My Mini-Retirement Recipe: Ignore Your 401(k), Skip That Promotion, and Stir To Combine Well

How your skills and your savings set you up for a mid-career break.

“Your past success affords you the privilege of choice today.” -from Jillian Johnsrud’s Retire Often Podcast.

Plus, some unconventional advice that will surely get you thinking…

You’re ready to take an extended break from work…your first mini-retirement. Or maybe you've decided to live a semi-retired lifestyle. That’s great! Congratulations on thinking differently as you pursue your best, balanced life.

Here’s the bad news. Because what you’re doing is so rare, there is little information on what to have in place to do it well. Traditional retirement planning certainly doesn’t teach it. Career coaching won’t help.

Conventional wisdom focuses on job promotion and titles, increased pay, and saving into retirement accounts to access at retirement age. That won’t work for what you want to do.

To prepare for a mini-retirement, your goal at work should be professional skill development. And you need to draw on your savings sooner and more frequently. You’re learning how to “cash out regularly rather than bank constantly.” -Retire Often podcast

It’s a paradigm shift. The approach departs from the more typical deferred life plan, where you work continuously for decades. Mini-retirements and semi-retired living prioritize experiences and work-life balance much earlier in life.

This article investigates the ingredients necessary for a successful mini-retirement. The good news? There are only two things to get right: valuable skills and enough savings. Then stir to combine well using the perfect recipe, and sink your teeth into your most delicious life.

Did I take the metaphor too far? Probably did…

Let’s look at how to adapt our work and savings to serve us in this new and different lifestyle.

As you read, keep in mind that I promote independent consulting as the profession that best enables a semi-retired lifestyle. But even the non-consultant can benefit.

Don’t go for that promotion

You want valuable skills.

How do you take control of your work life (not the other way around)? It’s all about skill-building. In his book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport links skill development to professional success and personal satisfaction at work. Your clients will pay for these highly valuable skills.

Promotions and team size bring external validation. How high can you go, and how large an org can you build? The downside: you’re forced to spend time navigating corporate politics and HR processes. Some of us enjoy this game, but I don’t. It makes me uncomfortable.

Skip that promotion unless it teaches any one of four key skills.

Any client-valuable skills

What do you do better than anyone else that your client must have access to? These skills typically:

…

Continue reading at choosyconsultant.com.

—

Brian Herriot cooks up his semi-retired lifestyle from his home in Alameda, California, and cabin in Hazelhurst, Wisconsin. He also prepares financial freedom plans for consultants and other mid-career professionals in one-week sprints. Check out his take on a new and different kind of retirement at choosyconsultant.com.