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The end of a career — especially when we’re not the ones choosing it — can bring about feelings of anger, as well as grief related to the loss of professional identity, purpose, community, and routine.
Many federal employees are now dealing with these heavy emotions and are overwhelmed from now needing to think about a retirement they once assumed to be five or 10 years away.
As a lawyer and retirement transition expert, I’ve helped many career professionals plan for what comes next when they confront an unplanned retirement.
The reality is that, forced or not, unprocessed anger and grief should never be the defining features of one’s retirement. And going into retirement without proper planning is foreshadowing disaster. Here are seven steps to take if you’re forced to retire before you’re ready.
1. Recognize feelings of anger and grief
While working through these negative emotions can seem deeply unpleasant, processing your anger and grieving these losses are important for a positive transition.
For one thing, unprocessed anger and grief can harden into a form of permanent bitterness and risk defining a rewarding multi-decade career by one moment, its endpoint.
2. Understand retirement can be stressful
Retirement is a major life change and can be a stressful experience for everyone — no matter the circumstances: Research indicates that retirement can be among life’s most stressful events.
If you’re concerned about who you will be or how your life will work in retirement, you’re not alone. It can be helpful to connect with others who have been through or are going through a similar situation.
3. Redefine your identity during retirement
I regularly see my clients struggle with what feels like the loss of their very identity as they contemplate retirement. It’s common to build your identity around the major roles that you play in life, and your career often supplies one or more of those roles.
When you have to let those go, it can feel like an existential threat.
During retirement, it’s important to explore and reconnect with enduring aspects of your identity beyond just your career roles. How can you invest more in other roles now that you have more free time? What new roles could you embrace to enrich your life?
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Lawyer and retirement expert Elizabeth Zelinka Parsons said that while retirement can be stressful, it can help to think of it as a graduation. Ché Wilson
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