Tag: #retiregradually
-
Phased Retirement: The First 90 Days
For anyone starting a new role and going through a career transition, Michael Watkin’s 2003 book, The First 90 Days, is an excellent guide. The subtitle is, “Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels.” The book provides insights and specific steps to help job-changers navigate the unfamiliar surroundings of a new role –…
-
Phased Retirement: Defining Insanity
A commonly heard definition of insanity is attributed to Albert Einstein. That is, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” The first thing that comes to mind for me is the Minnesota Vikings trying to establish their running game. The second thing that comes to mind, since I’m a…
-
Phased Retirement: Tom Brady Theory
I’ve read several articles now noting that after 40 days of retirement the multiple Superbowl and MVP winner “unretired.” My theory is that he’s really pursuing a Phased Retirement. He’s coming back, yes, but will probably avoid the playoffs to start dialing back his workload. Had he done this in the first place, he wouldn’t…
-
Phased Retirement: Make Some Waves
When someone retires, regardless of how much preparation they’ve done, they’ll likely go through a series of stages. In a traditional retirement scenario, you might have stages that look like this: Retirement Day (yay!), the Honeymoon Period (this is so awesome!), Disillusionment (is this it?), and then it’s either Figure it Out…or Back to Work…
-
Phased Retirement: Embrace Transition
My latest post dealt with the topic of change, and how changes in our lives can be hard to navigate and accept. Even positively perceived changes may require us to move on from what’s been familiar to us for a long time. In that post I pointed out that we should acknowledge that change can…
-
Phased Retirement: Change is Hard
No matter who I talk to, their thoughts on retirement are generally quite positive. There’s usually a focus on all the good things about retirement – freedom of schedule, a more relaxed lifestyle with family and friends, opportunities to pursue long-held interests, and meeting new friends. There’s also typically quite a lot of commentary about…
-
Phased Retirement: Not a Permanent Decision
Nowadays retirement doesn’t have the notion of permanence that it once did. When people think about retiring and stepping away from the workforce, they often think of it as a forever decision. And so it’s not quite one they’re ready to make, either financially, socially, or emotionally. Whether from past experience or lack of confidence, we…
-
Phased Retirement: A Blueprint for Success
Several years ago, during our company’s staff development cycle, I told an analyst who reported to me that he had to own the process, that I couldn’t set his goals for him, which seemed pretty obvious. But then, since our discussion was an informal one, I said (only partially in jest), “Well, actually, I bet…
-
Phased Retirement: Healthy Dividends
One of the things I hear from people as they contemplate retirement is about the various activities they look forward to pursuing. Golf makes the list, of course, but their lists are long! From running, biking, and hiking, to pickleball, and far away travel with ambitious excursions, people are planning to be on the move. …
-
Phased Retirement: What’s in a Name?
I started publishing articles on a phased approach to retirement by calling my blog “Retire by Degrees.” That’s still the name and still feels like the best, most accurate descriptor of what I’m after. But it doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Even with the first posts I wrote, I used the tagline “Retire Slowly.” …
Retire by Degrees 