Are you, like so many Boomers, The Accidental Retiree?  Maybe you did not mean to retire, but the economy slowed, the job did not work out, or you had health issues.  Many can relate, based on personal anecdotes.

Below are some tips to help through this time:

• Don’t isolate!  It’s so easy to feel like a failure, to start staying home, to hide in bed, to forget to get out.  It does not help that it is difficult to answer the normal cocktail party question: “What do you do?”
• On that note, find a canned answer to that question, and practice it.  For example: I am a ChangeArtist; I am on a sabbatical to do some writing; I am restructuring and reassessing some of my goals.  I really threw someone off when he asked what I did, and I responded “I am” or “just being”— something like that.  Yet, that’s how I felt! 
• Network.  Although this is the HARDEST time to network, it is also the most important time to do so.  Find your resources; list them; let them know how they can help, but without sounding needy.
• Stay active, get out, do things, join new groups, be vibrant.
• Exercise.  You will feel better and this may be the perfect time to get in shape.  It will help your image to others, and increase your self esteem.
• Analyze your situation.  The book ChangeArtist (available via this site) gives you strategic planning steps to help analyze your situation.
• Use the Balance Wheel on this site to analyze where you are and where you want to be on each of the 7 elements.  List what strategies you need to employ to get you further to a 10.  List tactics (activities) to support each strategy.
• Attend to your physical and emotional health, as stress can affect them negatively.
• Attend to your finances and make sure you stay in good financial shape.  Cut back if need be.
• Analyze your image and see if you like it.  Perhaps investing in a new look or clothing may lift your spirits or update your image or even take you into a new desired image.
• Prepare yourself to take advantage of opportunities. Catch up on doctor’s appointments and other things on your lists.  You will feel better about yourself, your life, and they will not burden you if the right job or situation comes along. 
• Read about loss and transition.  This is what you are going through, and studying it will help you understand it and cope better with it.
• Think of goals you could create and accomplish during this ‘down time.’
• Discuss with yourself if perhaps this is not just a small shift, but requires a huge shift in how you live life, in what you see yourself as doing, in how you live.  This may be a major directional change, due to age, change in finances, environmental shifts, or other external or internal changes.  It may be time for a totally new direction.  Open yourself to possibilities, brainstorm, and try not to limit your future.  Be open and eager for tomorrow. 
• Keep good notes to remind yourself of your many good thoughts and ideas.
• Find or create a support group, call on friends, let others keep you buoyant.
• Find your inner creativity as a way to express your frustrations, your ideas, and your overall essence.
• Volunteer or work part-time in new areas of interest as a way of trying them out.
• Accept your emotions: they may range from happiness to sadness, to loss, to excitement.  However, put aside negative energy during interviews.
• Highlight your life skills; you have learned much as you have worked in various jobs.  Identify those and leverage them, be they teambuilding, how to identify and solve problems, conflict resolution, or other skills based on your numerous experiences.
• Try to (re)create self-confidence.  List your skills for yourself.  Be kind to yourself.  Do what it takes to create and/or restore self-confidence and self-esteem.  Create a plan for doing so and adhere to it.
• Enjoy the ride and enjoy the next adventure!

Category: Getting There

Tip #44: Control Yourself!

Take three minutes to write down six things you need to stop doing so you will have the time and the energy to do the few things that will matter the most in improving your results.

Tip #777: Think of Metaphors

I love metaphors. Metaphors are transference of meaning from one thing to another. A ChangeArtist might metaphorically be a chameleon. Chameleons are those little lizards that change colors to adapt to their surroundings. Someone suggested I might be a chameleon with a tiara–the Chameleon Princess. I am not sure if this was compliment or criticism

Category: Getting There

Posted by Stew Friedman on August 7, 2008 1:14 PM; published 8.20.08 Harvard Business Publishing

For the past couple of years, I’ve had the good fortune of speaking at the Broad Advantage conference in New York. Part of Janet Hanson’s amazing organization, 85 Broads, this weeklong program offers an array of speakers and experiences for about 100 college women who are interested in business careers.

A few days ago I asked each member of this year’s group to sketch and then describe to the rest of us her personal leadership vision–a compelling image of an achievable future. Leadership vision is an essential means for focusing attention on what matters most; what you want to accomplish in your life and what kind of leader you wish to be. A useful vision has to be rooted in your past, address the future, and deal with today’s realities. It represents who you are and what you stand for. It inspires you, and the people whose commitment you need, to act to make constructive change towards a future you all want to see.

Let’s look a bit more closely at the four key components:

• A compelling story of the future is engaging; it captures the heart, forces you to pay attention. Those who hear it want to be a part of it somehow. And they are moved.
• What does your future look like - what’s the image? If others could travel into the future with you, what would they find? A well-crafted leadership vision is described in concrete terms that are easy to visualize and remember.
• The story of your future should be a stretch, but it must be achievable, too. If it were not achievable, you would have little motivation to even bother trying.

Finally, future simply means out there - some time from this moment forward, but not so far away that’s it’s out of reach.

Stewart D. Friedman is Practice Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Philadelphia. He is the founding director of Wharton’s Leadership Program and of its Work/Life Integration Project, and the former head of Ford Motor’s Leadership Development Center. He is the author of numerous books and articles on leadership development, work/life integration, and the dynamics of change, including Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life, forthcoming from Harvard Business Press.

For more, please visit www.totalleadership.org.

Category: Getting There · New Directions

Make reminder notes of words and phrases that have meaning to you or resonate with you. Cut them out of magazines or print them out as below; put them on sticky notes or cards. Mine might be found in my desk drawer, on my day-calendar, on the refrigerator, on the mirror, in stacks of papers. A friend who does calligraphy did a nice job creating nice-looking cards with motivational words. . .

Category: Getting There

Change can take many ‘shapes’:

You might go in a straight line, from here to there.

You might take a zig-zag path, but still move forward.

You might move forward and then take a U-turn, going back to where you were.

You might move forward, with ups and downs, like a roller coaster.

You might move forward, get into the flow, rise up, go backwards and crash down, pick yourself up, and move forward again, like the Loop de Loop at a carnival.

Which path are you on?

Category: Getting There · New Directions