As you enter retirement, the temptation to do nothing can feel pretty strong after years of drinking from the fire hose of daily life. Unfortunately, doing nothing is not a good strategy for long-term fulfillment. It can be rejuvenating for a while, but it will get boring.

Your goal should not be to do nothing. It should be to do what excites you. If you’re feeling spent and burnt out, by all means take some time off and recharge your batteries. But after that, you need a plan that will keep you challenged and provide meaning and fulfillment. You need something that will help you stay active and use your gifts.

During your working years, that “something” was, to one degree or another, your vocation.  Your job.  That thing you did every day between 8 and 5 in exchange for money.  But most people jettison their job once they retire.  And when you subtract things—work, obligations, commitments—you create a void in your life where those things once were. That void can open you to self-doubt, regret, lack of purpose and boredom.  The solution?  If you take something out, you need to replace it with something else.

What is that something else? Leisure has a role to play (travel, relaxation, sipping mojitos at the beach), but it isn’t enough.  As someone once said: “Leisure is a beautiful garment for a day, but a horrible choice for permanent attire.”  My suggestion?  Replace your vocation with an avocation.

A vocation is something you primarily do for money.  You do it because you have to.  An avocation is something you do because you want to.  Because you’re passionate about it and it gives you a sense of purpose.  It often has all of the positive aspects of a job—challenge, learning new things, social interaction, purpose—with one important exception: you probably won’t get paid.  That might sound like a bad thing, but it’s actually good.  First off, in retirement you don’t need the paycheck.  That’s being handled by your portfolio and other sources of income (pension, Social Security).  Second, when you remove the pay requirement, it opens the door to almost any hobby, activity or pursuit you can think of.  If I had to feed my family based on my ability to create and sell paintings, we’d all starve.  Remove the financial constraints, however, and I can paint for the pure enjoyment of it. I can take as long as I want to learn, practice, grow and develop without the pressure to monetize it.

History is replete with examples of people who pursued both vocation and avocation.  Copernicus was a cleric by day and astronomer by night. Sir Edmund Hillary paid the bills as a beekeeper, but you likely remember him for his avocation as a mountain climber and the first person to summit Everest.  Franz Kafka was an insurance assessor, but you probably remember him as a writer.  Tolkien was a philologist, but you probably remember him for his novels.  Harrison Ford pays the bills as an actor, but he moonlights as a pilot and a carpenter.

How about you?  What would you do if money weren’t an object? If getting paid wasn’t a precondition? Not sure?  Test some things out.  Start experimenting.  Maybe you want to go back to school or start a second career. Maybe you want to volunteer or start a small business. Maybe you want to learn to bake, paint, cook, collect something, write, garden, take photographs, draw, birdwatch, make pottery, scrapbook, sew, play a musical instrument or do woodworking.  Maybe you want to become an amateur dietician, actor, archeologist, beekeeper, computer coder or songwriter.  The possibilities are endless.

Again, the goal is not to do nothing.  That just creates a void. The goal is to do what excites you.  Yes, you may look forward to the day when you can quit your job, but just because you don’t want to work 60 hours a week anymore, doesn’t mean that you don’t want something that will give you satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.  If you want your retirement to be remarkable, have a plan to replace your vocation with an avocation.

Be intentional,

Joe