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Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You
Retirement, as a major life transition, can be both thrilling and challenging in unexpected ways. Written by acclaimed authors in the fields of business leadership, careers, and work, this book goes beyond the typical financial and health-related advice on retirement, providing insights to guide you in broader areas of your life – identity issues, relationship challenges, and questions about creating a new retirement life structure that works for you.
With lively, engaging writing, the book tells the detailed retirement transition stories of 14 people – and draws on over 200 interviews with 120 people – to explore how retiring involves a reconstruction of both the person and their life structure. You’ll gain wisdom on the common themes and the wildly different approaches people take to the four big tasks of making the retirement decision, detaching from work both tangibly and psychologically, building a new life structure for retirement, and settling into a relatively stable retirement life – but prepared to restructure again as life unfolds into the future. Throughout each chapter, you’ll see how the dynamic interplay of self, life structure, and external context affect a retiring person’s day-to-day experience in the final months of their career, as well as their early years of retirement – and how life satisfaction depends largely on alignment among the three. At the same time, you’ll learn how family, friends, and colleagues, as well as the organization the person is retiring from, can play a crucial role.
This book is for you if you are seeking deep, nuanced insight into – and practical advice on – the psychological, social, and life-restructuring aspects of retirement that can make all the difference for life satisfaction. It is also for you if you are a family member or friend of a retiring person, a helping professional, or an organizational leader who cares about your older workers and the value they bring to your organization even as they depart.
With lively, engaging writing, the book tells the detailed retirement transition stories of 14 people – and draws on over 200 interviews with 120 people – to explore how retiring involves a reconstruction of both the person and their life structure. You’ll gain wisdom on the common themes and the wildly different approaches people take to the four big tasks of making the retirement decision, detaching from work both tangibly and psychologically, building a new life structure for retirement, and settling into a relatively stable retirement life – but prepared to restructure again as life unfolds into the future. Throughout each chapter, you’ll see how the dynamic interplay of self, life structure, and external context affect a retiring person’s day-to-day experience in the final months of their career, as well as their early years of retirement – and how life satisfaction depends largely on alignment among the three. At the same time, you’ll learn how family, friends, and colleagues, as well as the organization the person is retiring from, can play a crucial role.
This book is for you if you are seeking deep, nuanced insight into – and practical advice on – the psychological, social, and life-restructuring aspects of retirement that can make all the difference for life satisfaction. It is also for you if you are a family member or friend of a retiring person, a helping professional, or an organizational leader who cares about your older workers and the value they bring to your organization even as they depart.
343 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 2, 2024
19 people are currently reading
189 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 2, 2025
An engaging case study of multiple professionals who made the transition to retirement. I found their individual stories most fascinating, and often a reminder that you never know how things are going to go, or how long you have. I would recommend this to anyone considering retirement, or wondering how they will ever make the transition.
In addition to the case studies, there are some clearly stated stages of retirement that the typical retiree must go through, and the nuances of each.
Most importantly: retirement is different for everyone, and it takes “work” (just not the traditional kind of work)! The more planning that can be done, the better the odds of a successful retirement, but not always the way you plan it! We must be adaptable.
In addition to the case studies, there are some clearly stated stages of retirement that the typical retiree must go through, and the nuances of each.
Most importantly: retirement is different for everyone, and it takes “work” (just not the traditional kind of work)! The more planning that can be done, the better the odds of a successful retirement, but not always the way you plan it! We must be adaptable.
October 29, 2024
Retiring is scholarly, but highly readable and engaging. Wonderful stories of people exploring, discovering, and evolving, and a valuable resource whether you’re just contemplating retirement, already detaching from work, or well on your way. A must-read for all of us who are ready to turn our attention to a new phase of life, hoping to make it meaningful. Bravo to the authors!
April 9, 2025
This was a terrific book -- well researched and very useful for me at this stage in my life. I really appreciate how well the authors laid out the steps to retirement and showed a multitude of examples about how their "stars" each went about the steps. It isn't an easy read but a very interesting and helpful one that I'll keep referring to
October 30, 2025
Odd book, partly academic, partly self-help. Kind of awkward. But it did offer some things to think about.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews