. 

2. Plan and prepare for What Happens next with plenty of time to spare 

Recently I interviewed Bec Wilson, author of Prime Time and she provided unique insight into how change occurs in our 50’s and 60’s and how she recommends we all should consider starting to plan for it earlier. 

In our conversation, she described how, so few people plan for the “pre-retirement decade”, the ten years before the official finish line.  

Rebecca calls this decade our Life Styling Phase. It’s awindow when the kids are gone, the mortgage is easing, and we have both time and money to redesign life. 

The challenge we face is most people wait until retirement happens to them, rather than shaping it intentionally. According to Bec’s, only 31% of people retire by choice. The rest, as she said, “retirement happens to them.” 

However, I completely agree with Bec’s that by planning for this change we can be better prepared. So, starting to be intentional about the next chapter of your life is the first practical thing you should consider doing. 

Don’t fall off the retirement cliff but design a flight path which allows you to ease into the next chapter of your life on your terms. 

As I write this, we haven’t released Bec’s interview yet, but if you want to be one of the first people to know when we release new insights there’s two really easy ways to do it. 

Simply subscribe to our Youtube channel and click the bell so we can notify you when new videos are released.

And 

Join, for free, the What Happens Next inner circle so we can keep you updated on all of the lovely stuff we’re doing to support you in the next chapter of your life. 

The good news is that there’s a bunch of practical things you can do to navigate this change in our lives  

3. Speak to someone you know and trust about what they’ve gone through in their ‘what happens next’ chapter 

One of the things I’ve been incredibly fortunate to do on What Happens Next is interview a bunch of people who have recently retired about their challenges and experiences in the next chapter of their lives. 

I’d definitely recommend you check out the interviews from Damian Stancombe and Tim Levey on What Happens next as these are both unique insights from people who have been through the journey you’re thinking about. 

From chatting to people, I’ve learned two things… 

Firstly, the journey isn’t always a bed of roses. It comes with unique challenges we could do with being aware of. 

Secondly, there’s a lot to learn from people who have gone through what you’re going to go through when you move into the next chapter of your life. 

So, the practical thing you can do is ask someone you trust about their experiences. I’d suggest you want both the good and the bad.  

Then you can better plan and navigate the next chapter of your life with insights from someone who has experienced these changes. 

4. Run micro experiments 

Lastly is to run micro experiments to help you work out what the next chapter of your life looks like. 

That might start by taking Fridays off work and seeing how that feels. 

It might mean experimenting with a hobby you’d like to spend more time doing when you stop. 

It might mean trying out volunteering, or pottery, or looking into setting up a micro business. 

The reality is that if we try these experiments on how we might spend our most valuable commodity in the next chapter of our lives (that commodity is time) then we can make the time we’re going to need to fill a little less scary. 

Let me be clear. Change is tough for all of us. However, appreciating that it’s likely you’ll go through a range of emotions as you transition into the next chapter of your life and there’s a bunch of things you can do to better plan and prepare for these transitions might be a good thing to do. 

Step one is to appreciate that these often negative emotions are entirely normal. 

Step two is to plan and prepare so retirement doesn’t simply happen to you 

Step three is to speak to people who have gone through the experience you’re about to 

And 

Step four is to try some experiments so that you’re working out how you’re going to spend your time in the next chapter of your life. 

There’s two videos which I reckon are worth watching next which might be really useful. 

This video talks about the concept of Momento Mori and why thinking about death and time isn’t always morbid and can actually be really empowering

and

In this video we dig a bit deeper into the concept of low cost experimentation and how it might be the most useful tool you’ve got when thinking about what happens next.