How to Know If You’re Running Toward Something — or Just Running Away from Work

There is a meaningful difference between retiring toward something and retiring away from something. Research confirms it. Experience confirms it. And if you are honest with yourself about which one you are doing, it will tell you more about your readiness than almost any financial calculation can.

The Distinction That Matters

When people ask whether they are ready to retire, they are usually asking a financial question. But there is another question beneath it that is not asked nearly enough: Am I retiring toward something, or am I just trying to get away from something?

It sounds like a subtle difference. It is not. Decades of research on retirement motivation consistently distinguish between what researchers call push factors. The things driving you away from work, like stress, burnout, a difficult workplace, or a boss you can no longer tolerate, and pull factors: the things drawing you toward retirement, like a vision of what you want to build, time with people you love, projects you have been putting off, or a sense of what gives your life meaning beyond a paycheck.

Research published by the National Academies of Sciences found that retirees who were “pulled” into retirement due to positive expectations about what lay ahead reported higher levels of retirement satisfaction than those who were “pushed” out by frustration, exhaustion, or circumstances beyond their control. The direction of the motivation matters. It shapes the experience of everything that follows.

“Retiring toward something and retiring away from something lead to very different retirements. The question is which one you are actually doing.”

What Running Away Looks Like

Running away from work is understandable. Work can be genuinely hard. Bad management, grinding demands, years of sacrifice, the slow erosion of a role you once loved. By the time some people reach retirement age, the desire to escape is not just understandable. It is earned.

But here is what the research consistently shows: escape is not a vision. And retirement built primarily around escape tends to run out of steam quickly.

The honeymoon phase. The first rush of freedom, the relief of being done, is real and it feels wonderful. But it is built on novelty, and novelty wears off. A study of 1,388 older Dutch workers published in the journal Gerontologist found that those who made voluntary departures from the workforce reported higher life satisfaction than those who remained employed, but that the quality and motivation behind the departure mattered significantly. People who were escaping something difficult without a positive vision for what came next were among those most likely to struggle in the adjustment period that followed.

If your current answer to “what will you do in retirement?” is mostly about what you are leaving behind rather than what you are moving toward, that is useful information. Not a reason to stay. A reason to build something to run toward before you go.

What Running Toward Looks Like

Running toward retirement looks different. It is not blind optimism or a perfectly planned itinerary. It is having enough of a sense of direction that the open calendar feels like possibility rather than emptiness.

Research from the LSE Business Review on proactive personality and retirement satisfaction found that people with a proactive orientation, those who actively shape their environment rather than passively waiting for circumstances to improve, reported significantly higher life satisfaction across the late career and early retirement period. Proactivity in this context is not a personality trait you either have or do not have. It is a set of behaviors. Things like identifying what you want to pursue before you leave, building relationships outside of work, and developing a sense of identity that exists independent of your professional role.

Running toward retirement means being able to answer the question “What are you doing with your time?” with something that sounds like a life, not just an absence of obligations. It means the pull of what is next feels at least as strong as the push away from what was.

Running Away vs. Running Toward: A Quick Self-Check

Be honest with yourself as you read across this table. Neither column is a judgment. Both are information.

Running AWAY from work	Running TOWARD something
You can’t stop counting down the days	You have a list of things you’re excited to pursue
Your vision of retirement is mostly about escape	Your vision includes specific people, projects, and purpose
You struggle to name what you’ll actually do	You can describe a realistic week with some texture
The frustration at work is the main driver	The pull of what’s next feels stronger than the push away
You haven’t thought much about identity post-work	You have a sense of who you are beyond your title

What If You Are Somewhere in the Middle?

Most people are. Very few retirees leave purely on a pull; there is almost always some degree of “I am tired of this” mixed in with “I am ready for what’s next.” That is honest and human.

The question is not whether push factors exist. They almost always do. The question is whether the pull is strong enough to carry you through the neutral zone. The disorienting middle period of the transition when the work chapter has closed but the new chapter has not yet taken clear shape.

Research on voluntary versus involuntary retirement consistently shows that sense of control over the timing and direction of the transition is one of the strongest predictors of adjustment outcomes. Even among people who had legitimate push factors driving them out of work, those who had also developed meaningful pull factors, something to move toward, adjusted significantly better than those who had not.

I had both push and pull when I retired. My exit was not chosen, but even before that, I was tired. The years had been full and demanding, and the tank was running lower than I let on. What saved me in the hardest months was not the relief of being done. It was the slow emergence of something new to build. The pull arrived later than I would have liked. But it arrived. And that made all the difference.

How to Build a Pull Before You Leave

If you read this and recognize yourself in the “running away” column more than the “running toward” one, the answer is not to delay retirement indefinitely. It is to start building the pull now.

Get specific about what you are moving toward. Not “travel” but where, with whom, and why it matters to you. Not “spend more time with family” but what that actually looks like on a regular Tuesday. Specificity is the difference between a vague dream and an actual plan.

Start living parts of it before you retire. If you want to volunteer, start now. If you want to write, start now. If you want to rebuild friendships, start now. Research on retirement adjustment consistently shows that people who begin developing their post-retirement identity and activities before they leave adjust faster and more successfully than those who wait.

Ask the harder question honestly. Not “Am I ready to leave work?” but “Do I have something worth running toward?” If the answer is not yet, that is not a failure. It is a starting point.

The Direction You Leave In Matters

Retirement is not just an ending. It is a beginning. And like any beginning, the direction you face when you start matters enormously.

You do not need a perfectly mapped plan. You need enough of a pull to sustain you through the months when the novelty of freedom has worn off, and the real work of building a new life has begun. Start building that pull now. Before you go.

Know what you’re running toward before you go.

My book, The Hidden Side of Retirement, helps you move from escape to intention — walking you through the decision, the transition, and the first 90 days with honesty and practical guidance.

Available now on Amazon. → Click Here

Resources

The following research and sources informed the content of this post:

1. National Academies of Sciences: Push and Pull Factors in Retirement (2022) Understanding the Aging Workforce: Defining a Research Agenda. National Academies Press (2022). nationalacademies.org/read/26173

2. Van Solinge, H. & Henkens, K.: Voluntary vs. Involuntary Retirement and Life Satisfaction

Impact of Different Types of Retirement Transitions on Perceived Satisfaction with Life. PubMed (2013). pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23442381

3. Maurer, T. & Chapman, E.: Proactive Personality and Retirement Satisfaction (LSE Business Review, 2018)

Proactive People Have Greater Life Satisfaction in Late Career and Early Retirement. LSE Business Review (2018). blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview

4. Hershey, D. A. & Henkens, K.: Work Volition and Retirement Satisfaction (PMC, 2014)

As cited in: Current Trends in Retirement. PMC / National Library of Medicine. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4448755

5. Yemiscigil, A. et al.: Retirement and Sense of Purpose (Psychological Science, 2021)

The Effects of Retirement on Sense of Purpose in Life: Crisis or Opportunity? Psychological Science (2021). pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8985220