School of Midlife

185. Untethered: The Retirement Shock Nobody Warns You About

• Laurie Reynoldson • Episode 185

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0:00 | 28:23

Why retirement, whether it's the literal kind or one you haven't named yet, doesn't automatically hand you the fulfillment you've been waiting for.

There's something in the water lately. Laurie keeps having the same conversation, over and over, with women in their mid-to-late 50s who are planning to retire in 2027. And she loves it for them, genuinely. But there's a question she can't help asking right after she says "bravo" — and it's the question this whole episode is built around.

That question: how do you want to spend the rest of your life? Not the checklist version. The feeling version. And almost every time, she gets a blank stare back.

This episode digs into why that blank stare happens (hint: decades of fulfillment tied to applause and approval will do that to a person), tells the story of the "laundry pile test," and makes the case for testing your retirement dreams now, in small pieces, instead of waiting for the retirement party to find out if they actually fit.

What we cover:

  • Why Laurie's been hearing "something in the water" — a wave of high-achieving women all planning retirement in 2027
  • The question she can't help asking right after she says "bravo": how do you want to spend the rest of your life?
  • Why "everyone I know who's retired says they don't know how they had time to work" isn't actually an answer
  • The real question underneath it all: how do you want to feel when you're not working, and what does a perfect day look like?
  • Why she's not asking you to build a checklist or a minute-by-minute plan, and what she's actually asking for instead
  • The mechanism: why validation and external approval have quietly run your fulfillment for decades, and what happens when that supply disappears
  • The laundry pile story: the retired client whose biggest win is that she's finally caught up on laundry, and why Laurie is skeptical that's the win it looks like
  • Why "a clean floor and an empty hamper are not a life plan"
  • Why Laurie loves the in-between time: the season where you still have a job, a marriage, a kid at home, but you're starting to ask what's next
  • Why literal retirement (a job) and metaphorical retirement (a marriage, a city, a life you've outgrown) run on the exact same emotional playbook
  • Why we put our dreams and goals on a pedestal for decades, and what that does to them by the time we finally "arrive"
  • The dress-rehearsal idea: testing your retirement dream in small pieces now, before you've quit anything
  • Why waiting until "after the retirement party" to start living the life you've been dreaming about sets you up for a shock
  • The two questions Laurie wants you to ask yourself this week, and the one small thing she wants you to do about them

Quotable moments

  • "You can retire from your job, but you can't retire from yourself."
  • "A clean floor and an empty hamper are not a life plan."
  • "It's very difficult to take a hard-charging, high-achieving woman out of a high-stress environment and move her to the point of her day, of her week, of her month that she has no laundry pile."
  • "We've made retirement this very precious season because we've been working towards it with this idea that we'll just figure it out once we get there."
  • "If we don't dip our toe into that proverbial pool we think we wanna be swimming in, then that fulfillment we've been delaying, we might be surprised to find out it's not coming in the way we think it is after we retire."
  • "I feel like you can take the attorney out of the law firm, but you can't really take the law firm out of the girl."
  • "You are a high-achieving, wildly successful woman. You owe it to yourself to make the second half of your life as exciting and as impactful as you have made the first half."

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You can retire from your job, but you can't retire from yourself. In this week's episode of the School of Midlife podcast, I'm talking about why so many high-achieving women hit retirement, whether that's from a career, a marriage, a city, or a life they've outgrown, and they realize that the thing they've been dreaming about for maybe decades doesn't feel the way they thought it would. What do they do then? Plus, we'll talk about the laundry pile test, something I recently had a discussion with another woman about, and why I believe that, I'm finally caught up on the laundry," is not the same thing as living a fulfilling life in retirement. Let's get into it.

