Let’s face it. There are times when being retired can be boring. Fortunately, most of those times are short lived – a few days at most, but when it lasts longer, and especially when you start to feel depressed, you have to break out of it before it becomes a serious issue.
Too often though, it’s easier said than done.
I know because I’ve been there.
When I first retired, I had all sorts of plans to be active, work on my photography hobby, and do my novel writing in earnest. However, as the days became weeks, I did none of that. My life settled into a boring routine playing games on the computer, surfing the web, and wishing I could be working on something that made me happy. I was just drifting along day after day, same-old, same-old.
Fast forward to today. I’m no longer stuck in that boring retirement. My life is happy and fulfilled.
One of the main things I discovered that helped me out turned out to be incredibly simple in concept, but harder to do in real life. That was finding someone who take an active part in helping me decide what to do and to challenge me to follow through on it.
You would think finding that person would be easy, but I found that all my friends and family had lives of their own. That is, they were genuinely busy and although they encouraged and verbally supported me, they didn’t have the time or energy to work hand-in-hand with me while I got myself moving.
The thing is: THIS IS NORMAL.
If you have a spouse, family, or friends who can fully support you, then you probably don’t have a boring retirement.
This tip is for the rest of us, and the tip is:
Decide on something that you want to do and get someone who is already doing it to help you. Find a hobby (old or new) and join a club or organization that has regular get-togethers and have someone in the club “mentor” or coach you. I have yet to be in a club where the people who know more than me aren’t willing to help.
So, why does this work? Firstly, it gets you out of the house, but more importantly, your mentor is focused on helping you move forward on whatever you chose to do, and they are interested in you, and, this is critical, you are making commitments to that person. Commitments that you will feel obligated to complete and that will give you the push to get out of your boring routines. The upside of this is that you now have a goal, and you are working toward it, and that usually makes most people happier, and being happier is not boring, and when you’re not bored, you can easily move forward on other things.
You’ve broken out of retirement boredom.
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