Enjoy Life Before You Retire
The last 12 months have been a reclamation of my life and the things I love to do.
It scares me since usually I only see senior citizens get to that point of living a life they are super excited and passionate about. Am I getting old??? Well, I haven’t gotten anything from AARP yet. I’m sure the powers that be are selling my info typed on this Google doc before I even get to post the blog so that might change by the time I get this written, edited, and posted!
Don’t wait until you get mail from AARP to start enjoying your life.
How many of you are holding off for “one day” to get that new outfit or new hairstyle and color?
How many years have you waited to buy a new piece of jewelry or get that tattoo you wanted?
One of the biggest regrets people say they have on their deathbed according to Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative care provider and author of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying is:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This lack of living authentically robs us of our time and leaves us with regret. There is probably nothing worse than knowing any breath could be your last. In theory, that goes for any of us but at 47 it’s not something I think about like I might at 97.
It would suck at 97 to say “man, I spent 40 years at a job I hated every day.” We all know people that say “I wish I would have bought these shoes a year ago. It would have saved my (feet/back/knees/whatever body part that hurt them).” Do you want to be that person, regretting big and small things?
You would have robbed yourself of so many smiles if you didn’t get that beautiful piece of jewelry on that trip you went on.
Same for that tattoo that made you so happy when you saw it, and when others told you how amazing it was.
The same holds true for how you spend your time. Is it always spent working or worrying? How intentional are you about your home environment, the people you hang out with, the hobbies or lack of them, and travel (or lack thereof).
Most of the regrets we have can be impacted by our mindset and beliefs. There are three things I want to share with you to help curb some of your regrets.
Treat yourself well.
I fully believe in treating yourself! I also fully believe that it doesn’t have to be expensive.
Strawberry Lemonade is one of THE best things ever! When I see it on a food truck or at a restaurant, I order it. That is a treat that is almost always under $8. Some of my best clothing items, books, and decor have been found at thrift stores. A good $2 hardback that I’ve been wanting is a perfect splurge for my money and my time.
Some things we see as treats are really a great return on investment (ROI). As I’ve gotten older, I see more value in looking at the ROI before making my decision.
Think about the shoes that cost $20 more than you wanted to spend. It might cost $20 now but then the ROI is that they last 3 years instead of the 2 you expected. They have much better support and you don’t spend hours complaining about your feet hurting. That is hella good ROI for that extra 20 bucks!
One of the biggest treats for me growing up was going out to eat. This can be pricey but there is also an ROI that is hard to put a price tag on. Time with those you love. No worry about if you burn the food, no worry about cleaning up, and you have a captive audience to listen to you talk about the latest podcast you heard. (Just me with the podcast obsession??)
2. Make a bucket list.
Yes, that sounds cheesy AF but once you think about it the things you want to do in your lifetime, write them down, and start talking about them…magic starts to happen.
I wanted to spend money with a business owner that I thought could coach me with a very specific concern I had. She did something I wanted to do with my business. While she is a minor celebrity in my area, is still far from the Jenna Kutcher, Amy Porterfield, or Gabby Bernstein level, I knew she could help me.
After meeting her, I wanted to book a planning session. That was July 2021. I attended a luncheon she was speaking at to learn more about her. I talked about booking my session with her for months.
Every month when I looked at my budget, it wasn’t there to spend the very affordable amount for what I thought I would get from the session.
At the beginning of May, I was bummed out that I still hadn’t met with her after almost a year.
Enter the universe….
On May 15th, I won a Visa Gift Card. In. The. Exact. Amount. I. Needed!
I had my sign that it was time. As soon as I got my hands on that gift card, I got online and booked my date with destiny! If I had let it fall off my radar, it would have never happened.
You have to know what you want to do in order to make it happen. Sometimes you are gifted the thing you want, other times you have to keep planning for it to happen.
3. Spend time with yourself.
This should probably be the second point but…I’m going to leave it so you can start dreaming about your bucket list before you really get it down to the writing portion.
This is how you get your list my friends! Take some time to observe what you like to do when you aren’t working or doing activities with your family or friends.
Do you read or take a hike?
When you hear of something cool you want to do, do you follow up on it?
Do you visit new places or stick to the familiar?
Are you one to enroll in classes and watch videos on subjects of interest?
These things are the helium in your balloon. When we do things we like, it fills our soul with light and happiness. Our spirits rise like a balloon allowing us to feel more accomplished and happy with our life.
As I spend a lot of time trying to live a life that makes me happy…I realize I spend a lot of years in a sad, struggling place. I did good to cover it up most days. The extrovert society I live in forced me to just handle my shit and slap a smile on my face. No deep conversations were allowed.
That no longer works for me. I had to make changes because I was becoming someone I didn’t even want to be around. I could hear the way I talked to my friends and thought “Damn, I wouldn’t keep taking these calls if things were reversed.”
It took a long time to figure out how to get back to my happy place. But this is how it starts…how you can do things that are important to you before you are too old or sick to do them.
Talk about things you want to do to anyone that will listen to you. You just might meet the one that owns the ax-throwing venue you keep eying on the way home from work. When you go, you can say hi, maybe get some inside tips (best time to visit, the scoop on the happy hour specials, etc), and figure out if that is something you want to do or if it just sounded good.
Plan for things that you want to do. If you are tight on money, you might need two years to plan that trip to Cali with the family. Research times that work based on school/work schedules, best times to visit, and if you are talking to people about this trip, you are going to get suggestions that make your trip a million times better!
Take action. This is the hardest part but damn is it worth it! You can talk about going on a trip, buying a camper, enrolling in that class, or whatever it is that will make you happy but unless you actually take action, it won’t happen. You have to buy a ticket to get in the show.
If you are stuck and aren’t sure of how to get started, think about what you do in a day. It might be helpful to journal some.
What did you do? How did you feel?
What did you believe to be true in the day (ex: I am so unlucky. I’ll never be able to do that.)?
Think about those things every day for a week or two.
Then remember:
Treat yourself well. You deserve it
Make a list of things you want in your life.
Spend time alone to know yourself better.
If you are enjoying the blog, please leave a comment on the ones you like the most.
Peace and love,
Teresea
Photo credit: Unsplash, Teresea Patton
