Why retirement can feel frightening

Podcast 411

Last July, I had a conversation with my father-in-law. He was scared and worried. He was due to retire at the end of 2026 (now only a few months away), and he had no idea what to do. 

It was that conversation that inspired me to dig deep into what it takes to build a solid, meaningful and joyful retirement. That’s what we’re going to look into today.

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Script | 411

Hello, and welcome to episode 411 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. 

I’m in my mid-fifties now, a time when many people start to think about what they will do when they walk out of their workplace for the last time and enter the next chapter of their lives. 

It’s a scary time for many people. Yes, there’s a lot to look forward to: being able to design your own days and go on trips whenever you want, without needing to submit a holiday request form. But there’s an underlying sense of anxiety, will I be bored? Will I lose my health? Will I be lonely? 

This is why giving some thought to your retirement before you retire can bring you a sense of relief and purpose. 

But what do you want to do? 

As the productivity saying goes, “You can do anything but not everything”. 

So one of the first things to do when you begin thinking about your retirement is ask that question: What do I want to do? 

And this is important. 

My grandfather was a farmer all his working life. He had a dairy farm, and each morning at 5:00 am, he would wake up, bring the cows into the dairy and start the milking for the day. 

He did this for over forty years, seven days a week. Farming is not so much work; it’s a way of life. When my grandfather was not milking, he was repairing machines and fences, and doing all the other odd jobs that needed to be done. 

At the age of 60, he retired. 

His plan was to travel, something he’s never been able to do, enjoy a little gardening and take life easy. 

That didn’t happen. For someone who had been active all his life, not having to get up early in the morning, come rain or shine, and now being able to stay in bed and have a leisurely morning reading the newspapers was a temptation that was hard to resist. 

And so he stopped. He didn’t do very much, and within two years, he was dead. 

He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, and while the operation to remove the cancer was successful, he developed complications and passed away a few weeks after the operation. 

I was only 12 years old when he died, and it was the first family death I experienced. It was a horrible experience. I was close to my grandfather. He was a lovely person. 

It woke me up to the frailties of a human life at an early age. Aunties and uncles often said he died because he retired. I was too young to understand that at the time, but I remember a friend of my mother’s later once telling me that the biggest killer is your armchair. 

That person was the famous international show jumper, Harvey Smith. 

Harvey is 87 years old now. When he retired from show jumping in 1990, he didn’t sit around in his armchair. His dream was to build a horse racing stable. And together with his wife, Sue, that is what they did. 

In 2013, Harvey and Sue trained the horse Auroras Encore, which won the prestigious Grand National horse race at Aintree in Liverpool that year.

I know many of my non-British listeners may not have heard of the Grand National, but anyone in the UK will know it is one of the biggest races on the horse racing calendar. 

But not only that, Harvey’s written at least four books, and he still doesn’t spend much time in his armchair. 

If you want to hear Harvey’s words of wisdom, there is a superb YouTube video in which he and Sue are interviewed. I’ll put that video link in the show notes. Harvey is a true Yorkshireman with the wonderful Yorkshire wit. 

Retirement is not the end. It’s the start of a new chapter in your life. You have built up a wealth of knowledge and experience and likely collected quite a few interests along the way. Retirement is your time to use that knowledge and work on the things that interest you. 

So what interests you? 

I’ve had a love of bonsai trees since I was in my twenties. I was probably inspired by the film The Karate Kid. 

While I have a couple of trees now, I don’t have the time to properly learn to nurture and grow them. However, when the time comes for me to slow down and retire, one thing I will do is spend a couple of weeks in Japan learning from the masters. 

When I was researching retirement for my father-in-law, I came to see that there are three pillars you need to ensure are built into any plans you may have.

The first is mental. This does not mean mental health as it is discussed today; it is about learning. 

Learning something new. 

That could be a foreign language, art history, or how to train racehorses. It doesn’t matter so much what you learn; it is about learning something challenging. Something to get your brain around. Something that will make you think. 

The dangers today are AI and the loss of critical thinking. In retirement, you do not want to lose the ability to think critically. 

Go out and buy the textbooks, enrol in courses, listen to podcasts and do the hard work of learning. Keep your brain active. 

