It’s natural for someone who spends most of their waking time at work to ask “What do you even do?” when you tell them that you’ve retired early.
When I celebrated two years of early retirement in August, that question ate me. “What did I even do in those two years? Why should I celebrate doing nothing with my time?”. It bothered me so much that I canceled a celebratory dinner that I had planned for that night with my girlfriend.
I realized two things that day:
First, it’s less about what I do and more about what I don’t do. I don’t do meetings, I don’t do performance reviews, I don’t do Slack, I don’t do Zoom, I don’t do alarms, and I don’t do any sort of commuting.
Let’s say I was averaging 5 meetings a day as a manager, 5 days a week. Over the course of a year that would mean that I didn’t go to 1,300 meetings. That means, so far, I didn’t go to 2,600 meetings that I otherwise would have gone to.
If you’re a professional, you know that a meeting is more than just an appointment that you must attend. Meetings can be stressful, they can be boring, they can be depressing, and they can even be infuriating. How often do you need to decompress after a meeting with a walk or a vent session with your best work friend? What’s happening inside of your body at those moments when you feel so much stress? Nothing healthy. We all know stress is a killer. What are you sacrificing your health for at that moment?
The second thing I realized was despite being consciously aware that my job was largely a waste of my time, I too have been conditioned to believe that any time spent not being productive is time wasted.
It’s more acceptable to say to someone at a cocktail party, “I’ve been so busy at work all week” than “I spent most of the week at the park, feeding ducks”. Why? Both parties in that conversation know that a lovely day at the park is more pleasant than stressing to meet some deadline, but the person sacrificing their time for the benefit of The Company is considered more noble and therefore you are less noble and that doesn’t feel good.
Change your thinking
If you’re in the first few years of retirement, it’s important that you’re patient with yourself. Between school and then work, you’ve likely had a similar routine for decades now. It’s going to take awhile – and who knows how long – until you feel normal not having that routine. Let yourself feel uncomfortable sleeping in or taking an afternoon nap for example. You might even feel guilty like you’re getting away with something you shouldn’t be doing. That’s natural. Be patient with yourself while you adjust to a new, hopefully more relaxing routine.
Trick yourself
When you were working, you were accomplishing tasks, getting pats on the back from your boss, and watching yourself progress up the career ladder. Even if your identity wasn’t tied to your job, your brain was rewarding you with dopamine for a job well done that entire time. You now need to trick yourself into getting that dopamine on a regular basis again… without the boss.
My suggestion is to create small achievable, but challenging goals for yourself like exercising 5 days in a row or reading a certain number of pages each day. When you accomplish one of your tasks, reward yourself in some sort of way. Say out loud, “I did it!” or high five your partner or even treat yourself to an indulgent meal. Celebrate your wins, whatever those wins are. You choose the success metrics for yourself now. Recondition yourself.
Of course undoing decades of social conditioning isn’t easy, but here’s the good news: you have time.
This article is part of the Winchell House Original Articles series.
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