Speaker 2

Real quick, before we get into today's episode, I wanna talk to you about the Best Life Mastermind. For years, the coaching industry has given high-achieving women a choice, invest in your career or invest in your life, executive coaching or life coaching, leadership at work or clarity at home, as if our lives were separated into two different parts. Here's what nobody has said out loud. You cannot separate the leader from the life she's living. If she's burned out at home, she's gonna be burned out at work. If she doesn't know what she wants from her life, then she doesn't fully know what she wants from her career either. The Best Life Mastermind is built on a different premises, personal leadership development for the whole woman. Because the clearest, most fulfilled, most purposeful version of you, she shows up everywhere: at work, at home, in every room you walk into. I want to invite you to join me as a founding member in the Best Life Mastermind. Here's what's included. Two in-person luxury retreats at award-winning destinations, Sun Valley, Idaho in September and the incredible Civana Wellness Resort Spa in Arizona in February. All accommodations, meals, and spa appointments will be included. Monthly personal leadership coaching calls and an intimate private community of like-minded women doing this work together, hosted off of social media and away from the noise. Nine months, 10 women, two in-person retreats, monthly coaching calls, everything included except your travel. Applications open right now. Click the link in the show notes Now, let's get into today's episode.

Hey, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. I am happy to be back here with you today. I don't know if you knew it, um, because I did some pre-recording and some pre-social media posting, et cetera, but I was actually on vacation last week, and it was so nice to just step away and actually go on vacation. It feels like it's been a long, long time coming. We generally take a lot of vacations or, you know, just head to the mountains after work if it's been a long week, but we haven't been able to do that recently because our place in the mountains is being fully, completely remodeled. It's gonna be amazing when it's finally done, but we sure are missing it. Last week, though, I got to go away on vacation, and I am rejuvenated. I am excited to be back, and I hope summer is going well for you, too. For today's episode, I wanna talk about conversations that I have been having a lot lately. I feel like the, uh, like there's something in the water because I've been talking with a lot of women who are planning retirement in 2027, which is very exciting, right? They're in their mid to late 50s, a lot of them, and they are ready to "get on with the rest of their lives," which is, uh, what they say. That, that's their words, not mine. Bravo. I love that for them. You know, I, I love a pivot or a transition or an inflection point where part of the life that you have been living ends, and then the new part begins. And it's not all about burning down or throwing away or starting brand new. It's about building on all of this momentum and bringing all this wisdom and all of the lessons that you've learned to your life, but start living it in a way that is more fulfilling and enjoyable on your terms. So when women tell me they're planning to retire, I am so excited for them. You know, I, I say bravo. I love it. I love it so much because they, they recognize the need, whether they, they recognize it consciously or subconsciously, but it's time to do something different for themselves, right? They've been working for a long time. They don't feel the need to work until 65, although I feel like the, the retirement age is creeping up to 67 was, was I think the last thing I, I read, but don't quote me on that. Which by the way, let's just take a, a... Let's go a little bit afield here. Let's take a little tangent, a little divergent, and talk about What a bag of shit that sell job has been. Go to work, get a job, work until you're 65 or 67, and then retire and enjoy 10, maybe 15 years. It seems like it's just we've been sold a bag of goods and we have been working in a way that women's labor, uh, And I'm not even talking about how much we make on, on a dollar compared to our male counterparts, but female labor is completely undervalued, and it's, it's really taken for granted. So this idea that we're just gonna work until retirement and then try and cram in everything that we've been putting off that we wanted to do in just a little bit of amount of time, I, I don't really like that. So when these women who are in their 50s are like, "I am getting ready to retire," I think it's amazing. I love it so much Um, but I'm also a curious person, right? And I have been doing this work really and earnestly for the past six years. So because I'm a curious person, almost immediately after I congratulate them, because I can't help myself, my next question is, how do you want to spend the rest of your life? Like, how are you gonna fill your time? What are you gonna do? How do you wanna feel? I mean, you're getting ready to retire, which is amazing. But then what? And invariably, almost across the board, they respond with something like, "I don't really know, but everyone I talk to, everyone I know who's retired says they don't even know how they had the time to work. They're so busy. So I'm sure I'll figure something out." Mm-hmm. Because I