It’s this that will keep you sharp and cognitive. As the saying goes, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” 

The second pillar is physical. After we reach 30, we start to lose muscle mass. Again, it’s the “if you don’t use it, you lose it” problem. 

Unfortunately, for most of us, around thirty, we get chained to a desk and a computer, and we use our arms to help us get out of a chair. We stop using most of our muscles.

This weakens our strength, and it is gradual. Hardly noticeable. So we don’t see the damage we are doing to ourselves. 

When we reach our mid-fifties, that muscle loss accelerates. We can lose as much as 10% of our muscle mass over five years. It’s scary. 

The consequence of this is that the risk of falling rises, and one of the biggest killers of older Adults is the complications of dealing with the injuries caused by falling. Broken hips, legs and shoulders. Not at all nice. 

By adding in a daily exercise session that focuses on your core strength—stomach, legs and ankles, and doing some cardio such as walking up hills to the point where you become out of breath, is all you need. 

Thirty minutes a day. That’s it. 

If you add in some stretching exercises later in the day, you are building a natural defence against one of the biggest underlying killers among older people. 

Your muscles are your natural defence against many lifestyle-related diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and gout! Yes, gout is making a comeback. A disease prevalent in the 16th and 17th centuries is making a comeback because of how we live today. 

Build in some exercise every day. 

If you want a simple exercise programme, the one that the late Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, used every day from his time in the Royal Navy, then look up the 5BX. Look for the original Royal Canadian Air Force instructional video on YouTube. It’s brilliant and very quaint. 

If you want to know how effective this exercise programme is, look at Prince Philip at his final public engagement. He was 97 years old then, and you can see from the way he walked just how fit he was. 

The final pillar is social. 

When we are at work, there is a natural connection with our coworkers. There’s a camaraderie and a social aspect to working with other people. 

We may not like our coworkers, but there’s still the connection. 

When we retire, that disappears, and it’s important to replace it with new connections. 

However, there’s a danger here. It can be tempting to replace all those meetings on our work calendars with volunteer work in retirement. Don’t do this. 

Go back to asking yourself what you want to do. Hopefully, what you want to do excites you. If you are replacing those work connections with volunteer work you do not find interesting, you will soon find yourself swamped. 

Not what retirement is all about. 

Be very strict about what you will get involved in. Be clear about what you want out of this chapter of your life. 

Perhaps some of the hobbies you try will bring with them exciting connections. Imagine how many new people Harvey Smith has met through horse racing. 

But do not rush into it. Take your time. This period of your life is about you and what you want from it. 

If you are worried about retirement, or are retired and have found yourself overwhelmed by all the activities you have embarked on, I have just launched a brand-new programme to help you. 

Ever since I started writing about time management and productivity ten years ago, I have had many people ask me to put together something for retirees. 

It was my conversation with my father-in-law last year that started my research. And that research uncovered some of the most inspiring stories of people I have come across. 

There was Jack Weber, a retired dentist who wrote a memoir of his life and published it on Amazon at the age of 100. 

And then there was the gentleman who inspired me when I was fifteen years old. 

I was a competitive track and field athlete back then, and this gentleman was in his 80s. He would be one of the first people to turn up to training every Tuesday and Thursday evening.

When he was younger, he was a sprinter. Now, in his 80s, he ran marathons. Although he was in his 80s, he looked about 65. 

I remember saying to myself that when I am 80, I want to be doing that. And that has been and still is a huge motivation for me. I’ve never stopped running and exercising for an extended period. I have tried to keep myself reasonably fit throughout my working life so that when I do finally retire, I will have the strength to run those marathons. 

Watch out, London, New York, Tokyo and Paris. I’m going to be running your streets in twenty-five years’ time! 

If you are interested in this programme, I will put the details in the show notes. This programme will teach you about the three pillars, the pitfalls to avoid, and how to manage your calendar so you are not overwhelming yourself. 

In addition, by joining, you get free access to a community of like-minded people where you can share your experiences and learn from others who are enjoying this fantastic chapter of your life. 

Thank you for listening, and it just remains for me now to wish you all a very, very productive week.