Self-fulling prophecies

Retirement means you no longer want to, or can work. Retirement can be seen as a beginning to the end of a phase of life where you have been focused on your career and the start of a phase of life where the focus is given to free time and rest. To ensure that retirees maintain the quality of their life as before they plan for retirement but the first step in good retirement planning, is not financial planning but self-awareness.

Our past can indicate with high probability what we might do in the future. This means that many aspects of our personalities and behaviour will continue to function in retirement. A person's experience may shape her identity and adjust in order to achieve compatibility of identity and experience can contribute to a balanced identity over time.

Your view of life-based on your experience may allow you to see retirement as a process that will lead to a sense of emptiness, loneliness and a reduction in life satisfaction. Or your life experience and view of life could allow you to see retirement as a process that will lead to a sense of discovery, exciting new relationships and an increase in life satisfaction. Both views are self-fulling prophecies. If you believe the former it will come true, if you believe the latter, it will come true. Your understanding of your "self" and your self-awareness is important in which world view of retirement you take.