So you’re seriously thinking about retirement, aren’t you?

Wonderful! You must be quite excited and so should you be! Retirement can be a wonderful period of life… if you prepare adequately. Of course you have figured out your income, you have given some thought to the psychology of transition, the health factor, the legal implications etc. Perhaps you took a pre-retirement course to guide you through your preparation. This is all very good. You definitely want to be among the majority of people who go through the transition successfully and are happy in retirement.

However did you know that a significant minority of people experience problems (sometimes of a very serious nature) in retirement? The irony is that quite often these people have plenty of money, many toys and lots of things to do, yet they are miserable in retirement. How is this possible since retirement is always portrayed as such a happy phase of life?

You see, it is crucial to understand that while money will provide for the necessities of life and add some enjoyment to our existence, we have to go way beyond these considerations when envisioning our life in retirement. Like any one, retirees must have a purpose (or purposes) in order to live a fulfilling and MEANINGFUL life in retirement. Failure to have a reason to get up in the morning often leads to catastrophe.

Many of us have a tendency to minimize the significance of work in our lives. Not only does work provide money to pay our bills, but it brings us satisfaction, a sense of contribution, an identity, status, social interaction, challenges, a sense of self-importance and values, a structure etc…in other words MEANING! And as soon as retirement comes, this is all gone.

When it comes to preparing for retirement, we definitely put too much emphasis on the money side. Please don’t get me wrong here. It is extremely important to have a good sense of financial security as we go into retirement and therefore it would be a huge mistake not to put the necessary time and effort into it. But it is an equally huge mistake to limit ourselves to the financial preparation. As mentioned earlier, there are countless examples of people who retired with huge bank accounts and were simply miserable in retirement.

This is where my seminar RETIREMENT: ADVENTURE OR…MISADVENTURE? can be of great help. The comments from participants in the more than 250 sessions held across the Country, are overwhelmingly positive (see testimonials) and I strongly urge you to take this one day session. The approach to the subject is unique and very challenging. Together we will thoroughly analyse what retirement really is and I will guide you in your reflection and provide you with tools to assist you in making enlightened decisions on the matter. After all, it’s your life (or what’s left of it) that is at stake here, not someone else’s. Why take any chances!