I used to be a telecom lead engineer. Guess what? Nobody cares. It sounds like a punchline from a certain humorous television commercial about teaching young homeowners how not to become like their parents. The reality of dealing with early retirement invisibility isn’t so funny if we aren’t prepared. It’s a retirement mental hurdle that hits many of us if we haven’t successfully detached from our work identity. Something that’s in us deeper than we’ll ever know until we actually retire and exit our career. I started, or at least thought I started this detachment years before ditching the rat race. But I still went through some things. Getting through it is a crucial key to retirement success. 

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Avoiding Early Retirement Invisibility Madness 

It should be of no surprise that after decades of building ourselves into a successful career that mentally letting go would be hard. It doesn’t matter that we were ready and willing to chuck it all for the freedom of retirement.

Many people fail to counter their feelings of early retirement invisibility. Miserable in their retirement because they couldn’t get over their previous selves, tied to title and position from an accomplished career. It can cause a mental funk that leads to complaining about retirement life and how it was a big mistake. 

A recent conversation with someone going through this mindwarp reminded me of what I went through and what I needed to do to overcome my own form of retirement invisibility crisis. 

The mistake of holding on-

I didn’t think my social life was as tied to my work as much as it was until it all ended. I made the mistake of doubling down on this social limitation by trying to stay connected to people I thought were real friends from my career. 

It didn’t take long to realize that the majority of these work pals weren’t friends after all. They were work acquaintances. We shared a common bond tied to our careers. Now that I was gone, I offered no real benefit to them as they were still in the toil. 

I should have immediately let go of my past and except for rare occasions, immediately let go of them too. It was all a one way street from me with their contact only coming back toward me when they needed to know something about work. My false notion about these friendships caused a delay in my transition. The real effort should have been immediately looking forward and doubling my efforts to grow my social circle with people more aligned with my new life.

Foolishly trying to prove something-

After delaying my freedom by a year I retired at the age of 51. It happened at the end of 2009 during the great recession. Nearly everyone thought I was crazy, foolish, or at the very least destined to fail. I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone but still ended up feeling the need to. Why? This was the exact moment I knew I wasn’t over my previous self. I gave up being a success in my field and had left with full confidence in my retirement decision. All the career accomplishment recognition had ended and now I was invisible trying to be seen in some way. It was dumb. 

Then truth-to-self hit me. I reminded myself that I voluntarily decided to no longer be an engineer changing that piece of the world. What others thought about my early retirement decision didn’t matter then and still didn’t matter now. The only thing I needed to do was put in some effort and move on. My proof was simply being happy and successful without the past. Achieving retirement success in the way defined by me. 

The allure of staying relevant to the working world-

One would think that after working through this retirement invisibility thing that it wouldn’t happen again. Wrong! I did take on some retirement gigs. It is all too easy to fall back into career identity even when you know it’s going to be short lived. It’s a menatly comfortable habit to identify with what provides us income. People are conditioned to consider what we do for money as the most important and interesting measurement in this go-go working world. 

For me, identifying with my retirement gigs was just a lazy way to answer other people’s questions. An easily understandable label. It eventually annoyed me and I immediately put a stop to it. It was a lot easier to shake my retirement work identity than it was the first time. I just changed my focus to why I was doing these paid roles in retirement instead of the roles I was playing. It served two purposes. 

1- It made clear my paid retirement work wasn’t allowed to bring anyone some twisted joy of perceived retirement failure on my part or reflect negatively on early retirement in general. 

2-  More importantly, doing this opened up a conversation towards sharing my retirement philosophy. A subject of great personal interest and passion: It’s the absence of needing to work that defines retirement, not the absence of working.  

Being Interesting Instead Of An Invisible Retiree Starts In Our Own Head

The new you is really better off.

It starts with understanding that the past accomplishments made us who we are today. Both the good and the bad. Maybe it was interesting, maybe it wasn’t as interesting as we think it was. What matters in retirement is embracing our future. If we think we’re invisible and boring then so will everyone else. 

