Bogleheads® Chapter Series –Jill Steinberg- Finding Purpose in Retirement: From retiring to rewiring

Welcome to the Bogleheads Chapter Series. This episode was jointly hosted by the Pre and Early Retirement and Retired Life Stages Chapters and recorded January 10th, 2024. It features Jill Steinberg, PhD, presenting the topic, Finding Purpose in Retirement from Retiring to Rewiring. Bogleheads are investors who follow John Bogle's philosophy for attaining financial independence.

This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized investment advice. So, Jill, why don't you tell us what you've been up to before you start your presentation? Okay. So, it's kind of a funny question. What have I been up to? At my age, there's the sad loss list and there's the everything else list.

So I think in the interest of my mood and this presentation, I'll go to the everything else list. So I'll tell you a few things. I can't exactly remember when I did the last Bogleheads. So did you know that my research got published as a chapter in a book?

Was that completed yet? Congratulations. Thanks. Yeah, I feel really good about it because I was working with the University of Michigan, the Ross Business School, and the faculty there, two of them put out this book and Rutledge published it. And I'm the only chapter, it's called The Aging Consumer Perspectives from Psychology and Economics.

I'm the only chapter that doesn't deal with finances. You know, it's geared for business schools and minds, quality of life. So that felt, that feels really good. And then I'm working with Boston University, I was working on and off with their Alumni Association the last 10 years. And we started a new initiative to engage their alumni that are my age and my stage of life.

So you know how alumni associations you should go with early retire, mid career? Well, we're vital, we're alive, we're alumni, we're the ones with time, we want purpose. So we started a whole initiative to engage people our age and stage. And the first project I'm doing after there was a presentation I gave, is I'm starting a mentoring program of retirees to retirees.

So that's really exciting for me. And then I'll tell you something totally different than I didn't even know existed or could exist in my life. So I have a dog, and I couldn't get a dog I felt till I retired. And I have this really loving dog. And he just gives so much love that I got him to be a pet assisted therapist dog.

So we go into institutions, and he gives love for how people need it, including he helps kids that are afraid to read out loud, they'll read to him. So it's just as an example, something I didn't even know existed. And I didn't start it to the last year. So at 72.

So it's it's pretty cool what you can do in retirement. Is that a good enough beginning for yeah, and again, congrats on the chapter being published. Thank you. Thanks. So yeah, that's plenty of talking because you're in for a lot of talking. I've got a presentation tonight, I'll take about 3537 minutes, and then I have time for questions.

And I'll just start by saying I'm an emeritus professor and clinical psychologist, I'm 73. And I retired 16 years ago. Since retiring, my research publications, teaching and consulting had primarily dealt with successful retirement. Okay, so I already messed up, I was going to go to the next slide. And Jim, it's not going.

Maybe I have to click again. Ah, okay. There we go. So bear with me audience, Jim, and I just worked out something for me to be in charge of my own slides. And it's pretty temperamental. So I might have to give the control back to Jim, we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I think I told you that my research and consulting is dealt with successful retirement. And so those who plan for retirement, plan for their financial situation, and they tend to think about their life, kind of like a long weekend, like a garden, yay, I'll have time to read, visit people, maybe bike ride, travel.

And the research finds that retirement can start with a great honeymoon phase. People are really glad to have time, but then typically retirement proceeds with a steep decline in happiness, as people wake up to, okay, I did that, I did that, now what? And they find something is really missing.

And then that retirement usually stabilizes with as much happiness as people had while they were working. Depending on the survey, so let's see, yeah, it's not going, oh, there we go, okay. Depending on the survey, at best 75% of people who are privileged enough to retire even enjoy it.

Up to 25% have difficulty adjusting, 10% are not at all satisfied, and retirement satisfaction tends to decrease as people age, hold on. And this is true regardless of the age the person retires. Having purpose, this is tricky, it's not doing its thing, Jim, okay. Having purpose is a major component in terms of successful retirement, and actually a significant component throughout life at any stage of life.

