Welcome back to my series on the great retirement book The Retire Sooner Method: The 5 Secrets Behind America’s Happiest (and Unhappiest) Retirees.
So far we’ve had the following posts in this series:
If you missed any of those posts, you’re going to want to go back and read them before you read this one, since today’s post is a continuation of the others.
And to make things extra fun, I’ll be giving away a copy of the book at the end of each post in this series, so be sure to stay tuned and read to the end if you want a chance to win a copy.
And there’s more news as well…Wes Moss has agreed to do an interview with me about this book.
We’ll be talking in a few weeks, which gives ESI Money readers a chance to submit questions ahead of time. I’ll review the questions left in the comments on my posts and include some of the best ones in my interview with him.
So if there’s something you’d like to ask Wes about the book, retirement, or any of the ideas he discusses, leave your question in the comments below.
Today we’re going to talk about one of my favorite subjects: your activities in retirement.
Author Wes Moss calls these many things including:
- Super Activities
- Hobbies on Steroids
- Core Pursuits
FYI, “core pursuits” is the term he’s used in his past books, so I’ll be using it quite often.
Regular ESI Money readers know this is an issue I think is very important. It’s not enough to retire from something. You also need to retire to something.
If you spend your entire working career focused on building assets, leaving work, and achieving financial independence, but never give serious thought to what your days will actually look like once you’re free, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment.
Money gives you the opportunity to retire well, but it does not automatically create a great retirement.
That’s where core pursuits come in.
Let’s get going…
You Don’t Have to Save the World
Moss addresses an issue that many books get wrong (IMO) and he gets right: the impact of your “purpose” (or what some might call passion) in retirement. Here’s what he says:
I am here to tell you that you don’t need to save all the lemurs in Madagascar. What are the things you already like to do, love to do, and want to do? Those are how you shape your life purpose.
Exactly.
Some people might want to save the lemurs. And if that gets them excited about life, more power to them.
But if you don’t have some sort of do-gooder effort as part of your life, that doesn’t mean you’re going to have a terrible retirement.
This is one of those retirement myths that keeps popping up in books, articles, podcasts, and videos. The idea is that to have a meaningful retirement, you need to find some grand mission that benefits mankind, changes the world, or solves a huge social problem. If that’s your thing, great. But if it’s not your thing, I don’t think you should feel guilty about it.
You can have a very happy, fulfilling, meaningful retirement without turning your life into a nonprofit campaign.
As long as the things you do during your retirement days excite you, engage you, and make you happy to get up in the morning, then you are good to go.
Oh, and you need to have several of those, as the book details:
From our 2025 Money and Happiness in America study, we discovered some crucial insights on the ways happy retirees engage with their core pursuits:
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- There’s a magic number of unique/different core pursuits that separates happy from unhappy retirees.
- Time spent daily on these meaningful activities has a great impact on happiness.
- The right mix of categories shows certain kinds of core pursuits have a strong lead.
- Adventure pursuits are a happiness indicator: activities that keep you exploring and growing.
- Daily health and fitness habits don’t require an exorbitant amount of time but make a measurable difference in happiness.
- A strong sense of purpose is what connects all these activities to deeper meaning.
When you blend these ingredients together, something remarkable happens: Retirement transforms trom endiess weekends into adventures full of purpose and joy. Though it may sound counterintuitive, retirement is not simply a vacation, and that distinction can be the difference between discontent and fulfillment.
We’re going to get into details on these, so I’ll save many of my comments until then. But I do want to clarify one thing.
When he says “purpose” in the last bullet, I’m reading that as “activities you love, love, love” more than some dramatic life mission. In other words, your purpose does not need to be curing a disease, starting a movement, or rescuing the aforementioned lemurs.
It can simply be building a life full of things that matter to you.
Just so we’re clear. 😉
Increase on Core Pursuits
Hahahaha.
Earlier in this series I noted that Moss’s number of core pursuits happy retirees have has increased dramatically — from 3.6 to 5 — from his earlier books.
Seems like I wasn’t the only one to mention that:
If you’re anything like Claudia from chapter 2 — someone who remembers exact figures from my prior books and wants to keep me on my toes — you may remember that fifteen years ago, our research originally found that happy retirees averaged 3.6 core pursuits.
That’s out the window. The new research shows a different reality. Happy retirees have five or more core pursuits. Unhappy retirees have four or fewer.
Why the increase? Did inflation hit the core pursuit market? Actually, I believe it reflects how retirement itself has evolved. Today’s retirees are healthier, more active, and living longer than previous generations. They have more time to fill, and healthier life choices have given them more energy to fill it. Along the way, they’ve discovered that a richer variety of activities creates a more satisfying retirement.
Five isn’t just an arbitrary number — it’s the inflection point where something magical happens. With fewer than five core pursuits, retirees often feel like something’s missing, even if they can’t quite put their finger on what. But once you cross that threshold into more than five, you create what I call a “core pursuit cascade.” One activity you love leads to another, which makes you hungry for another, which opens the path to still another core pursuit. You always have something to look forward to, something engaging on your calendar that makes you excited to wake up each morning.
Ok, so we’ve upped the ante from 3.6 core pursuits to 5. Got it.
But what counts as a core pursuit? I’m still a bit fuzzy on that.
Does something I love but only do now and then count? Or is there some sort of required time before it becomes “core” enough?
The book doesn’t answer that directly, and my chat with Google’s Gemini stated there is no set time requirement to qualify as a core pursuit. It’s more about interest, passion for the subject, and how meaningful the activity is to you.