Early in my retirement I found a lot of what I was passionate about wasn’t as interesting to others who were within my orbit. So what? It’s the spark in me that mattered, not their approval. I had escaped the merry-go-round of the working world and the problem was with them, not me. 

Just as our social circle primarily revolved around our career in our previous life, our new social universe will and should attract those with similar passions in our new retirement life’s direction. As we evolve, so will the group we gravitate toward to share our time with. It requires allowing the transition time to work it all out and putting in the effort to grow it the way we want it.

What and who do I want to be?

Of course nothing will happen to drop our tightly held work identity if we haven’t figured out what’s next for us. I had all this planned out before retiring, that I would never say I’m a retired engineer. I thought my numerous hobbies and pleasurable routines would be enough to fully detach. But I didn’t do the deep dive that I should have. 

I wanted to be free of unrewarding obligation. But I failed to recognize that a lot of that obligation, which benefited many others while giving me only headaches, also fed my ego. Ego has a hard time getting over itself. I really didn’t like that part of me so I had to actively kill it. Maybe that’s why I call myself a Leisure Freak. I’m sure most egos would hate that title.

Understand that pleasure is a poor substitute for fulfillment and  purpose.

Sure, pleasure will keep you busy and is a lot of fun. There’s nothing like smiling your day away, but it’s fleeting. It takes purpose for us to have the long lasting feeling of fulfillment, accomplishment, and relevance. Without any of that it’s far too easy to dwell on how it’s missing and how it was fed by title and earned income in our previous career life.

My solution was to be clear about what I wanted in retirement to provide me with a sense of something more than just unstructured freedom and memories of my previous, now meaningless past working world accomplishments.

Create- Always be making something. 

Whether it’s planning new projects and setting goals, or actually building something new. Always look for opportunities to create something new or build upon what is already there. From relationships to something physical, including anything in between.

Love- When doing what matters, be all in.

I focused on family and friends. Targeting the ways I could make our lives and our relationships better. I now had the time and in some ways more resources to try to bring a little more happiness to all of us. I also made certain that if I didn’t love what I was doing or the reason I was doing it for, it needed to change or end. It requires a sustained level of passion or interest to spend my valuable time on. 

Educate- Constantly feed curiosity by learning and also sharing what you know.

This happens to be my favorite retirement passtime. I focus on a subject of interest and won’t let go until I have learned all that I can, want to, or need to learn to fully understand it. The other side of this is to enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with someone else who has the same inquisitive interest. 

Appreciate- Recognize my blessings and good fortune.

I used to get ticked off when I was told I was lucky to retire early. Really! Do you know how much work it takes to retire young? I learned to accept that yes, I’m lucky and blessed. Someone like me wasn’t supposed to beat the system. Growing up low income with no connections, sponsors, or mentors usually leads to a different outcome. I was fortunate and lucky to want to learn the benefits of personal finance and the power it provides. I appreciate the unique place I’m in and vow to never take it for granted. 

Relax- It’s alright to take me-time, I’ve earned it without needing approval from anyone.

Back in the early “I’ve got something to prove stage” of my retirement transition that came shortly after my retirement celebration period ended, I felt like I had to be constantly progressing or doing something remarkable. And I wasn’t nor have ever been into social media. I can’t imagine what that must be like for those poor souls. Once I figured that nag out, I could just relax into the retirement pleasure zone. It is an important learned retirement skill to counter the decades of rat race objectives and achievement conditioning.

When it comes to retirement, none of us has a clue right out of the gate.

I picked up retirement advice and warnings from people who haven’t retired and from those who had. We talked about this overlooked aspect of retirement. I thought “duh”, I have it handled. If you are in this same mindset then all I can say is once the retirement celebration is over, prepare to get over yourself. You don’t know diddly-squat. There will always be at least a little something about your new retirement invisibility nagging at you. 

Those who don’t have to deal with retirement invisibility will be well ahead in their retirement transition with more mental bandwidth to work through the other things. Like say, going from saver to spender, is moving somewhere else in the cards, is the portfolio living up to expectations, how do I structure my day, etc. It all has to be done and is all totally worth the effort to create the perfect retirement.