While the term ‘retirement’ is pretty universally understood, it’s not always well-loved and doesn’t often fit. It sounds so final in terms of personal usefulness and it has connotations of loss of purpose.

In reality, many people continue some level of employment, doing contract or temporary work. They find new passions where then can apply their interests and skills.

In the “flow” of your life, the transition to what we think of as retirement is really just another phase on a timeline versus a hard change.

I started thinking that it’s similar to how we master any profession – from a skilled laborer learning a trade as an electrician or plumber – to an office professional learning skills and working for years in their career.

We start as a new trainee and work for years to perfect our abilities and then later we slow down our own production to improve the process and help to train others.

While there’s no true defined pathway to mastery, several models attempt to break down the journey into phases.  The Apprenticeship Model, popularized by Robert Greene in his book “Mastery,” proposes three main stages.

The first stage is Apprentice, with a focus on observing others and acquiring skills. At this initial stage you practice and gain knowledge in your field by listening, being open to learning and self-discipline. This happens early in our career.

The next stage is ‘Creative-Active,’ where you begin taking more risks and challenging “the way we’ve always done things.” You experiment and create your own approach and identity. You continue to learn and acquire new skills, but not just by mere repetition. This is the main part of our working career.

The final stage in Greene’s model is Mastery. In this stage, the execution in our field is effortless, even though we continuously refine how we get things done, we have really mastered our craft or area of expertise.

This last stage represents to me the latter stages of our career, and indeed the phased part of our retirement.  It’s during this stage we are still contributing to our field, we are influencing and teaching others, and leaving a legacy around the life’s work that we have done. 

This feels like a healthy approach to what we currently call retirement. Continuing to be curious and self-aware, and spending some of our newly flexible time generously sharing the wisdom we’ve gained over the years.