Winter 2008

Some Change Should Be Planned
By Meg Newhouse, PhD, CPCC
Aging Well
Vol. 1 No. 1

“All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.”
— Lily Tomlin

Most of us are like Lily Tomlin; we aren’t very clear about who we want to become in life. Some of us may seek professional help at various points—career counseling or therapy after a life crisis—and emerge with a better sense of direction and purpose. But that’s not a widely accepted social prescription. And the idea of post-midlife life planning is quite radical; what’s the point of planning your life when it’s mostly behind you?

But there’s the rub: At age 50, we have, on average, approximately one half our adult life ahead of us. There’s value in intentionally crafting one’s life at any age, as long as we include being open to unexpected serendipitous opportunities. The new realities of aging offer several compelling reasons to bring third-age life planning into everyday use, including the following:

• an extended life expectancy of mostly healthy years, to 80.4 for women and 75.2 for men;

• a demographic bulge of millions of baby boomers entering this stage of life;

• an activist, culture-shaping ethos the boomers bring with them;

• a need or desire on the part of older Americans to continue working past the age of 65, combined with a predicted shortfall of workers in many fields; and

• an extreme makeover of the idea of retirement, as yet unnamed officially (some contenders: rewirement, refirement, renewment, encore career, the next chapter).

A less well-known reason is a body of research postulating that later adulthood is a qualitatively different time of life characterized by certain imperatives or tasks. These include dealing with the specter of decline and multiple losses in later life, more emphasis on psychological freedom, finding purpose or meaning, giving back, and less emphasis on ego-driven needs for material and social status.

The bottom line? We’re experiencing the front end of a tsunami of people over 50 who can anticipate much of their active adulthood still ahead of them, likely including some kind of paid work (out of choice or necessity) but with strong, if inchoate, inclinations to move toward more meaningful activity, balance and flexibility, and leaving a legacy. In addition, as Marc Freedman notes in Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life, huge social challenges and needs coincide with this talented, experienced group’s attributes to provide a potentially exquisite win-win situation for our society.

Facts Into Practice
Although the ingredients are at hand for a new, rich life, most lack a recipe for creating it and are reluctant to plunge in and improvise one. Thus, most people will greatly benefit from professional guidance in navigating this unfamiliar territory. Key points to keep in mind are the following:

• We still have few role models, even with the last five years’ burgeoning mass of self-help literature.

• Ageism persists in our society. As William B. Sadler notes in his book, Changing Course: Navigating Life After Fifty, most people need help in reframing aging from a model of decline (the “D” words—decrepitude, degeneration, disengagement, deterioration, dependency, depression, death) to one of growth (the “R” words—revitalization, rejuvenation, renewal, reinvention, rediscovery, redirection).

• The latent tasks of adult development may not find expression in individuals without help in articulating and restructuring their identities.

• Leaving identity-defining careers, voluntarily or not, for traditional retirement, a “portfolio life,” or an “encore career” is challenging and likely to be handled more easily with professional guidance and support. And the transition can be ongoing; after a honeymoon period, many retirees find themselves either stagnant and bored or overbusy but unfulfilled.

• Most people need help in finding resources for different areas of their lives—health/fitness, paid/unpaid work, financial, legal, housing, relationships, etc. There’s a need for both generalists and specialists in third-age life planning.

• There are two caveats: 1) Navigating this new territory with peers can add a powerful dimension. Peers can share experiences, resources, and support. 2) Theoretically, people from all socioeconomic levels and of all ethnic groups can benefit from this kind of professional guidance. We should be sensitive to any special circumstances and needs.

A Newer Twist
Third-age life planning isn’t a new concept. Its progenitor—retirement planning—can be traced back to the 1940s to conversations between employers and employees about pension benefits and insurance. In the 1950s, there were enough generalists to found the International Society of Retirement Planners. More recently, retirement planning has become virtually synonymous with financial planning.

In contrast, the Life Planning Network is committed to an integrated approach that includes all professionals who work with people in designing their third-age lives—life coaches, career counselors, therapists, clergy, financial/estate planners, geriatricians, wellness/fitness specialists, housing specialists, etc. They mutually benefit from knowing something about each others’ approaches and tools. Equally important is basing their practices on some shared assumptions, such as the unique developmental imperatives of this life phase.

The third-age version of Lily Tomlin’s statement may be: It’s never too late to become more fully the somebody I’ve always been, but I could use a little help with the specifics.

— Meg Newhouse, PhD, CPCC, is founder and past president of the Life Planning Network, a New England-based community of professionals from diverse fields who share a commitment to providing a broad spectrum of life planning services and resources for the Third Age. She is also the coauthor of Life Planning for the Third Age: A Design Guide and Toolkit and the principal of Passion & Purpose LifeCrafting, a site dedicated to Third Age development.

The Third Age
Also known as the second half of life, second adulthood, midcourse, third quarter, etc., this is the life stage of extended middle age and active elderhood. It is a time that represents new possibilities for living with fulfillment and purpose which has been made salient by the 20th century “longevity revolution.” (Note: The Life Planning Network has adopted this European term, but there is no consensus on terminology for this time of life.)