Retirement is that period of your life when you finally have the time to do what you want to do, to make choices and to build memories rather than material wealth.
Planning for retirement can start from when you first enter the workforce, or it can begin a few years before you are due to leave. If you regard this planning as the preparation that eases you onto a new pathway, then it becomes a positive and prudent procedure to consider six important aspects.
1. Without doubt, financial planning will make the strongest impact on the path that your retirement takes. The earlier in your working life that you start investing part of your savings to this end, the greater the pecuniary rewards that you will reap in later life.
My own exit from the workforce could have been lived to a grander scale had I possessed the foresight four decades ago to stash away every available dollar in superannuation funds. However I did not! No doubt, at that time, contemplating my existence as a senior citizen was not high on the agenda of important things to do.
However, do not feel that your retirement happiness is dependent on financial resources. Your assets may be amassed in numerous other gratifying ways and the rewards may be even greater because they have immeasurable worth rather than finite monetary value.
2. Where you want to spend this well-earned departure from the workforce is a consideration that you can determine closer to your time of retirement.
Some of us settle into our ideal environment early on in our lives. Others harbour a lifelong dream of blissful days in another setting. Relocation is not necessarily a financial extravagance. Often, as in my case, a move from an established and well-maintained city home to a country property of more rambling proportions can leave you with money to spare for the extras that the additional acreage might require.
My current home of seven years has endowed me with riches in every sense. It is a simple place - the sort of location to which I took my young children during their holidays when the city was central to our lives. I wanted them to feel the space, climb the hills and touch the earth with their bare feet. Now, back in the country permanently, I am enveloped in the contentment that comes from celebrating an unpretentious life surrounded by ordinary things, all of which are to me meaningful and precious.
3. Your retirement will be more enjoyable and stimulating if you have established hobbies during your working years.
That being the case, for example, you will not have to get out there as an absolute novice and struggle to establish sufficient skills on the golf course to play alongside your friend who won the Australian Open in his thirtieth year!
My own hobbies, which include various forms of the arts such as writing, painting and music, have been the source of much yearning throughout my working years: there was never enough time to indulge myself and enjoy them fully. Now, bursting with enthusiasm to become totally immersed and to utilise the skills that I have developed through these pastimes, I am able to indulge at my leisure and to share my interests with others of similar passion. The flimsy framework that was established earlier has become the structural direction of my new life.
4. It is easier to live with retirement if you have already been able to mentally disassociate yourself from the job over time.
If you are able, choose your own time of retirement and leave when you feel ready. While this is not always an option and the employer may set the date for you, it will certainly smooth the path of your adjustment to a bright new future if you are contributing to the decision.
When I finally gave up my employment, I had been looking forward to my home occupation for months. Increasingly during that time, the tedium of daily meetings, the irritation of repetitive record keeping and the frustration of dealing with difficult people provided a realistic balance to the nostalgia of leaving a profession of which I was innately very proud.
5. Think about the aspects of your retirement to which you are looking forward while you are still in your workplace.
These things became motivation for me in making the final decision. I told myself, "I will finish work soon because I want to be home during my favourite season. I love autumn's warm mellow days, the lengthening shadows, the melancholy colouring of the deciduous trees as they bid farewell to their foliage." So I stopped work and autumn welcomed me home.
Now, having moved on to wintry days, I am enjoying this season as never before while I sit by the fireside with my slumbering dogs and gaze across the windswept paddocks. I can read and write, cook wonderfully simple meals of hot soup and crusty bread and practise a prelude on my organ where once I could only listen to it on CD.
6. You need to keep fit if you are to fully enjoy your retirement.
While increasing age delivers a few extra aches and pains to bodies that have worked hard and lived long, these are easily overlooked alongside the brain-power that you have been developing over the years. You are probably at the top of your field in job-related expertise. Your intellect has been honed and sharpened and tuned to meet every challenge. Be confident in yourself and proud of what you are as you plan to begin your retirement.
Once at home, exercise your brain in the way that you did while you worked - pushing it to the upper limits. There will be many aspects of your job that you can utilise in your new capacity. As a teacher, I enjoy helping children with reading and other learning difficulties, and I am working to develop a series of lessons for a cultural program.
Exercise your body in a new and gentler way - not rushing to catch the 5:30 train, but by pushing a few wheelbarrows of mulch to spread on the vegetable patch and walking the dog vigorously in the fresh morning sunshine.
Finally, if, like me, you do not need those round-the-world tours, the luxury holidays in the northern sunshine or the new restaurant to try out each week; if the health resorts, the cinemas and the new Apple IPhone are not requirements for your happy retirement, there is so much more out there for you that costs absolutely nothing in monetary terms.
If your needs are simple, if you enjoy the things that nature freely provides for us all, then retirement for you will be the joy that you deserve.