And while developing the purpose in life is an ongoing process, the studies show that purpose in life tends to drop with older age. So what I'm going to do tonight is give you, let's see, there's that one, okay, a multifaceted evidence-based presentation. The first part is why purpose, what's so important about purpose, and then the bulk of it will be how do you find purpose.

So I'd like you in your heads to be thinking about your life, how do you view your life? Does your life feel meaningful with close relationships, purpose, and physical activities, or are you feeling a bit adrift? Do you perceive yourself as stuck, or do you proactively think about, reflect on what you'd like to do to make things better, and even know what you find purposeful and care about?

Okay, why find purpose? There's an abundance of research on the importance of having a purpose for physical and mental health and well-being across the lifespan. However, the research suggests the reward of retiring may be the punishment of not mattering, and purpose is powerful. People who have a higher sense of purpose, which is defined as the extent to which they feel like they have, hmm, okay, there we go, meaningful goals and directions, okay, anyway, people that have purpose, that feel like they have meaningful goals and direction, tend to live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

If you look at the long-term studies, longitudinal, where they use large samples of the same people over and over, they find that older people with a higher sense of purpose, for example, less at risk for neurocognitive impairment, such as Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. Lack of purpose contributes at least as much to disease and death as do lifestyle factors such as tobacco use, poor diet, inactivity, and stress.

In the last hundred years, our longevity has increased about 30 years. That's even with the recent dip during COVID, but our society's institutions, like our families, our educational systems, our health places, our workplace, housing, even our neighborhoods haven't been updated to serve the needs of our aging population, which can impede our ability to find purpose.

So I'll give you an example with employment. Employment can give you an avenue for social connection and identity, and when people retire, it changes the structure such that it can lead to many losses, your sense of identity, your roles, your social connections, your purpose, your daily structure, and the research says there is a negative correlation between retirement and purpose in life, but your sense of purpose is malleable later in life, and that's why you're here.

We're not doing the decline, so hopefully you learn stuff and leave tonight with things you're going to do right away. So even though there's an abundance of research on the importance of purpose, there's an abundance of it, there's not so much research on how to find purpose, which is why I put this presentation together for you.

I'm going to tell you what exists in the literature of how to find purpose. So let's see. Now it stopped again. Let's see. Okay. What is purpose in life? Sorry, audience. It's definitely quirky, and it throws me off from my presentation, so thanks for bearing with me. So what is purpose?

Purpose in life includes three characteristics. Having a stable desirable goal, achieving something meaningful beyond yourself, and making progress towards accomplishing the goal. Purpose in life can determine your goals and therefore influence decisions you make during the day. It's efficiency in action for your mind and your behaviors. To give you an idea of how research assess purpose, here's some items from a widely used scale.

So I have a sense of direction and purpose in my life. My daily activities often seem trivial and unimportant to me. I enjoy making plans for the future and working to make them a reality. Okay, so let's go to how do you find purpose. Let me check in with the people that can respond to me.

Can you hear me okay, and is my pace okay? Both are perfect. Okay, good. I'm still, I'm an East Coast transplant, and I go East Coast speed. Okay, how do you find purpose? So this might be the first time you really have had the opportunity, the time and the resources to figure out and do what you want, what has meaning for you.

It's actually a paradoxical situation. For years, people yearn for more autonomy and time to shape their lives. And after retirement with plenty of time, individuals can feel lost, adrift, they experienced choice overload, and they have demands from their family and others that they never anticipated. But I assume you go ahead are already have a good framework for how to approach finding purpose, because you've been thinking about planning and implementing ways to save for your retirement.

And you proactively chose to come to this presentation. So in terms of purpose, one way to start finding your purposes by thinking about what have you been successful at accomplishing? Perhaps it's your financial planning or your career, your relationships, maybe it's how you do your physical activities, or maybe it's you've been able to continue learning.

Consider what you feel successful at, and what has worked for you in that process, and what hasn't worked for you. So the essence of the purpose literature is finding out and see if I can get there. This is probably the best slide I can get to it. Okay, nope, we lost it.

