How to have a great retirement

Retiring well takes on many guises and a good deal of planning, learn how others trounced it

Recent paperback Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You offers some key advice on how to retire successfully.

The book comes as baby boomers are turning 65 and employees in their 50s and early 60s are being obliged, or are choosing, to seek early or partial retirement. In the book, which is based on interviews with 120 US professionals, retired Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile cites the following four stages to avoid drifting and dissatisfaction in retirement:

• Deciding when to retire

• Detaching from work both tangibly and psychologically - shifting away from work while you’re still working and having more boundaries with your work-life balance, or shedding your work identity after you retire. 

• Building a new life structure for retirement, experimenting and exploring new activities or commitments, tapping in to what matters to you whether that be family, friendships, hobbies, altruism, part-time, portfolio or NED work etc.

• Consolidating a life structure and settling into a rhythm and routine that’s right for you.

In an interview with MarketWatch, Amabile said the most common mistake people had about retirement planning was thinking it was all about money and health.

“Many people stop there. They don’t think it means anything but that. But it means also staying engaged in something that might grow into a wonderful activity to root yourself in retirement.”