Thoughts from a Retirement Coach
By Mariella Vigneux, MBA, ACC
Certified Professional Coach
A very young client asked me what she could do to prepare for the non-monetary issues people face in retirement. She was doing everything she could to prepare financially, but wondered about the psychological/social side of it. I also recently had an old acquaintance ask how people recover from the impact of unexpected retirement. These questions spurred me to summarize the issues I’ve seen come up in retirement and to list some of the articles our writers have contributed on each topic.
I didn’t attempt the daunting task of listing every article for each of the key topics, but the list below gives you a starting point, to help you find what interests you. If you want to read about money worries or unexpected retirement, for example, you can click on the links to those articles. Of course, most articles cover several topics, but I listed them only once.
If you want to search for more topics, please go to the blog, scroll down to the search field (on the right hand side), and enter your own keywords.
Thank you for the appreciative comments I had from a number of you after my previous posting, which listed our 105 articles by column, title, and author. I’m glad that helped.
Ten issues people face in retirement
- Dealing with unexpected retirement
- Managing money worries
- Creating a new identity
- Balancing ‘work’ and play
- Rebuilding routines
- Adjusting relationships at home and with work colleagues
- Finding purpose and making a contribution
- The struggle with our creative urges
- Reasserting positive emotions, self-esteem and a good frame of mind
- Dealing with illness and death
Articles relating to the 10 issues
- Dealing with unexpected retirement
- Did you know that a startling percentage of people retire unexpectedly or reluctantly?
- Retirement: out with a whimper, not a bang
- When work ended abruptly, I was catapulted into serious soul searching
- In support of doubt
- If only we had instructions for retirement
- A view from the far side
- Managing money worries
- Hanging up the skates – flip flopping towards retirement
- Money, money, money – being responsible
- Money, money, money reprise
- Mind games
- Our relationship to money in retirement
- Creating a new identity
- Who am I now? Identity revisited… renewed… reinvented
- Something’s cooking (this article is also about money)
- When you’re not the boss anymore
- The pushmi-pullyu of my retirement decision
- A three-year retirement retrospective
- Clearing out my office – and my life
- Leaving behind a life legacy that goes beyond ego
- I’d rather die in the traces than retire
- Balancing ‘work’ and play
- The healing tea of retirement
- What monkeys do and do not do
- Unlearning the puritan work ethic in retirement
- Why is it so hard to turn down work after retiring?
- Am I really retired?
- Getting off track: getting to retirement after retirement
- Getting to a full stop
- Getting to the point, still
- Getting to a simpler place
- Frank in a nutshell
- Finding a balance
- Retirement. How did I ever find time to work!
- Leisure in retirement – too much of a good thing?
- Rebuilding routines
- Of lists and blank pages
- Freedom sixty-one
- A very long weekend
- Time for a change
- The most precious gift (this article is also about legacy)
- Adjusting relationships at home and with work colleagues
- New keys on my key ring (this article is also about creativity)
- Retirement: the 3 Rs – renew, refresh, rejuvenate
- What makes (or breaks) relationships in retirement?
- When one person retires and their partner does not
- Finding purpose and making a contribution
- In search of the meaning of life (still)
- I’m fine. Really.
- Retirement: where the future of the universe depends on you (ha!)
- Comfort zone be damned
- Flow – the overlooked ingredient in the recipe for happiness (Part 1)
- Flow – the overlooked ingredient in the recipe for happiness (Part 2)
- An examination of my fear of spiders
- Beautiful endeavours
- Who do you think you are?
- When bad things happen to good dreams or “now what?”
- Retirement – a time for small things
- The struggle with our creative urges
- Sometimes the harder you go at it, the more it recedes
- Practising retirement, and my cover story
- Practising retirement – coming at it sideways
- What lures us to creativity?
- Getting back to the dreams
- Reasserting positive emotions, self-esteem and a good frame of mind
- Oh, the places you’ll go! …with a nod to Dr. Seuss
- Where there are toasted tomato sandwiches, there is hope
- Tempus fugit
- Retire like a drunken matador
- Happiness at the speed of light
- What to put on a bucket list
- Life is so startling
- Contentment: what does it look like?
- Then a miracle occurred
- Are you getting enough of the five elements needed for a satisfying life
- Never too old to learn
- Pre-retirement emotions: a boiling cauldron
- Liver and onion Wednesdays
- A rousing harangue for foundering retirees
- Dealing with illness and death
- Snowbirds – not this winter!
- Ponderings about retirement from a residential hospice chaplain
- My almost (involuntary) early retirement
- Staving off involuntary early retirement: the emotional side
- Staving off involuntary early retirement: the work side
- The end of the bend
- One widow’s retirement story
- Choosing not to be sad
- Retirement and mortality
- Adjusting to a new limitation – what works?
- Aging: I haven’t been reading the script
- Downsizing your home – by crisis or by choice?
- Grief’s apprentice
- Exercise – the silver bullet for successful aging?
Interesting tidbits
- How well are you doing in retirement? Part one – taking your pulse.
- How well are you doing in retirement – Part Two: Strengthening your pulse.
- 10 delights of retirement
- Gems from year one
- Gems from year two
- Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age comes tittering on (quotations about retirement)
- Should I get a dog when I retire?