Here it is. The essence of the literature is how to apply your best self to things that matter most to you, things that you deeply value, that are bigger than yourself. If you want one takeaway from the whole lecture, if you're going to take a picture of a slide, this is your slide, you're going to it's, it's easier said than done, you're going to apply your best self to things that matter most to you that you really value that are bigger than yourself.

It's a process, it involves how you find purpose, therefore, you start with a purpose, not the purpose. So maybe tonight you'll leave and you think you know what, from what she said, people in my life really matter. And you'll start devoting more of your time and energy, bringing your best self to people in your life.

Or maybe you'll say, you know what, social justice really matters, I've been working so hard, I've never had the time, I didn't make the time to focus on social justice, maybe you'll leave tonight and bring your best self to help the LGBTQ community. The research gives multiple routes to find purpose.

And you might find the direct route, what I'm going to go over tonight with you life crafting as the one that's best for you to find your purpose. Or perhaps you want to work on other parts of your life such that are known to increase purpose such as your social connections, or maybe you'll do a combination.

Taking charge of retirement starts with three, I would say really big challenges. And the first one is you have to reshape your life because it's been governed so long by organizational requirements and external structures, you know, your daily routines, when are you going to go to work? When do you get to come home?

What's work time, non work time, who are you going to connect with? And this doesn't just affect you, it affects the others in their life, all of a sudden you're free range person. And people can expect a lot of you, especially if you're women, it's domestic or children, stuff like that.

The second one, so organizational requirements, you leave behind a goal context. And at this stage, you have a more limited future time perspective. The research suggests three main pathways that can lead to purpose in life. So the first pathway is called proactive, because you the person seeks out various opportunities to learn about your purpose, as you're doing here tonight.

And life crafting that I'm going to teach you is in this first proactive category. The second one is social learning. You know, you've heard of mentoring programs are why I'm going to start BU so you can learn from other people as you do in your bogal head community. And the third one is reactive development.

And all that means is, you can develop a sense of purpose, following a natural occurrence of event, where you noticed you were feeling purpose. So all you have to do is pay attention and reflect, but get this. The research finds that individuals who report high levels of trying to explore and find their purpose in life tend to report greater negative affect and anxiety, needless to say, it's not my goal to make you feel anxious.

So that's why we're going to focus on concrete, specific ways of how you can find your purpose. So you can leave tonight with a concrete what next. Now what I'm going to do, I'm going to give you the framework, the foundation, all the tools that currently exist in the literature of how to find your purpose, but you have to go home and do the homework.

If I was doing a class, I'd probably make it a full semester class. I would give you weekly homework so I could gradually introduce the concepts and build on them. You'd have an individualized homework, you'd come back in a week, and you'd have a group of other peers that you could talk to, to figure out what's working, what's not working, what changes do I need, because when you're accountable to others, you're more likely to do it.

We're not doing a class, so this might be a bit daunting. However, you can re-watch this video, you can talk to others, other Bogleheads about a specific section, or bring me back for a specific section, but you're going to get tonight Finding Purpose 101 that covers a whole semester.

Okay? So I'm going to start with some skills. Now the skills, the six skills I'm going to start with, are evidence-based, but not specifically for purpose. I tell you them because I've been doing clinical work, research, teaching, about finding success for over 30 years, and these are the skills that people have needed, and when you do life crafting, that you'll need.

So first of all, you've got to be proactive. You see something you don't like, you try and fix it, hold on. You're proactive about looking for opportunities to be engaged in and contribute to society. Proactive. The next skill is being assertive. You go for what you want, what's important to you.

Now remember, I'm telling you they're skills, that means that you can learn them, you can improve them, you can find out from others, from books, from classes. How do I learn to be proactive? How do I learn to be assertive? How do I learn to be analytic and reflective?

How do I think about my life and my experiences to figure out what's working, what's not working? What do I want to change? Okay, the next skill is called grit. Grit is an extreme trait of self-discipline and perseverance. Grit out predicts IQ for academic success and controlling for education.

Older people have more grit than younger people. Those over 65 have more than any other age group, and I tell you this because we have grit to change. You might think, "Yeah, my memory is not as great. My energy is not as great." That's probably true for this my age.

