How to Find Your Sense of Purpose In Retirement

Let your “why” guide you to your purpose in retirement

Doing what you love is the start of finding your purpose in retirement. But the task is more complex than that. It dangles between what you really love to do and why you love to do it.

Since childhood, we have been fostered, educated, and even brainwashed to go in a specific direction. The truth is that this does not always lead to creating a life that truly resonates with what your inner soul strives for.

Another misconception when entering retirement is that your life is behind you. Now it’s time to live as well as possible, a kind of survival mode until it’s time to knock on heaven’s door.

In this article, we will break it down into pieces and devise a procedure for finding a sincere purpose in retirement.

The Roadmap to True Purpose in Retirement

Each of us is born with a unique DNA, a set of personal building blocks that determine our physical characteristics, personality, and thought processes. This uniqueness is a source of joy and intrigue, as it sets us apart from everyone else.

What education, training, and, unfortunately, also brainwashing will do is to manipulate your DNA, and depending on your character, this can lead to something not resonating with what you really would like to do.

By constructing a roadmap for a purposeful retirement, there are five key steps to take.

1. Who are you?

Take a piece of paper and write down, without any outside influence, what you sincerely would like to list as a description of yourself. To make it easier, divide the list into two parts, one for characteristics you consider positive and another for the negative.

2. What are you passionate about?

Now starts the fun part: What are you passionate about, what do you love to do? It can be anything, from playing golf to inventing new recipes in the kitchen to reading or writing. For instance, if you find joy in helping others, volunteering at a local charity could be your passion. If you love the outdoors, gardening or hiking might be your thing.

How do you know that you’re passionate about it? You can spend hours doing it, and time just flies. Think about your childhood. What did you love to do, alone or with friends? When in school, what was your favorite subject?

During school, we had lessons where we had to write essays. I loved it. We got a subject to write about, and then it took a while to get started. But no one could stop me when I had the story in my mind.

After school, the career started. You should be something, a profession, something you could live on. At this point, your passion is often sidetracked by something else: your career.

All biases hinder your emotional pursuit of chasing your passion. Career, making a living, and getting your life “organized” interfere and become the dominating factors steering your life in a specific direction.

3. What’s your “why?”

Before pinpointing your passion correctly, it’s essential to understand why you love doing things you feel passionate about. Your ‘why’ is the deep-rooted reason behind your actions, the driving force that motivates you. It’s not just about what you do, but why you do it—understanding your ‘why’ can provide clarity and direction in your pursuit of purpose.

Understanding your ‘why’ is a powerful tool. It’s a source of inspiration and motivation that can drive you to achieve your goals. In an earlier article, Simon Sinek’s concept of the ‘why’ was discussed. Many people, including myself, have struggled to articulate their ‘why’. But when I finally did, it was a revelation.

It took me several decades to explain my “why,” and it happened in a way I never could imagine earlier in life: by selling vacuum cleaners. Yes, you read it correctly!

In the video below, I will provide you with the whole story.

4. Get started!

Sometimes, your career aligns with your passion. But to be honest, the driver for your job is something different. You need to earn money, and for the ambitious, it’s about climbing the career ladder.

What will happen if your true passion and daily job don’t align? You will likely dislike your job, or at the very least, find it unappealing. A good test to find out where you are on this scale of loving and hating what you are doing is to ask yourself:

What do you like the most, Fridays or Mondays? Do you belong to the group that often says, or at least thinks, “Thanks God, it’s Friday,” or the one who loves Monday because a fantastic week is ahead?

When you retire, you have the time and freedom to do what you love and finally discover your desired purpose. Just do it, no matter what! Don’t let procrastination take over your life. This is the time to really believe it’s possible for you.

Retirement is a time to prioritize your own happiness and well-being. It’s a time for self-love, not self-loathing. Overcome any aversion to change and embrace the opportunity to do what truly makes you happy.

5. What will you achieve?

Do you remember when you got your first bicycle as a child? With enthusiasm, you got up on the bike, only to fall off. You hadn’t calculated that an important piece was missing to make riding a bike easy: balance.

After the first try and practical advice from parents and siblings, you tried it repeatedly. When you were able to ride the first 100 meters without any help, it was a victory for you. With wounded knees with blood-red spots, you were at that moment the happiest person on earth. You did it!

Thereafter, your bike became your daily friend and passion. But to achieve what you did, it required a lot of training surrounded by multiple failures. Everything in life follows the same pattern. If the desire is there, nothing can stop you from turning your new hobby, job, or whatever it may be, into a true passion. Remember, failure is not the end, but a stepping stone on the path to success. Embrace it, learn from it, and keep moving forward.

The Quadrant to Follow to Find the Path

As it can sometimes be challenging to define in words what passion is for you, let’s talk about the potential that always surrounds your passion. No one knows everything. You can be an expert on a topic, but lack knowledge on other things.

Finding your passion is more about mobilizing your potential. The podcaster, author, entrepreneur, and life coach Jay Shetty has created a fabulous formula he calls the “Quadrant of Potential.”

It explains how your skills and passion collaborate to achieve your goal. Your passion comes alive when you know how to utilize your skills and address your areas of weakness. The formula is not a static picture but invites you to take the correct action and, over time, achieve your goal.

Your Purpose in Retirement Can be a Hidden Gold Mine

Can a vacuum cleaner bring purpose in retirement? Weird question, right?

But in my case, it did…indirectly. So, things happen around us in life, some randomly and others on purpose.

The key is to grab every opportunity and tweak it. If your mindset is sufficiently open, the golden mine will suddenly appear right before your eyes.

Watch the video and learn how my purpose in retirement finally fell into place, thanks to a vacuum cleaner.

These are the links to the pages mentioned in the video:

https://thegoldenagelifestyle.com/Free-Training-Online-Business-Set-Up

https://thegoldenagelifestyle.com/Fiverr-Outsourcing

What you do with your retirement is entirely up to you. However, bring these thoughtful words with you:

“The biggest risk is regret.”

“The right time never comes, so stop waiting.”

Conclusion to Find Purpose in Retirement

Whatever you do in life starts with a plan. To find your correct purpose in retirement, start your plan by answering these questions…honestly.

Who are you? – Make an honest description of yourself

What are you passionate about? – What do you love doing for hours without checking the time

What’s your “why?” – If you know why you love to do something, you will automatically know how and what to do it. It all falls in line as a logical consequence.

Get started! -Procrastination is your biggest enemy. Start now!

What will you achieve? Imagine your goal. Write it down. Put it in a visible place as a daily reminder when navigating your quadrant of potential. It’s your pledge.