You Don’t Want to Retire. You Just Don’t Want to Keep Doing This.

Maybe you don’t want to retire. You still have energy. You still have ideas. You still want to contribute and do meaningful work. But if you’re being completely honest with yourself, you may not want to keep doing this either—the same pace, responsibility, demands, travel, meetings, and a life largely organized around your career. That can leave successful executives and professionals facing what seems like a difficult choice: Keep working exactly as I am—or retire completely. But what if those aren't your only choices? In this Beyond Success conversation, we explore why traditional retirement may be the wrong question for many financially independent, successful people. Maybe what you're actually looking for isn't retirement. Maybe you're looking for freedom. We’ll explore the difference between freedom from and freedom for, financial retirement versus psychological retirement, and what happens when work shifts from something you have to do to something you can choose to do. We’ll also talk about one of the traps successful people can encounter after achieving financial freedom: using their newfound freedom to recreate another achievement-driven life just as demanding as the one they left. Because the goal doesn't necessarily have to be building another impressive résumé. Maybe it's building an impressive life. If you're a successful executive, entrepreneur, or professional thinking about retirement, financial independence, career transition, purpose, identity, meaningful work, or what life after a successful career could look like, Beyond Success is a place for that conversation. A simple exercise: Take out a piece of paper and divide it into two columns: What do I want freedom FROM? What do I want freedom FOR? Your answers may tell you much more about what you actually want than simply asking when you should retire. Because perhaps the better question isn't: When should I retire? It's: Now that I have more choices, how do I actually want to live? — Michael Watkins Beyond Success Continue the conversation: Subscribe to Beyond Success on Substack: https://beyondsuccess4you.substack.com/ Start with Video #1: You're Successful. So Why Are You Starting to Want Something Different?    • You’re Successful. So Why Are You Starting...   #BeyondSuccess #FinancialFreedom #Retirement