However, we have the grit. If you want to learn computer skills or the piano or how to play pickleball or new social skills, we have the grit to do it and the research to prove it. Okay, so let's go to life crafting. I'm going to tell you what it is and how you do it.

Life crafting is a process of conscious efforts that you, the individual, make to create meaning in your life. The three areas are cognitive crafting. You're going to start thinking about your life and how you can view it with more meaning. You're going to look at your social support systems and use them more to manage your life challenges and to enhance your life.

You're going to seek challenges in terms of facilitating purpose growth, personal growth. When individuals feel that their lives are connected with something larger than themselves and you're going to hear me keep repeating that, it's larger than yourself, so it's not just you learning computer skills. Purpose involves contributing to others something larger than yourself that has meaning.

When individuals feel that their lives are connected with something larger than themselves and they're making a significant contribution to society, they tend to appraise their lives as full of purpose and meaning. This model of life crafting is the other really good slide I'm presenting, so it gives you the overview and the concepts and individual items that illustrate it.

If you're going to take a picture, this is your other slide to remember or come back into the presentation. We start with cognitive crafting, and that's a person making the effort to redefine or reframe their life in such a way that it provides meaning. The two cognitive crafting strategies are positive thinking.

What I mean by that is you're going through something difficult, and you're looking for how can I get through this the best way I can? How can I contribute to the other people in my life that are going through this hell? How can I help them? That's being positive, but not Pollyannish.

It's thinking we've got to get through this the best we can. How can I make it better? It's transcending your personal goals and thinking about how your life contributes to society. I tell you, I'm very much not a Pollyannish person. If you find I'm looking, "Jill, I can't think of anything positive in my life or how I'm contributing to others," I ask my partner, I ask my friends, "I don't even remember.

I'm not doing it." Okay, if that's really true, then it's probably time you look at your life and see, can I make changes so I can have a more positive life? The next category is, oops, there's cognitive crafting. The next one's relational crafting. That's seeking social support to further your purpose in life, or your goals, or enhance it.

Relationships, if they're mutually beneficial, are the ones that have the most meaning. In fact, good relationships with others may be the single most important source of life satisfaction and emotional well-being. There it is. Oops. That's the answer. Uh-oh, somebody's talking. Good relationships with other people. Kim? Kim, you're not muted.

Do you want the question? It's when you're in retirement. Single most. Can someone help Kim be muted? Don't tell me any of that, but that's what they... Dory, can you help me? Yeah, I'm looking for... Okay, there we go. Kim is now muted. I'm muted, Emily. Thank you. Was that Miriam?

Yes. Whoever did it, thank you very much. Okay. Kim might not appreciate it, but I do. Thanks. Okay. So I think I was on relationship crafting. Let's see. Oops, not challenge. We were on relationship crafting. Something happened here. I'll try and go back. Okay. Yes, we're there. Okay. What I was trying to say was good relationships with others may be the single most important source of life satisfaction and emotional well-being and emotional well-being.

And I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word.

I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word.

I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm not sure if that's the right word. By retirement, males typically don't have the social skills or structure necessary to have close friends. So I know I'm making a broad generalization. And it's in the literature.

It supports. Unfortunately that that's true. Males have not figured out. How to have close relationships and by this age, don't even have this structure. And if they're in a heterosexual relationship, they tend to rely on their partner. And research that can be problematic. So the three relational crafting strategies.

Are creating new relationships. Improving your current ones. And you using. The social resource. Your social resources better. I see. I'm not on this one and I don't think I touched anything. So we're still on relation. Look, see, it's going goofy on me. Oh dear. We're still on relational. Crafting.

So actually, you know, when I was doing a class for Boston university on successful retirement, I had a group of people. And they wanted to see the problems that were arising as they consider retirement. And that was a group. Of only one person who've retired. Everyone was still employed.

And it went even to age 20. And they were saying, please, we, we want a whole section on it. Social support is so important. Maybe you've seen this new trend. They're called happy to chat benches. It started in the UK and it's moving to other countries. And it's a.

It's a new trend. Benches. This is funny. They're now lines on my screen. I don't know what's happening here. And they're marked. To get people to engage with one another, whether it's a light chit chat or something deeper. Anything to help reduce the sense of isolation and loneliness. Okay.

