You’ve earned your freedom—but now what? In this episode of Next Act Ninjas, Rachael Van Pelt exposes the surprising downside of “empty calendar syndrome” in retirement. Discover why structure is the secret to longevity, how rebellion against routine can backfire, and what neuroscience says about time, purpose, and energy. Learn how to build a rhythm that keeps you sharp, motivated, and joyfully engaged in your Next Act.
You’ve earned your freedom—but now what? In this episode of Next Act Ninjas, Rachael Van Pelt exposes the surprising downside of “empty calendar syndrome” in retirement. Discover why structure is the secret to longevity, how rebellion against routine can backfire, and what neuroscience says about time, purpose, and energy. Learn how to build a rhythm that keeps you sharp, motivated, and joyfully engaged in your Next Act.
Chapters
00:00 The Freedom and Confusion of Retirement
01:20 The Calendar Goes Blank—And So Does Time
02:16 Retirement Rebellion—The Psychological Pushback
03:34 The Decision Fatigue No One Warns You About
04:35 The Paradox of Total Freedom
05:49 From Schedule Aversion to Schedule Alignment
07:24 Finding Purpose in Short-Term Commitments
10:45 Creating Structure Around Anchor Activities or Keystone Habits
12:18 Find Your Daily Rhythm in Retirement
Hey, hey, welcome back to Next Act Ninjas, the go-to podcast for mastering your health and wealth longevity. I'm your host, Rachael Van Pelt. Today, we're going to talk about why we sometimes become rebels in retirement. Rebels without a clock.
You wake up on a Monday with nothing on the calendar, no meetings, no alarms, no to-dos, just you, your coffee, and total freedom. Sounds like a dream, right? But by Thursday, you can't remember what day it is, you've wandered from room to room, maybe started five things and finished none of them. It somehow ended the day feeling tired and obviously unfulfilled. That, my friends, is what I call "empty calendar syndrome". And it's one of the most unexpected challenges that people face after retirement.
Today, we're going to dig into why so many new retirees feel disoriented instead of liberated. We'll explore the psychology behind that blank calendar, the common urge you feel to rebel against structure, and why that freedom you desire is even better when you have some framework. Because while you might have retired from your job, your Next Act is just beginning, and it deserves your full engagement.
When people first leave the workforce, there's often this period of euphoria, isn't there? Finally, there's no more alarm clocks, no meetings, no commutes or deadlines, but that excitement is quickly followed by a creeping sense of confusion, disconnection, of losing track of time itself. There's actually a name for this. It's called temporal disorientation. It's a real psychological phenomenon where without external time anchors, people begin to lose their sense of daily rhythm. The days of the weak blur. Mealtime shifts, sleep patterns become erratic.
You might have noticed this yourself if you ever said, "Hey, wait, is it Tuesday or Wednesday"? Or "How did it get to be five o'clock already"? Or "Wow, I feel like I nothing done today". What's happening is you've lost the scaffolding that holds your time. Work used to be the structure for your days. Now that scaffolding is gone and if you don't build a new one, your days can start to collapse inward.
And here's where it gets even more interesting. After decades of living on somebody else's schedule, you're punching the clock, raising kids, planning around school calendars or quarterly budgets, you're probably craving total time freedom. I get it. You finally get to be spontaneous, right? It feels good. So much so that even the mere suggestion of adding back some structure makes you feel rebellious.
And you know what? That urge to rebel is completely natural. In fact, some psychologists refer to this as "retirement rebellion". This is a growing cultural phenomenon where retirees deliberately reject time management, structured days, and even regular commitments. This rebellion isn't just emotional, it's deeply psychological. It represents a reclaiming of your autonomy, a refusal to conform to someone else's definition of productivity.
But here's the paradox. Total freedom without any framework doesn't feel like freedom for very long. It starts to feel like drift, like disconnect, like invisibility. Rebellion can be an important transition phase, but you don't want it to be permanent.
Eventually you want to graduate from external control into self-control, self-directed rhythm. What nobody ever warns you about is that without structure, everything becomes a decision. Should I get up now or sleep a bit longer? Should I go to the gym or read a book? Should I schedule lunch with a friend or just eat alone? At first that sounds empowering, doesn't it? But over time it creates what psychologists call decision fatigue.
When every action requires a fresh decision, your mental energy gets depleted quickly. And paradoxically, you start doing less even though you have more available time. That's when we see people binge watching TV or social media and not enjoying it. They'll doom scroll for hours without direction, procrastinate bedtime playing video games, postpone meaningful projects they once looked forward to. That's not laziness, it's pushback against cognitive overload. You just get tired of making decisions about what to do with your time and eventually your brain rebels.
Having limitless options often gets conflated with freedom. It sounds great in theory. You can do anything now, right? But here's the problem. Anything quickly becomes nothing when there's no container to give it shape. We get stuck in a state of pure potential with no plan to execute.
It's like standing in front of a blank canvas with a thousand paint brushes but no vision for what you want to create. You stare at it, you dab a little color here or there, but without direction, you lose momentum. Eventually, you just walk away from the canvas, don't you? Not because you're uninspired, but because you're overwhelmed with too many possibilities and no structure to ground them.
This is what happens to so many people in the early phase of retirement. They've got time, they've got energy, talent, even passion. But without a rhythm or a plan, that potential just kind of hovers in the air, untapped, unused, slowly fading into disappointment or self-doubt. And then you start to question yourself. Why can't I motivate? What's wrong with me? Well, nothing's wrong, right? You just need some rails to run on. You need a path, because even the most exciting freedom needs a frame to flourish.
