Most articles and books about retirement seem to indicate that if you have enough money to meet your daily living expenses, retirement is a cinch, in the midst of this “don’t worry, be happy” mantra, there is seldom any mention that retirement often causes major emotional upheavals on the same scale as the death of a loved one, loss of a job, or a financial crisis caused by a bad investment. We have come to learn that this emotional distress is often subtle in nature. It doesn’t announce itself with fanfare, but sneaks up and taps you….

You left one life behind but don’t have a new life to live. You know what you don’t want to do, but not what you want to pursue instead. Uncomfortable feelings of confusion and helplessness often result.

Unfortunately, this unhappiness does not restrict itself to you, but most times spreads to those around you, family and close friends notice your change in behavior. You may become excessively controlling or hypercritical, followed by surprising outbursts of anger. As a friend recently said in jest, “I used to love my husband until he retired.” Your social life may decline because you no longer feel like going out.

You may engage in antisocial behavior, having marathons in front of the TV or self-medicating, or over eating or drinking…Worse yet, in an attempt to alleviate your distress, you may make a major life-changing decision, such as liquidating your assets or leaving your spouse. Many retirees may never encounter these challenges according to research studies, these fortunate individuals most likely have looked forward to retirement for a long time, have sufficient savings, are in good health, have pensions or Investments to maintain their needs, have many friends popping in unannounced, and have active social lives. They make friends easily and regularly go to church or other structured group activities such as sporting events like golf or tennis, active members of social clubs, or political rallies.

On the other hand retirees that find themselves in the retirement doldrums don’t want to make the effort to be like their more content colleagues because they want to find happiness in retirement on their own terms and are not willing to make the extra effort required to pull themselves out of the doldrums. We are glad to inform you that this seminar will give you all that you need to make informed decisions to enable you plan towards a happier post retirement lifestyle.

The first truth you must tell yourself is that you don’t have unlimited time available. Your most important responsibility after liberating yourself from the daily grind of working, is to experience happiness and fulfillment and not distress and emotional turmoil.

Dr David Hawkins, the internationally renowned psychiatrist distinguished author, spiritual lecturer and mystic once said “that it is not easy being a human being, we don’t live in heaven, to be a productive and effective person at any stage in life requires some effort.”

As you go through this seminar we ask you to be introspective and contemplate any personal insights you may gain from it. Enjoy the process of acquiring new knowledge and use this new found knowledge to help yourself and others that may not have the privilege of attending this type of a seminar.

There are two main components essential for success: knowing more than others and exerting more effort for achievement.

It is simply not possible to recreate the same opportunities for mental stimulation that exist in the workplace. We have all heard of well known and highly accomplished athletes and executives who seem unable to relinquish their old lives. Many of whom suffer intense pain related to divorce, alcohol or medication abuse, and end up making serious investment mistakes. These all occur in a desperate attempt to get their old groove back.

According to a recent article in the Journal of Employee Assistance, becoming a retiree usually affects four areas of a person’s life: the financial, social, family, and psychological. Each of these areas can act as a potential land mine and create major problems for the retiree. Retirement means saying goodbye to a work life and all of its complexities and challenges. It also requires the loosening of social ties that may have provided a sense of identity and separation from coworkers who may have provided great enjoyment. It may also entail adapting to a smaller budget with fewer trips and entertainment options. Add in the fact that a growing percentage of all retirements are involuntary, meaning the individual was not given the opportunity to choose the date and time of his or her retirement.

Navigating these changes requires psychological flexibility that may not exist within the retiree and the retiree’s family members. For most people, managing change when you are in your sixties can be more difficult than at age thirty. For those with an achievement addiction, change can be catastrophic due to the immense psychological stress created by these uncontrollable life-changing events.

Few are as fortunate as Valentino, the famous fashion designer, who commented upon his retirement, “I was proud to stop at the right moment while the room was full.”

Research has shown that retirement distress may occur at different intervals. Example, many retirees report great happiness and satisfaction during the first six to twelve months of retirement—

Referred to as “the honeymoon period"—only to feel distress at a later time. These individuals soon learn that it only takes a short time to do all the things they dreamed about once they have freedom from their working life. They wonder, “What’s next? Is that all there is?"

Expert retirement researchers discovered that a person’s unique personality type, powered by an achievement addiction, is the biggest cause of problems adjusting to retirement.

People process life changing events in various ways depending upon their personality type … to learn more about this subject you can read the book THE ENNEAGRAM: understanding yourself and others in your life by HELEN PALMER

What makes retirement adjustment difficult for some people is the fact that every human being is unique. We learned from extensive research that one size does not fit all when it comes to charting a successful retirement strategy. In fact, many people hate the term “retirement” because they find that it has the connotation of being over the hill, when they are in fact eagerly looking forward to many active and challenging years ahead.

The first step is to think about those things that you have done in the past that were successful and that gave you pleasure? This should give you some direction as to what you should be doing after retirement.

For example, if you were an excellent administrative manager for a successful company, you may receive satisfaction from employing some of those same management skills for a much smaller enterprise, such as a church, school, political group, or social club.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book OUTLIERS (The Story of Success): introduces the notion of time of practice, or how long it takes to really get good at something. Consider those tasks on which you spent the majority of your time prior to your retirement. The research indicates that it takes more than ten thousand hours of practice to become highly skilled at a task. This equates to three hours of practice every day over a period of ten years.

When K retired he took three months off and then gave himself six additional months to define the next stage of his life. He managed this transition very well and secured both investment relationships and board seats, which were both part of his original plan. It was not until two or three years after his retirement that he began to feel psychological discomfort. As he would describe it, “After a while the loss of intensity got to me.

We are partners in creating the world that we see. Our attention activates a dance of consciousness, and we are full-fledged cohorts in creating the reality that we know, trust, and act upon. That means that there is scientific support for changing the reality that we experience by changing our beliefs about that reality, which leads us to the next section, Happiness Realizations.