So now we really are going to go on to. The next slide. How do people grow and develop themselves? And that's at the core of most meeting baking strategies. People want to personal growth. Achievement and accomplishment. Especially including at this age. We don't want to be the national resource that's left behind.

We want to be the resource that's left behind. And we want to be the resource that's left behind. We want to be the resource that's left behind. So what I'm going to share with you now. Are the seven areas that get addressed and you'll see why. It would be so good if we were in a class.

And we could thoroughly go over each one of these. However, you'll have the information and. Either contact each other or maybe me. And say, I mean, we'll help. How can we do this? Okay. Let's talk about values and passions. What do you like to do? What kind of relationships would you like to have?

How do you want to engage your mind? Now, in terms of values and passions, if you look at the literature on transitions. When people go through big transitions. They find out they have. They find out they graduated from college. Or they had a child when people go through transitions.

They tend to reevaluate and change. Their. Values sometimes anyway. The recent literature, the 2023 literature on retirement says we don't change our values. We might tweak them. But we don't change our values. So you can use them as a basis for figuring out. What purpose I want. So first thing are your values and passions.

The second one are your competencies and habits. Think of qualities you like about yourself. And qualities you don't like about yourself. And if it's too hard to think about yourself, you can't get distance. Think about other people, you know, what is it about them that you like? What is it about them?

You don't admire to start thinking about these individual behaviors and habits or competencies you want. Think about your social life. It's back to social life. My, a lot of you might leave thinking. I never even thought that was important. We never learned about that in school. Okay. And then the last one is your purpose.

Meaning health. Well-being and your purpose. So think about when you're at your best self. What kind of friend or family member would you like to be? And again, if you can't think about yourself or that's not your skill. Think about someone in your life. And it could be someone at a distance that you.

You once knew through work. Or it could be a family member. It could be a kid. It could be a friend. It could be a family member. It could be a friend. It could be a person that you want to be around. It could be a person that you want to be around.

It could be a person that you want to be around. It could be a person that you want to be around. It could be a person that you want to be around. It could be a person that you want to be around. It could be a person that you want to be around.

So when you figure out what you want to do, what you want to implement, it's important to set goals. You do better if you set goals rather than just say, "I'm going to do my best." You have a better outcome by setting goals. I'll tell you the acronym for setting goals are SMART goals.

You want your goals to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. I'm going to give you an example of Arthur. Arthur retired from Google when he was 47. He did not grow up wealthy. He was fortunate enough to keep working with startups. He's an engineer. He ends up at Google in the first handful of people.

Thanks to Arthur, he's largely responsible for us having text messaging, one of the important people. Because of that, he was able to retire. People had always told him, "If you have the chance to be with their children when they're young, take that chance." He and his wife, also a professional, took that chance to be with their young child.

What he was telling me, he was concerned about retiring because he loved his work at Google, and he was afraid that he would lose his friendships, and especially friends who like talking computers. He's a very informed person, and he has good reason to worry. That's what people often say.

What do they miss about their work? Their social connections. He cares deeply for his friendships. Google is very different from academia. In academia, I'm encouraged to work with my colleagues, to do research with them, to present with them, to teach with them. At Google, you're out, and you're out.

They don't want you to know their secrets. Even when I was presenting to Google, and Arthur was significant in my research, they weren't going to let him come, but we found a workaround because I insisted. Anyway, they recorded it and blasted it to all their satellites as I presented, and then they wouldn't even put it on YouTube.

They want others to, but they're very private about their information. Arthur being Arthur, he's a very planful person. He thought, "Okay, I'm going to put the conditions in place before I retire. I'm going to figure out what my goals are with friendship. What tasks do I need to do?

What do I want a typical day to look like?" He implements before he retires. He was also talking to me. He did that for his friendships. He did it for his tech skills. I have spoken to him over the years with follow-up. Originally, when he was retiring, he thought, "I will probably go back to work in five years." Now, it's over 10 years ago.

