Top 10 Benefits of Taking a Mid-Life Retirement

When you take a break from working to enjoy breathing into existence your other life goals, you relax for a short while. First, comes a few weeks that seem like an extended vacation. Then, at about week four or five you find yourself in a state of panic.  This exact thing happened to me about a month after my mid-life retirement began.  Luckily, I had received some sound advice from a colleague who had done something similar a few years prior. He told me "when you begin your first major panic attack, just breathe and tell yourself to push through and all will be okay, the panic is only stress leaving the body".  That worked for me.  I had no idea the amount of stress my body was under until I was forced to distance myself from work obligations.  As my chest felt close to exploding, my colleague's advice kept me from cancelling the trip right then and there and begging for my job back.  I knew then how hard this transition would become and that I had to prove to myself that I was capable of being without the identity of my career, and even more so, my familiar routine.

The benefits of taking time off during the middle of a career is an exhaustive list. Everything from improving my mental and physical health to learning to be a more present husband and father top my list. Becoming better at taking agency in the choices I make in my life and basing these choices solely on how much value each one brings into my happiness and well-being is another benefit.  I have analyzed my year of retirement tremendously and have some how narrowed down a top ten list of benefits that my Mid-Life Retirement gifted me.

Top 10 benefits of my Mid-Life Retirement

1. Giving time to my immediate family to allow room for growing bonds.

2. Clearing out stress of obligation to be more present.

3. Learning activities that I never had time for in hectic work and school schedules.

4. Connecting with people all over the world that I love but rarely get to see.

5. Re-evaluating my purpose for my work, my family and my spirit.

6. Expanding my future horizons through traveling at a young age.

7. Writing down my experiences so I could share them with others.

8. Healing from physical and emotional pain brought on from years of neglect.

9. Teaching myself and my kids how to take on fear with a well-intended plan.

10. Experiencing for a brief moment what it feels like to live work-free.

Number ten encompasses taking a critical look at what my retirement goals for the future might become.  Living work free sounds appealing when you are giving away your time to a career that might not be feeding your purpose. But, I learned that when you are in that career you can't conceptualize what it feels to not be in it.  How can you gain perspective if you never risk feeling what life could be without that career in it?  My goal going into this trip, and for the past twenty years, has been to retire young.  The goal for retiring young was by most standards a simple goal inspired by an ambitious young adult. I know now that you can simultaneously have both a goal to work and a goal to not work. Age means nothing to achieving retirement if the goals have thoughtfully designed plans.  

My goal has shifted to only retire permanently from working when my body won't allow me to work, placing more importance on work quality instead of quantity.  I am no longer in a hurry to reach a permanent retirement or an age of retiring. I plan to instead allow myself to enjoy extended breaks, more or less every ten years, to accomplish goals that need more time then a career might allow for. When it comes down to it, now that I have been away for so long and have a much clearer vantage point, my career sounds more appealing than ever.  I can't wait to work again.  I was able to realize this year the wisdom of Erica's Grandma, Kitty "Bobo" Gillson. On every hike, bike and swimming adventure, I reveled in her words as they echoed loudly in my head.  She told us, " travel young and burn every vacation day every year to enjoy the life you have away from work". We did that and then some, and now have the road map to pull out in the future to do something similar.

Other thoughts on the benefits of Mid-life Retirement roll into my head constantly.  Today, corporate cultures face a tremendous struggle to combat shifts in workplace morale.  Commitment to loyalty at many companies, on both the employee and employer sides, is at all time lows. Corporations could gain advantages in competing for talent by advocating more to build policies that incorporate some of my top ten benefits listed here for their top talent?  Sabbaticals, which are traditionally paid, short term breaks for career and personal growth endeavors, should be more present in benefits packages. Possibly incorporating mid-life retirement planning into benefit pools is a start. Paid or even unpaid leaves over 12 months would have been wonderful for me to have at my benefit. Our government could build in tax benefits to people who want to use money saved in retirement for their mid-life plan.  Until then, I plan to empower individuals to take more agency in their lives and start financially planning mid-life retirement strategies into their own financial plans.  Why should people only create one retirement nest egg?  Why not two or three??