Retirementality is a way of rethinking retirement as a more flexible, purposeful and personally defined stage of life.
For decades, many people were encouraged to imagine retirement as a fixed destination. You worked until a certain age, stepped away from your career and entered a long period of rest and leisure.
That model still suits some people. But it doesn’t suit everyone.
As working lives change and people live longer, traditional ideas about retirement are evolving. Rather than focusing on a predetermined age, retirement is increasingly about deciding what you want the next stage of life to look like.
Mitch Anthony, author of The New Retirementality, has spent years challenging traditional retirement thinking and encouraging people to approach this transition with greater focus on purpose, engagement and quality of life.
Stay engaged at any age
One of the strongest ideas behind retirementality is that age alone shouldn’t determine when meaningful work ends.
For some people, stepping away from work completely is exactly what they want. For others, work provides stimulation, connection, identity or a sense of contribution.
Continuing to work in some form doesn’t mean retirement planning has failed.
It may simply mean your version of retirement includes consulting, mentoring, part-time work, volunteering or another form of purposeful engagement.
The important question is less ‘When should I stop?’ and more ‘How do I want to spend my time?’
Retire to something, not only from something
Retirement is often framed as an escape from stress, deadlines or an exhausting career.
That can be a powerful motivation, but leaving something behind isn’t the same as knowing what you’re moving towards.
Anthony’s work places strong emphasis on having a clear vision for life after full-time employment. Without meaningful goals, relationships, interests or activities to replace the structure work once provided, retirement can feel unexpectedly empty.
That’s why lifestyle planning matters alongside financial planning.
The financial question is whether your resources can support the life you want.
The personal question is whether you’ve defined what that life actually looks like.
Balance vacation with vocation
Rest matters.
After decades of work, having more time for travel, family, hobbies and slower days can be deeply rewarding.
But leisure doesn’t necessarily need to become the whole picture.
Anthony often describes retirement as a balance between ‘vacation’ and ‘vocation’ – between enjoyment and some form of meaningful contribution.
That contribution doesn’t need to resemble your previous career.
It might be creative work, community involvement, caring for family, mentoring younger people or pursuing something you never had time to explore before.
A fulfilling second act can be built around a rhythm that feels meaningful to you.
Purpose matters alongside capital
Financial security is essential, but money can’t create purpose on its own.
One of the central ideas behind retirementality is that money can help fund a meaningful life, but it can’t define that meaning for you.
That matters because it’s easy to spend years focusing on reaching a retirement number while giving far less attention to what that number is meant to support.
A strong retirement plan therefore needs to consider more than investment values, withdrawal rates and projected expenses.
It should also consider how you want to spend your time, who you want to spend it with and what you want this stage of life to make possible.
Planning for a life, not only a retirement date
This is where integrated lifestyle financial planning becomes especially valuable.
A financial planner can help you assess whether your resources are aligned with the future you’re envisioning, while also helping you think through the choices that may shape that future.
At RFAdvice, we believe retirementality offers a more useful way to think about this stage of life. Retirement planning shouldn’t be limited to engineering an exit from work. It should help you prepare for a next chapter that’s financially sustainable, personally meaningful and aligned with the life you still want to live.
Next up: Social and spiritual capital: wealth beyond money