How to Choose Retirement or ‘Independence’ Work for Your Salvation
© Shane Flait

Many who reach retirement need to work for more income. Those who are younger want out of the drudgery of their ‘employee’ jobs. Both can find something to ‘work at’ that makes life enjoyable. This article helps get them started.

Retirees, about to be and younger workers

Many retirees also want something to ‘work at’ that keeps them going in a purposeful and satisfying way. But they don’t want the stress and drudgery of jobs they left.  Fortunately, they’ve got time to develop what they like. Reaching 60 means you statiscally have another 30 years to live.

With the help of Social Security, pensions or savings, retirees can choose and develop an ‘avocation’ that’s enjoyable and meaningful. They can work part-time since they already have some base income while reaping the benefit of satisfaction and something to do.

If you’re not in retirement, you can find the type of work that’s enjoyable to you, but you’ll have to put time aside each week to prepare for it.

Benefits of working at what you want

Work is good for you emotionally, physically, and socially no matter what your age. Of course, what you work at should be enjoyable – not the stress-filled drudgery that can put you in an early grave. To reap the benefits of working enjoyably, you’ve got to find something you love.

Confucius said that if you find a ‘calling’ you love to do, you’ll never work a day in your life. I thing we’d all like to find such a ‘calling’. In fact, to be successful at whatever you ‘work at’, you must fall in love with doing it.

If it’s independence you crave, then it’s all the more important to develop a career that you’ll love. Self-employed work often demands many more hours more than ‘employee’ job. But when you work at what you like, you can be both at work and not at work simultaneously.

To find out what you’ll love to do, you must find out what really makes you tick – what drives you and gives you satisfaction. That’s accomplished in 2 parts.

Part 1: Recognizing the work attributes of what you like to do:

Perhaps for many years, you’ve been working at things that just don’t turn you on. You did it as a job for money to handle the bills. You may have chosen your career based on suggestions of your parents or others because you lacked the experience to form your own idea of what to do. 

Some things you worked at were ‘OK’, some were fun, and some were drudgery. You not only ignored what you really wanted to do, you - more than likely - never developed what it is that you might really like to do.

Now you’ve worked and lived through many years. You’ve acquired the experience from which you can develop your ideas.

Here’s how you can extract from your experiences those attributes of working you’ll enjoy:

1.      Reflect on your skills and interests you’ve developed or touched on during your life. Jot them down, their context, and how you felt about them.

2.      Compile your ‘enjoyable’ skills and interests from which to fashion possible ideas to work at. Seek more education only about what interests you.

3.      Then you can seek an ‘endeavor’ based on what you enjoy that can keep you happy.

Part 2: Know yourself and how you fit into ‘the world’

While you’re pulling out your enjoyable skills and interests from your life experiences – and contemplating in what way you can use them to ‘work at’ - you should come to terms with who you really are and how you’d best fit in doing the types of things you enjoy.

To do so, try to answer these questions with a positive view of the world:

·         What are your core beliefs?  This defines who you are - and who you aren’t.

·         What’s important to you in the scheme of life?  This orients you and your direction.

·         What skills do you like using and interests you like following? This is what you bring in skills and interest to your work from part 1.

·         What would you like to communicate to people through your work? This is what you have to offer through your work.

·         How can you make things better – at least for some people? – This is what your work offers directly.

Take your time to work through part 1 for recognizing your skills and interests and part 2 for understanding who you are and where you’ll best fit in. It’s an ongoing exercise anyway. But doing so will put you on your way to finding a successful endeavor that others will appreciate what you enjoy doing. 

 Shane Flait is a writer and educator. Get more info at www.EasyRetirementKnowHow.com