can't help myself. I don't know how many times I've said that, but it's true. I mean, I really, I really do try and temper my desire to go into coach mode all the time. It's hard. I'm really trying on it. But my next question to them when they say everybody they, they know, they retire, they're so busy, they don't even know how they have time to work, my next question is How do you wanna feel when you're not working? How do you wanna spend this next chapter of your life? What does a perfect day look like for you? I realize that's not one question, but I start kind of heading in that direction of asking those types of questions. And I get this very blank stare, this very deer in the headlights, "Oh, I've never thought about that. You know, I'm sure I'm gonna be busy. I wanna be able to take some time off because I'm tired. You know, I, I feel like I'm a little burned out, so, uh, sure, I'm gonna take a little bit of time and, and just regroup and, and then I'm gonna do all the things that I always wanted to do." "Like what?" Again, blank stare Don't misunderstand me when I'm asking people what they plan to do, because I'm not talking about a plan that says, "Do A, then do B, then do C," or, "Here is my checklist for the week, and I'm gonna have everything completed by 2:00 on Monday." I'm not talking about a checklist. I'm not talking about a to-do list. I am certainly not talking about planning out every hour of every day. But if you don't have a loose plan for what you want, including what you wanna do and almost more importantly, how you wanna feel then we are more apt to fill our days with what everyone else around us needs. Makes sense, right? Think about it this way. Most of us are high achievers. Whether we realize it or not, much of the validation and the fulfillment that we have been chasing has been tied to external approval, external validation. We wanna do things that get accolades, that get applause. Most of us, again, whether we realize it or not, have been working that way for decades. So the question becomes, when we no longer have that, we no longer have the validation and the approval and the external praise that we are getting from doing our jobs well, when we no longer have that, and so much of our identity has been tied up into what we are able to produce in a career setting, how the hell do we expect that we're gonna feel fulfilled after we're done working? What's gonna light us up? What, what are we gonna pursue? How do we want to be? Without any high-level pre-planning, again, 30,000-foot level here, not micro-planning your day, not scheduling every moment out, but without having a high-level idea of what living our best life looks like, without knowing what we want, we are going to fill all of our time. But it's going to be with things that most people need from us, what everyone tells us we should want. We've been doing that a long time. If you are going to take the time to retire, if you're getting to this milestone and you're like, "I'm ready to do something else," then I'm telling you, you need to approach it differently, or you're going to fall back unknowingly, unwittingly into the same patterns and habits and behaviors that got you to where you are right now. And for a lot of us, those aren't all bad. I mean, we're hard workers. We're high achievers. We've had a lot of success. And a lot of us want something more with the second half of our lives. It's very difficult to take a hard-charging, high-achieving woman out of a high-stress environment where she's been crushing it and move her to the point of her day, of her week, of her month that She has no laundry pile. I wanna talk to you about the laundry pile. I was talking to this one woman lately, she's been retired for a couple of years, and of course I'm asking her these... I feel, I feel like you can take the attorney out of the law firm, but you can't really take the law firm out of the girl, right? So sometimes I catch myself and I'm, like I'm almost interrogating people. So I might have been interrogating her at dinner, but she's been retired for a couple years, and I'm asking her, you know, "How do you spend your time? What do you do? How does your day feel differently than it does now than it did before?" And she gets this kind of smile on her face after she realizes that she has not thought about any of the things that I'm asking her. But she gets this kind of small smile on her face and she says, "You know, one of the biggest changes, I never have a laundry pile anymore. I'm always on top of the laundry." Hmm I think to myself, that's great. Absolutely, that's great. That makes you feel accomplished for the day. I get that. And also, at some point, I'm pretty sure she's going to realize that that's not enough, right? Because again, it's really hard to take a high-achieving woman out of a high-stress environment and move her to the place where the best part of her day is cleaning and folding every last piece of dirty laundry. I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. But I've been coaching and working with women who are in this same season, making these same decisions, looking forward with excitement and anticipation towards retirement. And when they realize that they don't have a plan for what they want and how they wanna feel, It's a little unnerving. They're not sure how to feel. They're not sure... Like, they, they almost feel a little untethered or unmoored. And yes, there is this incredible opportunity