Your Skills Didn’t Retire: How to Leverage a Lifetime of Experience in New Ways

When you leave the workforce, especially unexpectedly, it can feel like everything you’ve built over decades is suddenly irrelevant. But here’s the truth: your skills, talents, and hard-won wisdom didn’t retire with you. They’re still there, waiting for you to use them in ways that bring meaning, purpose, and maybe even new opportunities into your life.

Whether you want to volunteer, start a side business, mentor, or explore your passions, the skills you’ve developed are a foundation to build upon — not a past to leave behind.

Let’s explore how you can identify, embrace, and leverage your lifetime of experience in your encore.

Step 1: Recognize Your Transferable Skills

First, take an honest inventory of the skills you’ve developed over the years. You might think of these as “work skills,” but most are life skills, too.

For example:

• Leadership: Have you led teams, projects, or initiatives?
• Problem-Solving: Did you tackle challenges, streamline systems, or create solutions?
• Communication: Have you taught, negotiated, written reports, or worked with diverse groups?
• Organization: Did you manage time, events, schedules, or resources effectively?

These skills don’t disappear because your job ends. They can be applied in new and fulfilling ways, from mentoring others to starting a new venture.

Step 2: Identify What Energizes You

Skills are important, but fulfillment comes from using those skills in areas that excite you. Ask yourself:

• What activities make me lose track of time?
• What types of problems do I love solving?
• Who do I enjoy helping or working with?

Maybe you loved coaching younger colleagues. Maybe organizing events brought you joy. Your answers can point you toward opportunities that energize you instead of depleting you.

Step 3: Explore New Avenues

Your skills are a toolkit that can be applied anywhere. Consider these ideas:

• Volunteer Work: Nonprofits and community groups always need skilled leaders, organizers, and mentors.
• Consulting or Coaching: Share your expertise in a flexible, part-time way.
• Entrepreneurship: Turn your skills into a small business or passion project.
• Learning and Teaching: Take classes to explore a new field or teach what you know to others.

The beauty of this chapter is that you get to decide where and how you want to use your gifts.

Step 4: Build Confidence in Your Value

One of the biggest hurdles for women in unplanned retirement is doubting the value they still bring. Remember: your experience is unique, and it’s needed.

• Reflect on your career achievements.
• Ask friends, family, or former colleagues what they see as your strengths.
• List the ways you’ve made an impact over the years — big and small.

You’ll see how much you still have to offer.

Step 5: Take the First Step

Leverage doesn’t happen overnight. Start small: volunteer for a few hours, connect with a mentor group, or take a class to improve your skills. Momentum will build as you see how much your experience matters.

Your Skills Are Your Superpower …

Forced retirement doesn’t mean you’re finished. It’s an invitation to use what you’ve learned in new, meaningful ways. Your lifetime of experience is your superpower — now is the time to unleash it.

Want support as you redefine what’s next? Join Your Encore, Your Rules to discover how to apply your skills and experience to create purpose and joy in this new chapter.