So what's the solution? Well, it's not packing your calendar again or recreating that 9-to-5 grind. It's getting intentional about what matters to you and making sure your calendar reflects your values. For example, if health longevity matters to you, then you'll schedule time for physical activity and honor your bedtime and wake time. It's not about keeping busy. It's about building scaffolding for a healthy lifestyle.
Remember structure, it's not the enemy of freedom. It's precisely what makes freedom feel good. To set your intentions, start by asking yourself, "What do I care about at this stage of energizes me"? "What do I want to create, learn, give"? Then just reverse engineer your schedule around those things. You don't need a full agenda. You just need a few strategic anchors.
Often people think the antidote to burnout is under-commitment. And sure, it feels good for a while to say "no" to everything. But what happens next is subtle and dangerous. Boredom morphs into apathy, apathy into depression. And soon you find yourself asking, "What's the point"? This is when the empty calendar becomes an existential threat. Because now it's not just a matter of how you spend your day, it's a question of whether you matter anymore. Obviously you do, but to feel that you need engagement, not overcommitment, not obligation, but purposeful activity that reminds you, I'm still here, I still have something to offer.
One of my clients, Terry, spent his first year in retirement like most people do. He played golf, read books, worked in his yard, but he had been a highly successful corporate exec, so it wasn't long before he felt utterly restless. What he said to me was, "I thought I wanted a break, but I missed the challenge". So I encouraged him to experiment with a short-term commitment, something that he would love getting into. And so he decided to teach an 8-week course on woodworking at his community rec center. It lit him up. Not because he wanted to work again, but because he wanted to feel like he was contributing. It was awesome. He not only stopped feeling restless, but his time golfing and reading became more enjoyable.
Karen had a similar experience. After she left a long career in education, she was super excited to finally have time to travel and rest and so forth. But six months in, she was already reporting feeling foggy and unmotivated. She had inadvertently found herself staying up later and later every night, sleeping in until late in the morning and sometimes even sneaking a nap here or there during the day. Because why not? Her calendar was open, right? But all that sleep just made her groggy and unmotivated.
So together we created a gentle weekly rhythm for her. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, instead of sleeping in, she got up and went to the gym first thing in the morning. Tuesday morning she scheduled "coffee and catch-up" dates with her friends, Thursdays she volunteered with Meals on Wheels. That was it, just some simple light scaffolding, but it worked. She had a reason to get out of bed every day, and that was enough to encourage her to get to bed on time in the evening. Just that consistent sleep schedule cleared her brain fog and increased her energy, and the weekly physical activity and social connection improved her mood, her motivation.
What's interesting is, when you ask people who live well-into their 80s and 90s what gives their life number one answer that people give is that they feel like they're "still contributing to society". In other words, people want to still feel relevant and like they matter even after they've lived a long, productive life. It's just how we're wired, isn't it? Plus, we all need a reason to keep getting up in the morning. That's what the Japanese call our ikigai.
And look, if the idea of a permanent commitment triggers the urge to rebel, I suggest starting small. Choose just one area of life you highly value. Maybe it's health or creativity or social connection. Just pick a project with a clear start and end date, and then track your progress weekly, not for achievement, but for engagement.
Maybe you decide to walk 100 miles over 10 weeks, or you decide to declutter and organize your garage over one month, or host a bi-weekly Bible study or book club for three months. The magic of time-boundedness is that it provides urgency without the pressure.
And remember, your purpose doesn't have to be permanent. Feel free to switch up your schedule every three to four months just to allow for a little bit of shake up, a little seasonality. You're less likely to rebel if you give yourself permission to change things up on a regular basis.
But I do recommend identifying a few anchor activities, also known as keystone habits. Pick two to three non-negotiables that reflect your values. For example, if you value strength and fitness, the non-negotiable might be your time to exercise five days a week. If you value your faith and spiritual formation, your non-negotiables might be time for prayer and meditation every morning. These kinds of activities become the anchors for your week while leaving room for spontaneity. You can even assign theme days to each weekday. For example, Monday is movement, and Wednesday is connection, and Friday is adventure.
Whatever you do, try to bookend your days with consistent morning and evening routines. Give yourself enough time to wind down every night so you can get to bed at the same time. Likewise, wake up at the same time every morning if you can and ease into your day. When you give your day this kind of gentle structure, it really improves your sleep quality, which means you're going to clock more deep sleep and REM sleep, and that's going to boost your energy and slow age-related decline.
If you want an extra boost, avoid picking up that phone first thing in the morning and instead try a 10 minute meditation or journaling session to set your intention for the day. That's going to help prevent aimless drift. And then track your energy. Pay attention to what activities recharge you and which drain you because the goal is for your calendar to improve your overall energy, not to stay busy.
Bottom line, the clock and the calendar aren't your enemies, they're your tools. And it's hard to design your best Next Act when you are waging a rebellion against tools. You'd be better served finding your daily rhythm and building a few rails to run on. The goal is for you to be awake, to engage with life on your own terms, with your own energy, for your own evolving mission. So if your calendar is empty today, that's okay, but don't leave it empty for long. Put one meaningful thing on there this week and then commit to it. One commitment that aligns with your values, an activity that reconnects you to your aliveness, recharges you. From there, you can just keep building.
That's it for today. Thank you for joining me on another episode of Next Act Ninjas. If you need a blueprint to find your rhythm after retirement, hop on my calendar and we'll get you started with a 90 day reboot. You can always find the link in the show notes. And if you know someone else who's a fellow rebel, send them this episode. It just might be the spark that they need. Until next time, live well, love more, age less my friends.