How to Build a Bridge to Your Retired Self

“Retiring takes work,” she adds. “It does take time, attention and effort to make it happen in a satisfying way.” Here are three steps Amabile and other retirement authorities recommend to make that shift as smooth as possible.

1. Detach from work

Once you’ve decided to retire, Amabile says, you can begin the process of detaching from your job. One effective way to do this is to transfer your knowledge and skills to younger colleagues. “Act as a mentor in those final months,” she says.

Sarah Barry, a retirement coach and author of 9 Habits of Happy Retirees, says mentoring will help you “feel like you’ve left a bit of a legacy in your workplace.”

She suggests easing into retirement with a phased approach. “Reduce your hours down to part-time working,” she says, and embrace “a growth mindset so that you’re shifting your thinking [to] ‘This is not an end, this is a beginning.’ ”

Another strategy for detaching is to start thinking about what your daily life in retirement will look like. “You’ve got to stop the autopilot and really take stock of who you are and what’s important to you,” says Robert Laura, founder and CEO of the Retirement Coaches Association and the author of several books on retirement and personal finance, most recently Retirement Intelligence: Personal Retirement Readiness.  

2. Assess your identity and interests

Did you take a career assessment in high school to help you determine what professional path best suited your interests and skills? A similar self-evaluation can help you work out what you want to do and who you want to be in retirement.

“I think a lot of people enter retirement just with this nebulous idea, but you need a plan,” Laura says. “You need a plan that helps you replace your work identity, fill your time, stay relevant and connected.” He suggests asking yourself, “What are you curious about? What do you want to learn more about? Who do you want to surround yourself with?”

You might revisit interests or passions you had when you were younger but didn’t have time to pursue, Barry says. “Start questioning what your purpose is and start to visualize your role — what you want your role to be in retirement.”

Amabile refers to this process as “awareness” — one of what her book calls the four A’s of a smooth retirement transition (the others are alignment, agency and adaptability). She recommends enlisting a friend or colleague to help you get there. Ask them what they see as your values and needs. That sounding board can help you clarify your purpose during retirement and brainstorm ideas to fulfill it.

Another way to “develop good awareness” is to draw a life map, she says. Lay out the key activities, relationships, places and groups in your current life, noting their relative importance and how they connect or conflict. Then create a similar map for your future self. This can help you clarify what’s important to you and establish future goals.

Amabile Ross beside a mural in Lodi, California, marking the 100th anniversary of U.S. women's suffrage. She received a community service award in February 2025 for her volunteer work supporting equity and women's empowerment.

Kelsey McClellan

3. Build a bridge to your retired self

For Carolyn Amabile Ross, volunteering with the AAUW has been meaningful because she applied skills from her former career to her new role. Teresa Amabile calls this “identity bridging.”

“It’s taking some piece of your preretirement identity and carrying it with you across the retirement bridge into retirement,” she says.

Identity bridging doesn’t have to be limited to your professional roles — it can involve your personal interests and hobbies. “Take part of your nonwork identity that maybe kind of dwindled away during your working years and revive it,” Amabile advises.

She shares the example of a participant in her research study who had been a hot rod enthusiast in high school but let the hobby go during his working life. In retirement, he rekindled that passion.

“It became a really important postretirement identity for him,” she says, and helped him form new relationships as he connected with other hot rodders.

“It’s not just about filling up the time,” Barry says. “It’s making sure you’re filling it up with purposeful things and things that give you direction and fulfillment, rather than just sort of keeping busy.”

Exploring these new or renewed roles can, and should, begin before retirement, Laura says. “It’s best to practice it and get a sense of it,” he says, “rather than waiting until you get there.”