What can Covid-19 Teach us about Retirement?

When the pandemic hit, I found myself with no childcare, no routine, and a sea of anxiety about how I was going to help my clients get through their challenges, do work and be a parent SIMULTANEOUSLY, lead my own business, support my employees, keep sane, stay well, cook three meals a day, effectively tag team with my husband, keep the kid occupied and off of my zoom calls…

You know. You’re there too. Everyone has a struggle bus fueled by Covid-19.

I got to thinking about abrupt life changes and the struggle and adaptation they inevitably cause. I offer three thoughts about this pandemic and how to approach retirement.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.” – Joseph Campbell

1) What’s on your thrive list?

Tara Newman offers a brilliant framework that Racheal Cook co-opted for her work with women business owners, and it’s the first thing we can learn about preparing for retirement from COVID-19:

What do you need — not just to survive, but thrive?

I realized REAL FAST that the normal things that it takes for me to thrive (let alone function) had been upended. All support systems were out the window. This wasn’t about “self-care” per se, although it had an element of that; it was about living and functioning in a pandemic-riddled world.

The fact is, my needs for social interaction (extrovert here), 9 hours of sleep, and a sense of community weren’t going to change just because a virus entered our world. The routine was scrambled; they would have to be fulfilled in a different way. The challenge was to figure out how to make that happen.

2) Know that Logic, unfortunately, follows emotion.

But first, I had to grieve the loss of what life used to be. It wasn’t until I was done being sad and angry (let’s be real, the depression stage still comes and goes) that I could look at this from a logical place.

David Kessler, one of the world’s foremost experts on grief, said in HBR, “There’s denial, which we see a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally, there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.”

Part of the frustration with this pandemic is that it’s so far out of the norm of planning, it pulled the rug out from under us. In stark contrast, while we know we can’t plan for everything about retirement, any good disaster recovery specialist will tell you 40% pre-planning for an event is better than none at all. That might be just enough to help us let go of our work lives and look forward to our future lives.

As a retirement plan advisor, I’ve seen employees gung ho about retiring go blank-faced when I say, what do you plan to do and how will you spend your time? One individual lived and breathed his job so much that when he started hinting at retiring, his coworker and close friend begged me to get him to reconsider, out of concern he’d sit at home with no purpose in life without his job or any hobbies.

I’ve also seen retirees struggle significantly out of the gate, having to unexpectedly mourn the loss of the life and the identity that they had, not realizing how much their identity was tied to work. This is hard — and so much harder when your identity and motivation behind your work was a fundamental part of who you are and were for so long. While that’s more commonly seen among military retirees, we see it in corporate America, too. The fact is, work and the work environment fills some of your Thrive List, and you may not be aware to what extent. We’re all learning that lesson now in this work-from-home phase. As we debate keeping work-from-home policies, we know there just is no substitute for the relationships formed around the water cooler.

We had no ability to anticipate COVID-19, and thus we are stuck grieving our pre-COVID lives and muddling through decisions on top of grief. Remember, logic follows after the emotional flood has receded. However, we CAN anticipate retirement. Therefore, you can lessen some of the grief associated with moving on to that next phase of life by doing some planning and incorporating your Thrive List in advance. That list won’t change much from your working days to your financially independent days. You will still be the same person, hard-wired with the same needs!

3) Resiliency is a muscle.

When all planning fails and the life-changing event shows up, it’s important to recognize that resiliency is something that can be learned and cultivated. This is useful now, and if retirement comes on unexpectedly.

I’m writing this as my own family struggles to put a funeral together for our beloved uncle, cousin, Papa, Dad, Mr. Bill, who lost his fight with COVID-19, and yes, I’m having a very hard time believing that life can go on without this sweet person in it, or that we can come back from this deep wound. I need to hear this as much as I need to write it right now.

Psychologists tell us there are a number of things you can do to build resiliency.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” —Victor Frankl

The first tip is from Falke and Goldberg’s framework from Struggle Well: Thriving in the Aftermath of Trauma. It starts with wellness practices to make sure you can respond (logic) rather than react (emotion). Self-regulation (Elite Performance consultant Tim Kight calls it the R Factor) is central to effective human functioning. It is our ability to direct our behavior and control our impulses so that we meet certain standards, achieve certain goals, or reach certain ideals. My take on this: wellness practices increase our capacity for dealing with the alligators near our boat. We can’t make good decisions or find a path forward when we’re emotionally flooded. That’s important now in this pandemic and will be in retirement. Build your capacity for alligators.

One definition of retirement is “to go off by yourself,” such as, “After dinner, he retired to the study.” While experts might be calling it “social distancing,” that’s actually an inaccurate representation and will hurt us. Henry and Stephens (1977) conclude that one of the core sociobiological drives in human beings is the drive to form groups for interpersonal support. You see this sort of connection among those of elite military units or highly specialized groups such as firefighters, first responders, pilots, and healthcare workers. Tedeschi and Calhoun’s work on Posttraumatic Growth describes service to others as the pinnacle of the journey from struggle to strength. Physical distance or not, you need your people. You need them now and you’ll need them in retirement, too.

The final tip for building resiliency is mindset. Whether you follow Carol Dwek’s growth or “not yet” mindset, or Bandura’s studies on self-efficacy and believing you’re capable, or Jones’s self-fulfilling prophecy theory, they all point the same way. Your mindset has a huge impact on your ability to see a situation as a challenge (that can be overcome) or a trauma. Dr. George Everly, Jr advises fostering active optimism and having a general expectation of success regardless of the adversity. This will take more effort for some of us.

Having the luxury of deciding how you spend your time later in life may sound daunting, but it’s something that can be planned for and does not have to be a traumatic event financially or emotionally, unlike this pandemic. Start putting some time and energy toward your Thrive List as a starting point. Cultivate relationships and think about how you’ll keep and form other strong ones in retirement. And of course, get your head right.

Have employees that aren’t sure how to bridge the gap from where they are to a happy retirement? Reach out; our education programs can address that.

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