Adjusting to Retirement: Be Prepared for Conflicting Emotions

Retiring can be a challenging and exciting process; you’re transitioning from a busy, work-oriented lifestyle to a much more peaceful and quiet one.

There are many emotions that you will feel throughout this process and the objective of this article is to help you find out what those will be and be prepared on how to handle them.

Before you finally retire, most of these emotions will be felt all at once. Some days you will feel one way and days later or weeks, you’ll feel entirely different. Remember that this ambivalence of feelings is normal and is all part of the transitioning process. 

1. Feelings Of Happiness And Sadness: happiness will come from the feeling that you’re finally settling down and leaving your busy work-life behind to relax and feel free. At the same time, you might feel sad for leaving your workplace and colleagues. Feelings of sadness might also come from thinking your life is over or that everything is coming to an end.

2. Peacefulness and Anxiety: as you get close to finally retiring and finish most of the tasks you must fulfil before your retirement is final, you will begin to feel at ease. The pieces are falling right where they should and everything is running smoothly. Simultaneously, anxiety might overcome you at times. Anxiety will come from fear of what you will do once you retire, whether or not you’re doing the right things or if you feel proud of what you’ve accomplished so far.

3. Feeling Optimistic And Pessimistic:  just like with all the emotions listed, these will happen simultaneously. You will welcome your future as a newly retired person with open arms but at the same time, the fear of the unknown and what’s to come might make you expect the worse. One of the constant thoughts people have as they retire is that their life is over and they’ve turned into nothing. This thought and its variants can heavily affect your mood and make you look at things in a pessimistic way rather than seeing your retirement as an opportunity to transition into a new lifestyle and reinvent yourself.

To properly handle these emotions you need to understand where they’re coming from and handle them with patience. Be kind to yourself and remember that it is normal to feel these emotions all at once or through different stages of your retirement.