When Transitions Disrupt Purpose
Retirement Disrupts Clarity of Purpose
The transition to retirement can disrupt your clarity of purpose. It’s not that retirement terminates the purpose you had in career. But it often removes the structures and rhythms that kept it consistent. Your role at the organization ends but your calling continues.
Transitions Feel Like Cliffs
In his book, What to Make of a Life, Jim Collins uses the analogy of a cliff to describe life’s most challenging transitions.
“A ‘cliff’ is a significant event that alters the trajectory of a life and forces choices about what’s next. The big cliffs can radically change a life and throw people into a befuddling fog as they seek to reconstitute their lives and reenvision the years to come.”
One potential cliff is when retirement doesn’t happen on our timeline. The majority of Americans retired earlier than anticipated. They expected to leave on their terms; now they’re unexpectedly unemployed.
But the cliff is also how a lot of people feel six to nine months into a voluntary retirement. After a few big trips and finishing a long honey-do list, the cliff is the amount of free time they didn’t know they would have, being displaced from the natural rhythm of their Monday-to-Friday life during career, and a potential listlessness when their definition of productivity changes.
Ultimate Purpose Remains
When our unique purpose isn’t clear, we cling to our ultimate purpose.
In his book, Recalibrate Your Life, Kenneth Boa outlines three levels of purpose:
Ultimate Purpose
To glorify God in all of life
“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” Psalm 150:6
Universal Purpose
To follow Jesus and invite others to follow Jesus
“Make disciples of all nations” Matthew 28:18-20
Unique Purpose
To obey and work in my current circumstances and giftings
“He created us for good works, which he prepared us in advance to do” Ephesians 2:10
If we do not seek him first, nothing else will ultimately satisfy us. Our ultimate and universal purposes must precede our unique purpose.
What do we do if our unique purpose feels vague in retirement?
“Super Joy” in the Transition
I made a career transition about 5 years ago, after 17 years with the same organization. It was the only full-time position of my career, a place where I was loved and loved serving. I resigned because the challenges of having a special needs child were not compatible with my weekly work schedule. I left that position without another one lined up. It was a season of deep conviction that I was doing the right thing, but copious confusion about what was next. While my ultimate purpose was to glorify God, my unique purpose was in turbulence.
One of the seminal sources of comfort and encouragement came from March 7 of the devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, which helped me recalibrate to “super joy” in Jesus:
“The surf that distresses the ordinary swimmer produces in the surf-rider the super joy of going clean through it. Apply that to our own circumstances: these very things – tribulation, distress, persecution – produce in us the super joy; they are not things to fight. We are more than conquerors through Jesus in all these things, not in spite of them, but in the midst of them.”
I had surfed the familiar waves of my 17-year career and found joy in the work. But I found myself in new waters, swimming in the in-between, overwhelmed by the transition.
Reading these words didn’t change my circumstances. They changed my perspective - that Jesus could fill me with joy for these new circumstances.
Your transition into retirement can be a season of disruption that leads to distress. The waves do not disappear when we fix our eyes on Jesus. Instead, he can move us to joy in the midst of the disruption.
Persistent Pursuit of Unique Purpose
There is risk in riding the surf. We might crash and tumble as often as we succeed. But even a successful ride requires us to choose: Will we stay on the shore or swim out past the breakers and ride again?
Retirement isn't a time to stay idle. Instead, it is an opportunity to reengage.
And you do not need complete clarity about your unique purpose to take the first step toward it. Here are five patient but persistent pursuits that will help you on the journey to your unique purpose.
Pursue personal spiritual vitality. Abide in Jesus. Cherish Him more and more. Believe He is the energy that is powerfully at work within you (Colossians 1:29). Find your greatest source of joy and strength in Him.
Evaluate the landscape of your life. How are you sensing God at work around you? What are your new environments? What environments are you eager to explore? Who is around me and close to me that wasn’t before? What opportunities keep surfacing?
Consider your appetites. What kind of hunger is growing within you? What is becoming more important to you? Are your appetites aimed at your ultimate purpose to glorify God and your universal purpose to follow Him, inviting others to do the same?
Invite feedback and input. Seek counsel from 2-3 close friends and family members. Invite them to speak into your next chapter. Ask them, “How do you hope God is at work in my life in these Encore years?” You may find they are thankful you asked and eager to share!
Surrender control and embrace risk. Write down 2-3 areas of your life where you wish you had more control. Then write down how you hope God is at work in these areas of your life. Pray that He would move in ways that are beyond your imagination!
Don’t opt out of what God wants to do in you, through you, and around you. Keep pursuing your unique purpose with joy. Take courageous steps toward where you see Jesus at work in you and others.
Wherever you are in the process of thinking about your Encore, there are a few simple next steps to choose from:
If you’d like to talk one-on-one, I’d be glad to connect.
Or if you’d rather ease into the conversation, you’re welcome to join us for one of our weekly lunches.
