Making the Most of Your Retirement

Making the most of your retirement actually begins long before your last day of work. As you approach retirement age, you should be thinking about what you want your retirement to look like. Most of us look forward to our retirement and see it as an opportunity to be free to do whatever we wish with our time. However, a big part of our identity has been tied to our work and if our entire sense of self lies with our job, we risk suffering an identity crisis when we retire.

Looking Ahead

Take some time to reflect on what you want during your retirement. Will you continue work, or do you plan to volunteer your time? Do you have hobbies that you want to pursue? Will you travel or perhaps move from your current home? Determining your core values is a good place to start when answering these questions. Then, you can start setting your retirement goals to avoid feeling overwhelmed or disoriented during the early months of your retirement.

Core Values

As you approach retirement age, it’s a good time to assess your core values. Core values are our fixed values that stay with us through our entire life. When we can identify these core values, we know what gives meaning to our lives and we can ensure that those values are maintained. Commonly held values may include creativity, family, friendship, fun, healthy living, peace, personal growth, security, spirituality, and work. Determining your life purpose based on your core values can help you build a meaningful retirement plan. For example, if your core values are friendship, fun and creativity, you know that these are the values you need to bring into your retirement planning process.

Retirement Goals

Some people find the transition into retirement an easy one. For others, the loss of a daily routine and structure leaves them feeling unsettled and unsure of what to do day to day. Developing goals in advance of retirement helps us cope with any psychological effects that may accompany retirement. If you’re in a relationship, it’s important that both you and your partner work through this planning exercise and discuss your individual and combined goals. For example, if you want to travel and your partner wants to stay home, you need to negotiate and compromise to find a plan that will work for both of you.

Keep your goals realistic. There’s no sense in making a goal of travelling the world if your budget doesn’t allow for it. Instead, if travelling is a goal, plan 2 or 3 places that you absolutely want to visit and work towards that goal.

Other goals may include:

• Health (e.g., developing or maintaining an exercise program)

• Wealth (e.g., meeting with your financial advisor regularly to assess your financial plan and determine how your other goals can be met)

• Personal development (e.g., signing up for a course)

• Social development (e.g., connecting with your network and community organizations to investigate volunteer opportunities).

Once you’ve set some goals, write down steps you can take to achieve them and be sure to consider any obstacles you may encounter. For example, you might connect with community organizations that you’re interested in volunteering for. An obstacle may be that you find out they’re not accepting volunteers. Actions to overcome this barrier may include asking for recommendations to similar organizations that may need volunteers or connecting with your network to see if your contacts have suggestions.

Working in Your Retirement

More and more retirees are choosing to continue working in some capacity after retirement. Some retirees work part-time, do consulting work and some move into entirely new careers that fulfill their values and dreams using the skills they’ve developed over their career.

Perhaps through your assessment of core values, you’ve determined that working is highly valued. You may decide to work part-time after you leave your job or start that small business that you always dreamed of. Or, perhaps when setting your retirement goals, you realize that in order to fulfill some of your goals, you will need to work part time to fund these adventures.

Making the Best of Your Golden Years

With longer life expectancy, your golden years may make up a significant portion of your life. To make the best of those years, consider these additional tips:

1. Renew your interest in hobbies you may have had earlier in your life. Perhaps before you dove into your career or started a family, you enjoyed woodworking, refinishing antique furniture, sewing, or knitting and as you became busier, these pastimes just didn’t fit into your schedule. Often, people find that these hobbies turn into a money-making venture in their retirement which may in turn fund some of your other goals such as travelling.

2. To maintain your health long into your retirement, it’s wise to set fitness goals. As we age, there are exercises that can be incorporated into our daily fitness routine that improve our strength and mobility and help reduce the risk of falls. Try to incorporate aerobic training (e.g., brisk walking, cycling, swimming, or water aerobics), strength training (e.g., hand-held weights or resistance bands), flexibility training (e.g., yoga or stretching) and stability and balance training (e.g., Tai Chi or yoga) into your week to help maintain your physical health. Weight-bearing exercise also reduces the rate of bone loss —and breaks—associated with osteoporosis.

3. The best time to travel abroad is early in your retirement while your health is still predictable and obtaining travel health insurance is easier. As you enter later phases of retirement, you may feel more comfortable staying closer to home, exploring Canada, your own province or community. You may be surprised at what there is to discover in your city or town!

Designing a Retirement That Fulfills You

Retirement is not just an endpoint—it’s the beginning of a new chapter, full of possibilities. By setting clear goals, aligning your plans with your core values, and staying active in ways that bring you purpose, you can create a fulfilling and rewarding retirement. Whether you choose to travel, work part-time, pursue hobbies, or engage with your community, the key is to remain intentional and adaptable. With thoughtful planning and an open mindset, you can make the most of your golden years and enjoy a retirement that truly reflects the life you want to live.