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Sunday, January 16, 2011

Counseling and Retirement Preparation [1]

          I recently came across a very interesting article focused on retirement counseling.  Information about how to access to this article is displayed at the bottom of this post.  The authors live in Nigeria. As with most retirement studies much of the article concentrates on financial issues. But there are also some valuable social and psychological comments.
         The authors suggest that  “… at the real retirement stage, the individual is expected to have completed all necessary arrangements on retirement and can now decide on what to do with life…” 
         They also cite an article in which more than half of the sample reported that they were not fully prepared for retirement.  Failure to be adequately prepared can lead to “…feelings of guilt, anger, denial, fatigue or a blurred future” 
         The researchers suggest that people should identify what they want to do and continually review and revise their plan to accomplish their goals.  In the article the first set of questions are very compatible with the financial questions listed on most financial retirement planning websites (google and see).  For example: “How much money will it take to support my household?” and “How will my assets, liabilities; expenses and savings change during retirement?
     The authors also give some social suggestions that I find very useful.  For example:
1. Persevere and remain optimistic – No matter how difficult the circumstance, have confidence that the basic values you stand for will sustain you, and don’t give up on yourself.
2. Before retiring decide how you are going to spend the eight hours or more you used to devote to work. Retirement is another vocation you have to prepare for.
3. If you want to volunteer work to fill you time then find an activity you enjoy. If you don’t it will be boring.

         If someone asked you about dealing with non-financial factors of retirement, what activities and relationships would you give? 

[1] J.B. Asonibarev  Retirement and Retirement Counseling: Issues and Challenges.  (Google)

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