Financial experts always advise people to balance their financial portfolios for a successful retirement. When it comes to your personal portfolio, balance is the key word for retirement as well.
Retirement can be a roller coaster because so many familiar things are changing: work roles, relationships, daily routines, assumptions about yourself.
The key to preparing for this new role is a balanced personal psychological portfolio.
That portfolio requires considering, for example, how your identity and relationships--such as strains on your marriage as you and your spouse get in one another's space more -- may affect retirement.
You also should plan for a balanced portfolio of activities--volunteer work, continuing education, exercise and the like--to enjoy in a new phase of life.
There are six kinds of retirees - what kind are you?
* Continuers stay connected with past skills and activities, but modify
them to fit retirement, such as through volunteering or part-time work in
their former field.
* Adventurers start new activities or learn new skills not related to their
past work, such as learning to play the piano or taking on an entirely
new job.
* Searchers learn by trial and error as they look for a niche; they have
yet to find their identity in retirement.
* Easy gliders enjoy unscheduled time and like their daily schedule "to
go with the flow."
* Involved spectators maintain an interest in their previous field of work
but assume different roles, such as a lobbyist who becomes a news
junkie.
* Retreaters become depressed, retreat from life and give up on finding
a new path.
Whatever kind you are can change, the longer you live and the more you put into your psychological portfolio.
According to Webster's Dictionary, retirement means the "withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from active working life."
The definition implies that you're leaving something; but for many retirees, retirement really means heading toward something brand new, depending on how they prepare psychologically for retirement.
-- Adapted from The APA Monitor on Psychology, November 2004
The above text is from the American Psychological Association Help Center.
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Jim Viccaro, M.S.,
M.F.T.
Life Pathways Therapy Solutions
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