Retirement & the Four Spheres of Human Life

Beyond how much it costs, what does your retirement look like?

ChatGPT informs me that “Retirement is a significant milestone in life. For individuals, it is the time we leave a traditional workforce for an era in life full of freedom to decide how our days are spent.” This wonky, machine generated truth, is right about one thing—retirement is when you get to decide how your day is spent. No longer required to work to support your lifestyle, you can redirect all that time and energy into the things you choose.

Recently, we traveled to Florida to celebrate my mother-in-law’s retirement. We spent the week enjoying family, jet skiing, swimming, and just generally enjoying a carefree few days. Given the theme of our trip, I found myself sitting on the beach one day, with my toes in the sand, thinking more deeply about what “retirement” really means to our culture.

Reflecting on the last decade I’ve spent helping people figure out how to save and support their retirement financially, something dawned on me. Over my hundreds of interactions with individuals and families, all very different in background, profession, family structure, and lifestyle, retirement planning is really just a continuation of your life but without the requisite task of spending the bulk of your day working and/or raising your family. Doing retirement right means having the freedom to focus on areas of your life that you most enjoy and make you a fulfilled person—perhaps areas that were neglected due to time and family constraints during your working years.

This Stack will go beyond the standard savings and investing retirement discussion and, instead, we will dig into the four spheres that make up an individual: 1) Physical, 2) Emotional, 3) Intellectual, and 4) Spiritual. Witnessing my clients’ experiences I can say there are some ways you may want to think about each sphere as you plan for retirement. Evaluating your outlook on these aspects of yourself will play a significant role in shaping how you spend your time in retirement and inform how to better plan your finances to support the healthy nurturing and growth of these spheres.

These spheres apply to any period in your life, so even if retirement is far away, think about these things and try to direct your life towards what you want using this framework.

Physical

Our physical health is the foundation upon which we build our lives. Anyone who has been sick or injured knows that health, or lack thereof, impacts every other facet of your life.

In retirement there are a lot of things to consider about your health. First, how will you maintain your health? Maybe you already have an active life and healthy diet—if so, will you continue your routine? If this is already not a priority, can you start making it one?

Diet, exercise, and being fit and active are vital to a successful retirement (and life). These things should be a priority well before retirement, but as we age and it gets more challenging to stay in shape and be active, it’s even more important.

Here are actions some of my clients over the years have taken to support or bolster their physical well-being upon retirement:

• Began new exercise regimes

• Started training for a new marathon or physical competition

• Moved to an area with better medical care facilities

• Started a walking group

• Volunteered to chase their grandchildren around a couple afternoons each week

If this is a sphere you have neglected in the past, I recommend focusing on this. When you envision your retirement, be sure to plan out your days and weeks in a way that emphasizes improving and maintaining your health—whether it’s continuing an already established routine, or carving out time in your new routine, this will be the foundation of how you feel while you live the rest of your life.

Emotional

The emotional sphere consists of who we spend time with and the enrichment those relationships bring to our lives. Ask yourself, how will you focus and prioritize your relationships in retirement?

I believe that what makes us human is the desire to love and be loved, and the emotional sphere seeks to fulfill that innate human need. When you enter the retirement phase of your life your relationships may change. If you were raising a family, the connection to your children and your spouse likely satisfied that need. Some may have found it through the camaraderie of friendships through work, school, or other social outlets. However, in this new decade, these former relationships may not be as front and center to your life and nurturing new ones may be vital to your emotional well-being in retirement.

As you approach and enter your retirement, consider how your current relationships may change and who you want to surround yourself with in this new phase. Ask yourself, who helps you become a better version of yourself and vice-versa, in your life, who do you make better? Whoever surrounds us—friends, family, neighbors, etc.—will shape our worldview and outlook; make sure these influences move you in a direction of fulfillment.

The physical sphere discussed above is external— the changes that happen through life as we age are obvious. However, the emotional sphere is an internal one and can go unnoticed through the tedium of daily life. Overlooking this need can be detrimental to our satisfaction with our lives, so be sure not to neglect it when a life event such as retirement occurs. Here are some changes I’ve seen clients make to better their emotional well-being as they approach and enter retirement:

• Move closer to family members—grown children, siblings, cousins etc.

• Join a new organization that will have like-minded members you can collaborate with (Political, religious, non-profit, collegiate, etc.)

• Actively seeking to reestablish their bond with their spouse through therapy, activities, travel, and other ways to strengthen this relationship

• Start a walking group, a book club, an investment club, etc.

Our emotional sphere is often the most difficult because it relies on relationships to grow and nurture our souls. These things take time, and cannot be forced—but they are the most important. I’ve witnessed clients really struggle with this sphere—so I hope by doing some thinking ahead you can work towards building and/or maintaining a healthy emotional life in your retirement.

Intellectual

Regularly expanding your knowledge through leisure activities will make you more vibrant, interesting, and keep your mind sharp as you age.

Intellectual pursuits come in all forms—art, travel, reading, podcasts, formal education, writing, etc. Anything that challenges your mind to think and create is well worth developing now that you can direct your time towards these pursuits.

For some, fulfilling your intellectual sphere was accomplished through your work. In fact, this sphere may have often overtaken other areas of your life due to the requisite hours spent on your employment. Do not let your potential burn out or relief that you no longer have to make intellectual pursuits the priority stop you from expanding your mind in new ways when you leave your employment. Ask yourself if there are new things that you may enjoy intellectually entirely different from your previous work.

Areas some clients have pursued intellectually are diverse, but here are some ideas:

• Written a book/blog/publication about an area you are already an expert.

• Volunteered as a consultant in non-profit organizations hoping to assist start ups and small businesses grow and expand

• One husband built his wife a jewelry making studio at their home and she now spends her day creating jewelry which she sells as a small business

• Learned a foreign language and then vacationed in a place they spoke it for an extended period of time

In retirement, you have complete control over what areas of your mind you want to expand and grow—don’t neglect this freedom, as I’m sure during your working years there were a lot of intellectual activities you were unable to chase after. This sphere may also support your emotional success in retirement in two ways 1) maintaining your intellectual capabilities makes you interesting when interacting with others and 2) pursuing new intellectual horizons may lead to new outlets where you potentially meet people to build relationships with.

Spiritual

“There are as many religions as there are people.” -Ghandi

Deeply personal and therefore, difficult to prescribe, the spiritual sphere is vitally important to your individual fulfillment—in all times in your life. Nurturing your spirit will give you a deeper sense of peace, purpose, and direction.

Peace in your life gives you the mental space to pursue other areas effectively—when you have peace you can focus on your intellectual pursuits, relationships, and daily physical routine without noisy distractions stealing your focus. As humans, we yearn for peace; peace of knowing who we are, where we are, and what we are doing is essentially good; knowing that we are contributing to the happiness of others and progressing.

Peace and a spiritual life will also help you stay strong through challenges that will naturally occur in retirement; things like aging or health issues, caring for a spouse, helping your adult children, etc. This aspect is one that some of my clients are very open about and some very private. Here are some things I’ve witnessed clients take on to nurture their spiritual life in retirement:

• Become more active in Church leadership

• Begin a daily practice of meditation

• Volunteer for mission trips to foreign countries

• Teach religious education to the younger generations in their church or synagogue

• Volunteer in their community for organizations that help with difficult issues in our society

Because faith is so personal, my advice here will be only this, make a plan in retirement to seek times of silence, solitude, and simplicity. "All of mans' miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone." -Blaise Pascal

How you live your day is how you live your life.

These spheres are not entirely distinct and often overlap with one another—sometimes they interact, influence, and support each other in various ways. For example, if you are seeking to cultivate your spiritual life through more involvement in church, it is likely you will develop relationships with other church members that contribute to your emotional well-being along the way. Additionally, you may prioritize different spheres based on where you are in life and what you value.

It’s easy to let your days slip away without any direction or intention of how you spend your time. This happens in all phases of life, but even more so in retirement. Getting into the habit of “I can start this tomorrow” is much easier the less busy you are! These four spheres are a way to focus on what is important in your life—so outline them and make a list of the things you love doing now, and the things you wish you had more time to learn to do, and plan a schedule or routine of how you will tackle them in retirement.

And finally, some of these pursuits may require financial inputs, so having an idea of how you will nurture these spheres in retirement will help you also consider the costs of these pursuits.