Downsizing Your House for Retirement

Downsizing Your House for Retirement The Places You'll Go When You Finally Let Go Several years ago, I had a client who decided that it was time to retire and downsize. It was a huge decision and once made, the house was put on the market and sold very quickly. She hadn’t anticipated the flood of emotions. She was very connected to her home; she had changed and personalized every corner of her home and she had raised her family there. Even though her neighborhood had already transitioned to newer, younger families, she still had very deep connections to the community and knew she probably ...
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WHAT’S YOUR APPLE PIE RETIREMENT?

What's Your Apple Pie Retirement? A Retirement Coach Can Help You Find the Right Recipe for Happiness I love engaging people in conversation about retirement. It’s fascinating and provocative to hear people’s thoughts and dreams about what they’re hoping for in their second chapter. Interestingly, the further away from retirement you are, the bigger the dreams are. The closer it gets, the more concern I hear as the mist of reality drizzles down. I hear small, whispered concerns, sometimes an eye-roll. Some of the most common concerns I hear are: * I’m afraid I’ll outlive my savings * Do ...
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Find Happiness in Retirement by Embracing Change

Find Happiness in Retirement by Embracing Change When planning your retirement, it is a very good time to really start telling the truth. It’s not nearly as important to do that with your friends, neighbors or co-workers as it is to tell the truth to yourself.  This is no time to be embellishing or fantasizing who you’d like to be on a core level. It’s a time to be really honest, brutally honest with yourself as to who you really are so that you can nurture and befriend yourself through the process of creating this next chapter of your life. When my children were babies, I marveled at ...
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The Importance of Relationships, Especially During Retirement

The Importance of Relationships, Especially During Retirement Who Gets To Go Into YOUR Refrigerator?? Ginny, one of my retirement coaching clients, was reflecting on the changes that have taken place in her social life over the last several years.  At one time, she and her husband had enjoyed a thriving and active community of friends.  She felt the best and easiest time was when their children where grade-school age and play dates and school activities created tremendous opportunities to meet people and regularly come together.  Acquaintances become friends with a long, shared history of ...
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Preparing for Retirement Emotionally

Preparing for Retirement Emotionally As a retirement coach, I try very hard to practice what I preach. I’ve recently been studying my own optimum retirement plan and noticed that a lot of my emotional energy has been devoted to my career. So, how do I re-balance my emotional retirement portfolio? How do I begin to transition my focus to other areas now so that I can feel energized from multiple sources? This is my time to experiment.  To try different things, to see what fits me.  One of my answers came in the shape of a boat.  A kayak to be specific. I knew that the recreation/fitness...
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OLD AGE- IT’S A MONSTER

OLD AGE - IT'S A MONSTER My grandmother was a very powerful woman. She was probably the most influential person I have ever known to this day and profoundly affected everyone in our family, even the generations who never go to know her the way that I did because some of her vibrancy had faded in her latter years. She even impacted people who had never met her because she was so much fun to talk about and her life and quotes have become folklore.  She died when she was 99, fully intact mentally (and I do mean fully) and I was almost 50 when she passed so she and I had a long, glorious run whic...
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