He has no desire to go back to work. He finds life meaningful. He can do projects that he actually can complete. Google sometimes at the last minute would take them away from you. He was happy to have that kind of control. He does computer projects that are meaningful for large numbers of people, not the same scale as Google, but still very meaningful.

His friendships are better. He's made it a priority to keep up his close friendships, which he couldn't do as well when he worked, including his friends at Google and his friends from the East Coast at MIT. His friendships are better, and he loves volunteering with his wife in his child's school.

He found ways to have meaning in retirement. When you're doing your goals, it's better to focus on learning about your performance. For example, if you leave here and you think, "Gee, I do need to work on making friends," it's better to think about learning about the process of making friends and saying, "I'm going to have three friends in the next month." Don't go for the numbers.

Go for the process, the learning. Or perhaps you're saying, "It's time I do volunteer and contribute back." Don't say, "I'm going to have a position where you can start even tonight looking for what positions are available, how you can do it, or people you know that have been involved in volunteering.

How did they do it?" I'll give you another example. Elliot Aronson, also a very eminent psychologist in the field. Maybe you've heard of the concept cognitive dissonance. That's Elliot. I interviewed him in his 80s, and he told me before he retired when he was teaching and doing research, he found out he was going blind, and he was very proactive.

He learned to walk with a white cane. He got a seeing eye dog. He made his computer able to read to him so he could continue with his research, but he gave up his teaching because he couldn't see his students. Since we were doing this interview, we decided to teach together.

I would be his eyes. From that experience, he remembered how much he liked teaching, and he found new skills. At age 80, Elliot went back to teaching, too. For those of you that have accomplished goals, you've probably noticed, you've had this experience of, in a way, it's easier to accomplish a goal than maintain the status quo.

Just think about losing weight, how many people actually lose weight and gain back more, how many people start physical activity and quit. It's easier to set a goal, reach the goal, than it is to continue on the status quo. This I'm making up, but I think it's a good idea.

It's not evidence-based. When you reach your goal, tweak your goal so you have something else to work towards, whether it's weight, whether it's physical activity, whether it's learning the computer, whether it's how much you're going to contribute on that volunteer position. You have a goal, tweak it when you get there so that you can keep your interest in the challenge.

I'm going to give you an example of Leslie. Leslie retired in her 60s when I interviewed her. She's a very responsible person. She had a very high position in mental health, and she took a lower high position because she knew she was going to retire. She did all the things I'm telling you to plan for her retirement.

She knew exactly what she and her husband were going to do, and boom, everything changes. Right before she retires, he dies and her dog dies. Leslie did not have close friendships. She felt close to her children and they lived far away. What Leslie did, instead of having long-term goals, she reordered her thinking and thought, "Okay, I've got to get through the day.

I'm going to plan each day." She thought, "What's important to me? What elements do I want in my day?" She thought of five elements that every day she would want to figure out. Physical activity, social connection, meditation, creativity, and for her, that could just be cooking or music, and service to others.

People from my presentations or classes have found her way of approaching each day can be very helpful for you, and then you can tweak what the elements you want. Approach goals are better than avoidance goals. What I mean is, don't think that, "Gee, I don't want to be bored.

I don't want to be lonely." Think about, "Okay, I want to work on finding a volunteer position or making friends." Think of something you can approach that's a better goal and you'll be more successful than thinking what you want to avoid. When you're discovering your purpose, people tend to say, "Well, what do I like?" That can be useful, but asking yourself what's important to you is actually better at finding purpose and maintaining it.

It's bigger than you and can help you when things aren't going well. You may not know what your interest or your passion is. Try something. People do well at something, it can become a passion. Maybe you had no interest in photography or writing stories or working with foster kids.

Maybe you try something and you find, "Wow, I'm good at this. I like this. I want to do more of it. I want to help people." Just start trying things. Of course, the literature, you know this, that a lifestyle that involves physical activity, there's an abundance of literature that it's good for your physical and mental health.

I would suggest that, you know how I tell you being accountable is good? Do your physical activity with others or for others. Then you're doing several things at the same time of those seven categories. You're going to involve others. Maybe you say, "Okay, I'm going to get physically active.

