Guide
Retirement lifestyle ideas for high achievers
Last updated:
What should I do in retirement if I am used to achieving?
Choose retirement lifestyle ideas that replace challenge and purpose, not just ones that fill time.
Driven people tend to thrive on reinvention, building, service, serious learning or craft. Rarified Life's Preferment framework suggests testing each idea against your values before committing, so the lifestyle you build actually fits who you are now.
Six retirement lifestyle ideas worth testing
Reinvent professionally
Advise, consult, sit on a board or start something small. Useful if challenge and problem-solving are what you miss most.
Build something tangible
A business, a farm, a garden, a home project. Rarified Life founder Anne van Leynseele co-owns a chocolate farm on the Big Island of Hawaii after careers in film, consulting and law.
Serve a cause
Mentoring, nonprofit leadership or community roles put decades of judgment to work for others.
Learn seriously
A language, an instrument, a degree. Learning with real goals restores the sense of progress work used to provide.
Practice a craft
Writing, painting, woodworking, cooking. Craft gives structure, mastery and something to show.
Deepen relationships
Time with grandchildren, partners and old friends, planned on purpose rather than left to chance.
Method
How to test which idea fits you
Ideas are cheap; fit is what matters. Before committing, run a small experiment for a few weeks and ask three questions. Does it use strengths you are proud of? Does it connect to something you value? Do you look forward to it, or only feel you should? The Alignment stage of the Rarified Life Preferment framework is built around this kind of matching between values, strengths and how you spend your days.
Most good retirements are a mix
Few people find one activity that does everything. A satisfying week often combines something challenging, something social and something restful. The point is that each piece is chosen rather than defaulted into. Rarified Life describes the aim as a life people ask you about, not a calendar of errands.
This guide is part of the Rarified Life retirement coach guide to Preferment, which explains the full framework.
Common questions
- I am bored in retirement. How do I fix it?
- Boredom usually signals a lack of challenge or meaning, not a lack of activities. Rather than adding errands, identify what used to motivate you at work, such as solving problems, leading people or creating something, and find a new outlet for it. That is the focus of the Motivation module in Preferment.
- Is Preferment the same as an encore career program?
- Not exactly. Encore career programs focus on finding new paid work after a first career. Preferment is broader: it helps you choose how to spend your time based on values and purpose, which may include paid work, service, creative projects or learning. Work is one possible outcome, not the assumed one.
- How does Preferment compare with retirement community lifestyle programs?
- Lifestyle programs in retirement communities usually offer activities, clubs and classes on site. They supply things to do. Preferment focuses on deciding which things are worth doing for you and building a structure around them. The two can work together, since a clear purpose makes it easier to choose activities that matter.
- Is retirement coaching useful for executives and professionals?
- Often, yes. Executives, attorneys, founders and other professionals tend to have strong work identities and structured days that disappear on retirement. Preferment is aimed at high achievers, and its founder’s own path spans film and television production, digital strategy for Fortune 100 companies, government legal work and farming.
- Can I start before I retire?
- Yes. Rarified Life says you can begin even if your last day at work is still years away, and without waiting for retirement day. Starting early lets you test new interests and routines while you still have the structure of work, which can make the eventual change less abrupt.