Finding Your Footing

Finding Your Footing shows that purpose isn't something you wait for, and you don't have to invent it from scratch. 

Two years into retirement, Eleanor Voss has a calendar most people would envy. She picks up the grandchildren on Monday and has book club on Tuesday. There's a river cleanup, a standing lunch with old colleagues, and a Friday she keeps open on purpose. It's a full, pleasant life. Yet most Sunday evenings, looking at that calendar, she feels a quiet dread she can't explain. If you've made it through the hard first year of retirement and still feel that something is missing, this book is for you.

Finding Your Footing shows that purpose isn't something you wait for, and you don't have to invent it from scratch. You rebuild it, mostly from parts you already own. These are the strengths your career pushed aside, the interests that got crowded out, and the part of your work you liked best, which often had little to do with your job title.

In each chapter, you'll follow Eleanor and other retirees as they test new paths one small, low-risk step at a time. You'll look at volunteering that truly fits, part-time work on your own terms, learning again, creative work, mentoring, and the bigger questions of meaning that this stage of life brings up. Each chapter ends with a short Try This exercise. Together, the exercises build toward a personal mission statement: a compass for the decade ahead.

A quiet second act counts as much as a bold one. This book is company for the walk.

Finding Your Footing is Book Two in the New Beginnings for Old Timers series.