That seems reasonable, but it does make counting a bit tricky. For example:
- If I read most nights, is reading a core pursuit or just something I enjoy doing?
- If my wife, daughter, and I occasionally go look at open houses, is that a core pursuit or simply a fun activity?
- If I play strategy games or brain games daily, does that count as a pursuit, or is it too small?
- If family dinners are weekly and very important to us, does “family time” count as one pursuit, or does it need to be more structured?
- If I write for ESI Money and interact in the MMM forums, are those one core pursuit because they’re both money-related, or two because they play different roles in my life?
You can see how this gets messy pretty quickly.
Still, the big idea is clear enough. Happy retirees are not sitting around wondering what to do all day. They have multiple activities that bring them enjoyment, structure, connection, growth, movement, purpose, or some combination of these.
And the book does give us a collective amount of time for core pursuits as a whole:
Happy retirees spend 18.6 hours per week on their core pursuits versus just 13.2 hours for unhappy retirees. That’s 280+ extra hours per year of purposeful activity — equivalent to 7 work weeks, but instead of work, you’re actually choosing the core pursuits you love!
Break this down to daily time and the pattern becomes even clearer, Happy retirees spend an average of two hours and forty minutes per day on their core pursuits, while unhappy retirees average just one hour and fifty minutes. That’s nearly three hours per day versus less than two hours. The sweet spot? Aim for at least two and half hours daily.
This might sound like a lot, but remember: We’re talking about activities you genuinely enjoy. This isn’t adding 2.5 hours of drudgery to your day — it’s intentionally structuring 2.5 hours around what brings you joy and meaning.
The beautiful thing about this formula is its flexibility. Some days you might spend four hours hiking and exploring, other days just ninety minutes playing pickleball or working in the garden. The key is that over the course of a week, you’re averaging that 2.5+ hours daily.
It’s like adding the right amount of zest to your retirement recipe — enough to make every day flavorful but distributed in a way that feels natural and sustainable.
Ok, let me tally up an average week:
- I usually have around two hours a day of exercise six days a week, plus an hour on my “rest” day. That’s about 13 hours.
- I probably average 2.5 hours a day, seven days a week, writing for ESI Money or interacting with people on MMM. That’s another 17.5 hours.
So we’re already over 30 hours a week, and I haven’t even gotten to reading, time with family, daily puzzle games, video games, or any one of a gazillion things I do now and then.
Those occasional activities include walking at the park, going to the pool in our neighborhood, stopping to see several open houses, taking a local travel or shopping trip, visiting a local attraction, going out to eat, and on and on.
I probably spend more time on core pursuits now than I spent at work when my career was humming!
So yeah, I’m good. lol.
I’m actually thinking of adding one or two more major activities. Time will tell if I do any of them, and which ones from my list of 10 to 15 possibilities I actually pick up.
This is one of the great things about retirement. You can experiment. If something sounds interesting, you can try it. If it sticks, great. If not, drop it and move on. There’s no boss, no annual review, and no committee approval needed.
Core Pursuit Categories
Next the book moves on to which categories of core pursuits are favored by retirees:
Not all core pursuits are created equal — some pack more happiness punch than others.
In our 2025 study, we asked retirees, What brings you the most joy and purpose in retirement? We didn’t give them a multiple-choice list to check off. Instead, we let them write in their own answers — and wow, did they deliver! [Here’s what] they shared (top core pursuits by category):
- Creative – 21%
- Adventure – 15%
- Volunteering – 15%
- Physical Activity – 12%
- Social – 11%
- Family – 10%
- Learning – 8%
- Spiritual – 7%
- Gig Work – 2%
A few thoughts from my life:
- My big ones are creative, if you put writing in there; volunteering, if you count mentoring at MMM and writing free articles at ESI Money; physical activity, including working out and pickleball; family, including weekly dinners with the kids and seeing them a few other times each week; and learning, which includes reading.
- You could add social as well, since family activities, pickleball, and MMM are social in addition to whatever else they are. That’s one of the nice things about a good core pursuit — it often checks more than one box.
- You could also add spiritual for me, since part of my reading is reading the Bible, not to mention church, which is also social, by the way.
- I like that the categories are broad. That gives retirees a lot of room to find activities that fit them rather than feeling like there are only a few “approved” retirement activities.
- Gig work being only 2% is interesting, though I wonder how many retirees do meaningful paid work and mentally classify it under something else like creative, social, learning, or volunteering. Some paid activities probably feel less like “work” and more like a core pursuit that happens to pay something.
Which of these do you do in retirement? (Or plan to if you’re not already retired?)
We’re going to stop here as we still have a long way to go on this topic. We’ll pick up next time where we leave off today.
For now, it’s time for another book giveaway…
——————————————
As I said above, I’m giving away a copy of The Retire Sooner Method on every post I do about the book. Here’s how to enter:
- Leave a comment below telling me what you liked best about this post, what you think you can use, or something you learned from it. Basically just share anything meaningful related to the content above (note: “please enter me to win” and similar comments will not be considered out of pure weakness! At least put a bit of effort into it!) This should be fun!
- Be sure to leave your email address when you leave the comment so I will know how to reach you if you win (the email address will not be visible to anyone other than me).
- The winners will be selected by me at random a few days after this post goes live. I’ll announce who wins in my own comment.
- I’ll email the winner, get their address, and send them a book from Amazon.
As with most giveaways, there are rules. Here they are.
Good luck!!!!