I'm going to involve my friends or my neighbors or other... I'm going to go to assisted living place. Or maybe I'm going to do it with foster kids. I'm going to be the one that can take them out to play basketball or miniature golf or for walks, whatever it is.

Or with my dog, they can walk with me. Or maybe you'll even think a little bigger and you'll do a fundraiser for the foster care or for somebody else. You'll get people to be active with you. You'll be accountable. You'll be helping them and maybe you'll do it for even a bigger cause.

It's better to have no calling than an unfulfilled calling. What I mean by that is to set a goal and not reach it is worse than having no goals. That's why I want you to think about new things you want to do and before you leave tonight, think about, "Okay." She keeps saying it.

"What can I implement by tomorrow morning or by the end of tomorrow day or even tonight? What can I start doing?" Implement. It doesn't have to be the right thing. It's not the purpose. It's a purpose. And okay. Remember I said a purpose, not the purpose. People who are called satisficers, they think things are good enough.

They have better health and well-being than people who are maximizers, people that think, "I have to find the perfect volunteer position or the perfect list." They are not as happy or successful as the people that think, "I need to find something good enough." Okay. So I already told you that about your ideal life.

Last, I just have two little things to end. When you're having a new habit, say you're going to start flossing, typically it can take one to two or three months to develop a new habit. So as you try these new things, give them time. You might want to tweak them.

You might want support from others, but keep at it for a while. New habits don't develop quickly. I want to end with something that actually is not evidence-based, but I consider it poignant and helpful. Bronnie Ware is a nurse to patients who are dying, and she writes about regrets from people who are dying, because that's who she's working with, and that's what they're talking to her about.

So I ask you before I tell you the number one regret, something that you'd want to think about is, "Is there anything I've always wanted to do and I don't want to run out of the resources or the time or the health to do it?" What is that? Maybe you can do it.

Anyway, the number one regret that she finds, okay, punchline here, if I can get to it. Oops, elements, physical activity, sorry. Okay, the number one regret is, "I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." Another, this is probably the last slide you might want to copy.

"I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." And I, Jill, wish you the courage and support to live a life that has purpose for you. Thank you. So that's it. That's what I do. Okay, 5.58. We have time for a few questions.

And Jim, you can give me any feedback or tell me if people are still there and if they had any questions. Yeah, we had over 100 people or 99 people show up. And a few people have just recently dropped out, but very good turnout for sure. Thank you. Great.

And we have, somebody had made a comment that they're 57, self-employed for 36 years in a field that they love, but COVID has made the work vanished and the work has not come back. They're in terrific financial shape, but not ready to retire. The university, sorry, the universe has apparently decided it's retirement time, but what can I do?

Even another five or eight years would be nice. So I just, maybe you could comment on that. Well, I guess my first comment is, I'm sorry, because going through COVID for many of us and still going through COVID has been a very difficult time. And the situation you're describing is not unusual.

And if you look at the literature on successful retirement, being forced in retirement is not a good predictor of success. However, you just heard an entire lecture on no matter where you're at, you can find purpose, and that's very good for your mental and physical health. So what I would do, first of all, if you want to, you can go back to my other lecture, but I think this is the one you need.

Let's look for a purpose for you. And if I was talking with you, I would start with those seven areas, like what do you value? What do you like doing? What's important to you? Let's find that and go through the seven areas. I went through to think, "Okay, I'm going to try this." Or maybe it's just easy for you.

You go, "You know what? I've worked so hard. I love my work. I don't really have that many close people in my life." And she just said, "If I'm in a heterosexual relationship, it's not a good thing to just rely on my female partner." And you can look at my research on my website.

It's problematic. So maybe you think, "Gee, that's really important. I don't even know how to start, but I'm going to start looking at how do you make friendships?" And they're very good books. One of the best people in the field about the importance of social connection was University of Chicago.

And he died in the last year. So if anybody can think of his name, if not, if that's important to you, we'll get back to you. But go University of Chicago Social Connection. It's an unusual name. It was an excellent book on loneliness, but you might not be feeling lonely, and that's not the point.