ahead of them. But that grounding that their identity provided, that's gone. How can they still be the woman they have always been but apply those skills and apply that drive to a piece of their life that actually really matters to them? That's why I personally love this this in-between time. Like right now, you know? Maybe you're working, maybe you're getting ready to retire in the next six, eight, 12 months. Maybe the last kiddo is at home and you're starting to figure out, you know, they're, they're going off to college or they're getting married or they're, like, they're not gonna be around next year. And you have this amazing ability to figure out who you are in this season of life and what you wanna do next with the guardrails of you still have a job, you still have a kid at home. The primary drivers of your identity are still in place... which makes it like this beautiful playground of, "Hmm, what could I possibly do next? What could my next chapter look like? How do I wanna feel? How do I wanna spend my day? What does a perfect day look like? What does a perfect day feel like?" And when you actually take some time and think about what you want now, what a perfect day looks like, how you wanna feel when you're living your life, and you start living that way in small pieces right now, then I promise you, you're not going to have this utter shock that I see all the time, which is every piece of my identity was tied up in that career. Every piece of my identity was tied up in raising those small humans. And it could be being the wife for the last decades. When you are so accustomed to your life and then you quit a job or you leave a marriage or you move to a different city, it can be really tough. It can be hard to handle. And I see these things all the time. Women tend to put their dreams and goals for what they wanna do post-retirement, second half of your life, however you wanna call it, but they put those things on hold and think that they're going to deal with them once they actually retire, once the milestone is hit. And, and I'm talking literal and metaphorical retirement. So it can be a retirement from a job. It could be a retirement from a relationship. It could be a retirement from the day-to-day keeping small humans alive. Do you see that it doesn't have to be just leaving the career? Our identity is tied up in so many hats that we wear: Mom, wife, daughter, career woman, business owner, community volunteer, advocate, church member, best friend, you name it It's a lot of hats. It's a lot of pieces of our identity. But when we lose the primary parts of our identity, wife, mom, daughter, career, and oftentimes that happens in and around this time. This, this is like we are ripe for those identity changes. That's when we don't know what we wanna do. That's when we start feeling paralyzed. That's when we think, Huh, maybe this is that midlife crisis they were talking about." I used to be happy with everything I had. I mean, yeah, sure, I felt like that there was something missing that I would pursue in retirement. Again, whether that's our literal or metaphorical retirement But for the most part, you know, I was, I've, I've got a good life, so I should just be happy with what I want. I'm telling you both things can be true. You can be looking forward to retirement and still be happy with what you have right now. You can be looking forward to retirement and still realize that some of the pieces of the life that you're living right now, you just have to figure out how to live those in a slightly different way. I do know that when we wait to figure out what we want to do, maybe because, you know, we, we figure that just like everybody else, we're gonna be too busy in retirement. You know, we don't have to really think about it because, uh, there's just gonna be so much to do. Yes, and also If we haven't taken the time to think about, dream about what that next step looks like what happens, I s- I see it all the time, is instead of trying to include some of what we think are cornerstones or pieces of the next part of our life, when we don't start living that way in the smallest bits right now, we get to retirement, we get to that milestone, and all of the dreams and the hopes and the goals that we thought we would do after the milestone happened, it's almost like we've made them too precious. Like, we've put them on the pedestal for a long, long time. We've made retirement this very precious season because we've been working towards it with this idea that we'll just figure it out once we get there But what I've seen time and time again is if we don't try it out a little bit first, like call it a dress rehearsal. See what you like. See what you don't like. Travel by yourself if you're somebody who thinks that she wants to travel a ton in retirement. Just see how that feels. What does it feel like to... ma- maybe you plan a staycation, and you don't do anything, and you just see. You don't plan anything. What happens with their days? Do they get filled with demands from your kids or your spouse? Or how, how do those weeks, how do those days get filled? If you think you want to write a book in retirement, maybe just spend 15 minutes a day writing some pages just to see how it feels. Not because I want you to rip off the Band-Aid and, and dive in with both feet right now, but because I don't want you to put those hopes and dreams on that pedestal, make them so precious that when you finally get