Are you ready for change? Retirement? A new job? A move to another country? Don’t hesitate because you are unsure of where you will go or what you will do. Knowing that you want your life to be different is the first step to a new beginning. By evaluating your dreams, imagining your future and anticipating change, you can create some short-term goals and begin taking steps to reach them. Why not follow your road to personal fulfillment?
If you believe that this is your one precious life then you want to live it to the fullest extent possible. There are various stages most experience when making life changes such as retirement.
- Disorientation – what can I do now?
- Examination and exploration – what do I really want?
- Reflection – what do I need to do to get there?
- Reorganization – determine goals and examine new perspectives to bring about a gradual shift to a new beginning.
Each stage is an important process in letting go of the past and creating a new life. Without letting go first, you can’t move forward. Giving up your job may seem like giving up your identity. You will lose a community, status, a feeling of success, a steady income, a schedule, and a framework for your life. The gains are for you to discover.
The retirement years are what you make of them. No one is going to chose them for you. To find balance you must make personal choices about what you want and take steps to reach that point. Think in terms of possibilities, choice, solutions, and what will happen is you don’t take those steps to move forward.
You can only be as free as you are willing to be truthful about yourself.
Guy Finley
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