Contemporary Retirement Coaching Blog

Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

5 More Squidoo lenses you might like...

As I wrote previously, Squidoo is a community website that allows users to create pages (which it calls lenses) about subjects of interest to them.

Here are five more of my own lenses you might find useful:

The 6 Stages of Retirement

Don't be a WASA once you retire!

What's your retirement style?

Things that might surprise you about retirement

Retirement Detox

50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement - #4

This is a taster of my brand new 'Retirement Life Inventory: 50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement' eCourse (more details below):

Here's question #4:

What would your ideal retirement look and feel like?  Does your actual retirement look and feel like your ideal retirement?  How big is the gap between the two?  What could you do to narrow it? 

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'50 Things for a Fiver' is a series of low-cost eCourses which deliver information or thought-provoking, self-coaching questions about retirement to your email inbox in 50 bite-sized chunks at 2-day intervals.

Please click here for details

50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement - #3

This is a taster of my brand new 'Retirement Life Inventory: 50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement' eCourse (more details below):

Here's question #3:

Which of the 6 stages of retirement are you in?  Have you encountered any of the potential pitfalls associated with this particular stage?  Have you overcome them or are you stuck?  Have you resolved all the pitfalls you encountered in previous stages?  

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'50 Things for a Fiver' is a series of low-cost eCourses which deliver information or thought-provoking, self-coaching questions about retirement to your email inbox in 50 bite-sized chunks at 2-day intervals.

Please click here for details

50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement - #2

This is a taster of my brand new 'Retirement Life Inventory: 50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement' eCourse (more details below):

Here's question #2:

What's going right in your life?  What could be better?

 

Try applying these two questions to the following life areas:

1.  Health
2.  Money/finance
3.  Retirement career/work/business
4.  Family/friends/relationships
5.  Personal growth and development
6.  Fun/recreation/spare time/hobbies/creativity
7.  Environment (home, car, garden, etc.)
8.  Spirituality 

 

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'50 Things for a Fiver' is a series of low-cost eCourses which deliver information or thought-provoking, self-coaching questions about retirement to your email inbox in 50 bite-sized chunks at 2-day intervals.

Please click here for details

50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement - #1

This is a taster of my brand new 'Retirement Life Inventory: 50 Once-a-year questions to ask yourself about your retirement' eCourse (more details below):

Here we go with question #1:

How satisfied are you with your life at present? On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is 'Very dissatisfied' and 10 is 'Very Satisfied', how does your life in retirement measure up?

 

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'50 Things for a Fiver' is a series of low-cost eCourses which deliver information or thought-provoking, self-coaching questions about retirement to your email inbox in 50 bite-sized chunks at 2-day intervals.

Please click here for details

A virtual kick in the pants...

Hey you!  Yes, YOU!  You're the one I'm talking to... the one who is disappointed and disillusioned with their retirement. The one who is so fed up with life in retirement that they're wishing they'd stayed on at work. The one who's sitting around, feeling sorry for themselves or moaning and groaning to anyone who'll listen BUT not actually doing anything to improve the situation they're in.

Have I got your attention, now?  Good! Now, let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. What is it that you're actually waiting for?

and

2. How much time do you think you have left to sit around feeling sorry for yourself?

Okay, I know you feel down - you're probably bordering on being depressed. You feel overwhelmed by the futility of it all. Nobody seems to understand what you're going through. Everyone you know seems like they're getting on with things and leaving you behind. It's hard to get out of bed in the morning because you've nothing worth getting out of bed for. You've probably got some health problems and the kind of support that will get you going again seems non-existent. You feel like you're locked in a downward spiral and can't seem to muster up the will or the energy to do anything about it.

Here's the thing...

If you don't do something different - like changing your behaviour or your mindset, getting off your butt and taking some exercise, learning some new skills or new ways of thinking, maybe even investing money in yourself to help you do those things - how on earth do you expect anything to change? And how much longer can you hang on for? You're retired for heaven's sake! Without trying to put too fine a point on it - you're in the final third of your life. How much longer do you think you have left? 10 years? 20 years? (Probably a whole lot less if you carry on in the way that you have been doing...) The question, 'If not now, when?' has never been more relevant!

Now I know I'm usually nice and supportive - offering tips and advice and articles and encouragement... but sometimes a coach needs to show some tough love!  And the truth is - your retirement might be cr*p, but it's the only one you've got!  No-one is coming to rescue you! You've got to rescue yourself! 

Here's how you can make a start:

1. Just take the first step... I'm 99.9% certain that you know what that first step is and you're just resisting taking it. (And if you genuinely have no idea what that first step is, then get some help.)

2. Find out if you're depressed and, if it seems likely that you are, contact your doctor TODAY!

3. Stop complaining - it's highly likely that you're just alienating the people around you - making them less likely to WANT to be around you. And without a supportive network of people around you, things are going to feel a whole lot worse.

4. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Take action instead. Re-read step 1 above. Decide what it is you need to do and take the first baby step in the right direction. I love baby steps. They're much easier to take than a big leap and, no matter how small the step you feel able to take, you'll have made progress. Which will give you the incentive to take the next baby step and the next and the... (Okay - you get it.).

5. Start finding things to appreciate - anything - the sun's come out, you have Internet access and can find information on any subject you have an interest in - the answer to your problem is sure to be out there somewhere, your town has a library full of self-help books you can access for free... Even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool misery-guts, I know you can find SOMETHING to appreciate if you look hard enough!

6. If you really don't know where to start - get some help! My Retirement Detox Program: 40 Days to get your retirement back on track costs just £10 or about $15 for a 40-day program - that's 25 pence a day (about 38 cents) - a lot less than the cost of the chocolate, cake or wine you're probably medicating yourself with to make you feel better about the fact that your life is cr*p (and a lot healthier too!).

Whatever it is you decide to do, just promise me you'll do SOMETHING!  Okay?  Do we have a deal?

What's your first step going to be?

Could retirement be making you ill?

Do you have a high-pressure job?  Could you be described as a workaholic?  Maybe with perfectionistic tendencies and a high need for achievement? 

Are you, generally, perfectly healthy during the working week but regularly experiencing headaches/migraines, fatigue, muscular pain, nausea and/or flu-like symptoms at weekends or holiday/vacation times?

If I've just described you, you may have 'leisure sickness' - first identified by Dutch psychologist, Ad Vingerhoets of Tillburg University in 2001.  And you're not alone - it seems that at least 3 per cent of the working population (particularly high-performing individuals), identify themselves as suffering from symptoms of illness at times when work-related pressure is off and they don't have much on their 'to-do' list.

As I understand it, the theory is that leisure sickness is caused by the fact that the immune system - the body's defence mechanism - works particularly efficiently when it's under stress and boosted by the production of adrenaline.  However, when that pressure is removed (as it is at weekends and during holidays/vacations), and adrenaline levels start to fall, the body becomes more susceptible to illness.

Another theory is that, at weekends and holidays, people who thrive in high-pressure situations may start to suffer from 'underload syndrome' - a term used to refer to any kind of ill health caused by lack of stimulation or challenge.  It's thought that, when stimulation and challenges are removed, the body stops producing vital hormones such as endorphins, which, in turn, results in a drop in metabolic rate, leading to low energy, a sluggish immune system  and a susceptibility to infection.

Before you retire, of course, the symptoms associated with leisure sickness only last for the weekend or, at most, for the length of your holiday/vacation.  But what if you regularly suffer from leisure sickness and you're approaching retirement?  If the causes of this condition are underload and the inability to successfully transition from the 'work' to the 'non-work' environment, does that mean that, unless you manage the situation carefully, there's a good chance that you could spend your whole retirement feeling ill?

As someone who has a special interest in helping people who are experiencing difficulty with retirement, I am currently researching the impact of 'leisure sickness' on a retiree's ability to make a successful transition into retirement.  If you are already retired and feel that your retirement is being adversely affected by leisure sickness or, if you feel that you suffer from leisure sickness, are approaching retirement and would like to explore this issue further, I'd love to hear from you.  Please contact me at ann@annharrisonlifecoaching.com with 'Leisure Sickness' in the title of your email.

It's surprising what you'll miss...

One of the newsletters that I'm always pleased to see turn up in my email inbox is that of Sandy Dempsey, who runs The Dreaming Cafe - tagline: 'Where self-discovery. self-expression and self-employment come together'.

One of Sandy's blog posts from the last week was entitled, 'I thought I had it all figured out', and in it she talks about all the things she didn't expect when she gave up her day job to become full-time self-employed.  It struck me that a few of the things that Sandy didn't expect can also take retirees by surprise, namely:

'That I would miss the challenge of the work I used to do.

That I’d find myself so tired and so exhausted in the beginning that some days I could hardly get out of bed.

The number of hours, days and months it would take to shake the toxicity of the work environment I had left behind or to let go of the attitudes and beliefs I had adopted over the years to protect myself.

That I would miss my ex coworkers.

That I would feel alone and isolated.

That I would suddenly have to face my own surprising health issues.'

What do you think?  Have you recently retired and found yourself bumping up against some unexpected emotions?  Do you know someone who retired and found themselves struggling to cope with no longer being in the workplace?  Let me know in the comments section below...

Even more light reading...

Here are a final two articles that I've posted on the EzineArticles website and which I think you might find useful:

Planning For Your Retirement - An Alternative Perspective

Do You Need a Retirement Detox? 10 Questions to Help You Get Your Retirement Back on Track