there, you're disappointed. Or it's just another thing that you don't... You feel like you should do, but you don't really want to do. If we don't try out the things that we keep telling ourselves that we want to do after retirement, if we, if we don't dip our toe into that proverbial pool we think we wanna be swimming in, then that fulfillment we've been delaying, we might be surprised to find out it's not coming in the way we think it is after we retire. I have seen it s- more times than I can count, and y- you're surprised by that because for years you just assumed you would figure it out. And l- I have full faith in you. Eventually, you will figure it out. But if this is supposed to be the cherry on top, if this is supposed to be the, a reward for all of those years of service and sacrifice, you should get a say in how you spend that time. Which means you need to know what do you want? What does success look like to you in this season of life? What does your best life look like? If you could be living it, what do you do during the day? How do you wanna feel? I, I think we get so focused on the doing that we forget why we're doing it. We want to do the things to have the thing that we want. I understand that. But who do you have to be to do the things that you think you wanna do, to have the life that you've been dreaming about? You have to figure that out. And instead of waiting until after the retirement party, you know, and man, those are... It's great that we celebrate people who are, we've worked with for years and years, but also retirement parties, they can be a little awkward, can't they? I mean, it, I... Good for you. Let's please celebrate your retirement But let's not wait to start that post-retirement life until after we cut the cake and we drink the punch and everybody signs the big happy retirement card. If you are someone who, like, your version of retirement is coming up in 2026 or 2027, maybe even 2028, whether it's a literal one and you're quitting your job or a metaphorical one that you haven't quite named yet, job, marriage, city... before you get to whatever date it is you pick, I want you to ask yourself, what does your perfect day look like? And then go do one small piece of it this week. I want you to ask yourself, how do you wanna feel after retirement? And then do something, one small thing this week that makes you feel that way, and just try it on for size. Just see how it feels Because it might feel great, and you might be like, "This is exactly it." It might also feel different than you expected it to. That doesn't mean it's wrong for you, but it might mean that you just need to tweak that goal or that dream or that hope that you have for your retirement in just a little way. Do something a little differently. Decide that how you've been telling yourself you will feel and what that perfect day looks like, maybe, maybe it needs a little changing. So then next week, when we ask ourselves the same question, what does a perfect day look like, we have more information. We can try something a little different. Let's use this time right now to try some things on for size. Just see how it feels. Dip your toe in the proverbial pool. Add a little bit each week. And then because you started now, you're not going to have that shock that so many of my clients have felt of, "Well, now I'm retired and I have no idea what I wanna do." Let's not get to that point of transition without having done any pre-planning or foundational work. And yes, I know we all talk about we, you know, we go to the financial planner and we make sure that our accounts are all in order and... but it goes deeper than that. You are a high-achieving, wildly successful woman. You owe it to yourself to make the second half of your life as exciting and as impactful as you have made the first half. I wanna go back to that laundry pile because I really think a clean floor and an empty hamper are not a life plan. I don't want you to spend retirement just living it according to what comes at you You deserve more than that. You deserve to live a life that you love. You deserve to live your very best life, and that starts by figuring out who you are, what you want, what success means to you, what your best life looks like, what matters to you in this season of life. And I would invite you to do that now instead of waiting until someday or after retirement. I promise it will be a much more rewarding and fulfilling time of your life if you just do a little pre-planning right now. I would love to hear what your biggest takeaway was from today's episode. To those of you who I've talked with who are getting ready to retire, so excited for you. If you are looking for some help in figuring out the answer to all those questions, you know where to find me. We can either do some one-on-one coaching, or this is the last chance to claim your spot in the Best Life Mastermind that we are starting in September. Um, I'd love to see you there. Let me know how I can help. I'm cheering you on always. I'm so excited for this next season of your life. Please just don't wait until it's here to figure out how you wanna spend it. Thanks so much for being here today. I will see you back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. Until then, take good care.

Speaker

Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.

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Laurie Reynoldson

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