Tips for Adjusting to Retirement
All those years before retirement we all worked a lot to have perfect after retirement life but there is a good chance of underestimating mental health issues that you might go to have. Retirement often means diminished self-trust, a loss of identity and paralysis the decision making whether you are a cook, businessman or professional or something else. Most of the time, retirees feeling lost and lonely after they’ve stopped working. Along with good health income, retire needs a good healthy state of mind to have a carefree life with their loved ones after retirement. The traditional pension plans give confidence and prevent you from the financial crisis but until or unless you don’t understand and recognize the emotional state of mind your approaching method to retirement would be wrong. Retirement may involve complicated feelings ranging from losing one’s sense of purpose to self-worth, losing interpersonal relationships, wrestling with anxiety or depression, etc. There is no ultimate guideline to follow for a better retirement, there are a few tips that might help you adjust to retirement in a better way.
Coping Strategy
While adjusting to retirement, most people will go through stages of emotions, at first there’s a feeling of excitement and freedom that slowly turns into boredom. The retirement phase is like a long vacation, that’s going to last forever. There might be a stage of emotion where excitement turns into anxiety and involves lots of questions, what I need to do now?, or what did I do? Because they’re going to be the shift from fast running lifestyle to a slower lifestyle, some retire even feel guilty for not doing anything. A best-coping strategy is to manage this wide range of emotions by letting them come to you, accept them, don’t suppress your emotions is one of the best ways to deal with those feelings. Adopt a new healthy lifestyle, indulge yourself in activities like yoga, talking to your friends or family, read or write about the experience, etc.
Structure Your Days
In starting everything seems exactly the same as Pre-retirement time, apart from deadlines, meetings, alarm clock, the office to work & work to office. There was probably a similar structure, but you have to structure your day in a productive manner, divide it into various activities or time slots range from the morning bed tea to lingering over the newspaper, regular time for exercise to attend the social gathering, volunteer work to cook for family, from watching TV together to fall sleep on the couch, and so on. As in the post-retirement phase, you don’t the restriction time, so don’t be rigid while plan your day, structure it with no time slot and the structured routine can help you feel more normalcy.
Set Small Goals
Retirees have complete control over their lives at retirement age, in reaping the benefits of indulging into different activities and hobbies to inspire them or others to live their life at fullest. It’s one of the most enjoyable periods for pursuing your passion, set small goals — How you would love to spend their time. The more you plan, enjoy a longer retirement than your earlier period. The retirees are older and wiser, have more me-time or more time for personal activities, relax, do exciting things, rewarding yourself with your passion, etc. Small goals can give you a sense of purpose, prioritize it according to month-wise, such as the first month of your retirement, how would you like to spend the winter, what you want to learn in the next six months, or what you want to accomplish in next one year.
Grow Your Social Circle
To overcome the feeling of loneliness and useless, it’s significantly important to spend more time with your loved ones. You can start this with the restructuring of your daily routine — How about hanging out with your grandchildren, plan some daily or weekly activities with your best friend, go for a walk, grab a coffee with your close pal, etc. Now you don’t have such a burden on your shoulders you can just hang on in time, explore your roots and spend time with relatives whom you didn’t see for long. You might love to get closer to your friends, dwindle more and more, stay connected to them, share your experiences and now theirs. There is no meaning to stay alone — plan reunion not like high school buddies, set goals of this reunion talk about your passion, your plans for retirement, etc. Take advantage of extra time, join some club or a local community center, lets your spouse join you if he/she can, it will be best around like-minded individuals.
Be flexible
Some retires may be planned all, how they going to start their day, How the different activities go long, they go fishing, cooking and do some reading, etc. It’s not bad to spend your retirement exactly the way you planned, but when things don’t work accordingly will lead us to dishearten. For example: if it rains on your planned day for fishing, or you planned to cook for your loved ones but they already have their commitments, or you want to finish your favorite book but your grandkids want to go out for a picnic. While giving our 30 years to work, we think why we can’t live our life the way we planned. We need to change our way of living, be flexible, and more important is to experiment with what you want. There is no such scale to measure the right way of living, but the fair amount of experimenting to help you out the right way for yourself. The joy of retirement is to live the fullest and explore plenty of opportunities to experiment that you missed earlier, make a new connection between your hobbies and quality time with your family.