The point is about social connection. So you could start with anything here. It doesn't have to be the right thing. Did I bring up anything to you, that person, that feels like, "Okay, I just want to get in gear and start something." So I know, Jim, do you feel like that was helpful?

Because I'm repeating what I said. You do? Okay. Yeah, and we have another question from Art. Dr. Steinberg, do you think it's more difficult for Americans to deal with this issue because of the way our society, work, retirement, and its ties to money and position are set up versus a country like Japan, who has a purpose as part of the culture?

That, I can't answer that because I haven't read the research. If you ask my gut reaction, I think it's very difficult in this society to do well in retirement. As I said, at best, 75% of people enjoy their retirement, and that's of the people that choose it, that are privileged enough to have the finances, the health, to even retire.

That's a crappy statistic. That's barely a C. We're not doing that well. I don't know the statistics of Japan, but when I read about that, when you have more community and thinking about the others they profess, that gives you more a sense of purpose. It sounds good to me, and I wish we would develop -- we wouldn't be such an individualistic society because at the end of the day, the end of the research, that's not what making people happy and healthy.

It's my best guess. Okay. We have another comment. "Great talk. You mentioned that you're going to start a mentoring program. When do you plan to do that, and how could one join a mentoring program?" Right now, it's through Boston University. If you're an alumni of BU, you can join it.

We won't start it probably for about two months. We just recently did a survey at my last presentation, and we have enough interest that people would want it. Right now, I am developing the retiree to retiree mentor program. The only other few I know in the whole country, because I've scoured the research.

Emory University, if you've been a part of that. Oh, and too, the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard just has a network where you can see who else retired, but they don't do -- I'm going to train people to be mentors and mentees, how to be mentees and match them and start it.

I did a very successful program at San Jose State University, but that was student-to-student. If you look into literature on mentoring, it's a very successful thing. That's how. If you're a BU alum, you've made it that way. If not, I don't know where else in the rest of your life there's not much literature on retiree-to-retiree mentoring.

Maybe Bogleheads could do something, but I know your focus is more financial, or I am setting up the parameters for training right now, so perhaps you live in a community where you'd like that, and they'd ask me to consult on what we could do to start our own mentoring program.

Anyway, that's how it's going, and it's a very new thing, and I'm proud of BU because when they started working with me about 10 years ago, really, the Association did not focus on our age and stage, and we were so successful at getting huge amounts of people to attend that they've now started this whole initiative for our age.

We want to be involved. We want to be a resource. Jim, how are we doing with time? I could easily end. I've talked a lot, and I don't know if people are okay if we end. We have a couple more comments, and I'll just -- somebody commented about the literature you mentioned and maybe a suggested reading list.

Maybe we could get together later, like tomorrow, next day, and put a list together and then publish it with the chat notes that we are going to publish. That would be all right with you? If you ask that person, I don't know, just put it out, and maybe they could respond.

The whole thing is evidence-based, so was there something in particular you would like? Since it was me and I was going to go to something to start from this, particularly that person that says, "What am I going to do with my life now?" Go to Seligman. Go to watch a TED Talk by Seligman on Flourish.

Go to the University of Pennsylvania website. That's a quick, easy -- you can do it tonight. He's excellent. He's all evidence-based on interventions, too. If there's somebody in particular they want, if they could put it in the chat from all that I presented, what is it? If it's about successful retirement, like I brought up issues with couples or planning or those kinds of things I illustrated people, you could go to my website.

On my website, myretirementworks.com, there's a section called Research. It's not as up-to-date as my chapter, but you don't need to buy this book unless you're interested in all aspects of the psychology and economics of the aging consumer. A lot of what's in this chapter is on my website, and all the resources are there.

You could go there tonight. That's a really good start. Or you will let Jim know more, and Jim will let me know. Yes, very good. There were a lot of thank yous and a nice presentation. I just wanted to tell you these things. Fantastic insights and a number of people commented that they have a bunch of work to do now that you've told them.

That's good.

Bogleheads® Chapter Series –Jill Steinberg- Finding Purpose in Retirement: From retiring to rewiring

Transcript