Hi, it’s Dr Denise, down the wood, and I just want to talk you through a bit about the book. Now, elsewhere, I’ve got all the chapters listed down, but sometimes it’s nice to hear somebody talk about them. There are 13 chapters altogether, and the first chapter is the introduction, which sets the historical perspective, about retirement. The book is then divided into three parts. I came up with these three parts while I was on a retreat in Mexico, last September: reflect, review, renew. I wanted it all to be starting with RE, to tie in with retirement.
The first part, reflect, is reflecting on your retirement. I first talk about transitions and the process of retirement. Retirement, even if you are going to carry on working is still a major transition. If, or when you leave your main job, it’s helpful to think back at other transitions that you’ve made in your life.
Then I want you to take stock as to where are you now. This is a really practical chapter. There are lots of activities for you to think about: your health, your money, your relationships. And I break down relationships.
The first one is the relationship you have with yourself. And there’s the relationships you have with your loved one, with your family, with your friends, and family. You divide it up between parents and children, etc.
It’s where are you now? This is a point in time. You can get a view about; this is an area that maybe I’m really well prepared on. Maybe that’s the money side, maybe not. And then this is an area that maybe I need to do something about. I don’t know what else it’s going to give me meaning after life or whatever, after retirement.
The third chapter in this section is ‘who are you’ and it’s about the psychological factors. This is really getting into my research and looking into different aspects of Personality and getting you to do a personality assessment one of the big five ones, and there’s a link so you can access a free version and we’re going to go through these different areas. This is not because I want you to be any one particular personality type, but so that you can understand where you are. I use the word Ocean, so we’re looking at different areas – optimism, conscientiousness, etcetera. So, you are going to do the assessment, and then you’re going to reflect on it.
There’s a lot of reflection within the book, and I encourage people to have a reflection buddy, somebody who’s going through it with you, and you can share things. And it’s something that maybe I need to create, set up a Facebook group or something. If that’s something that interests you, let me know because we can do that. So, who are you? The psychological factors. This part one was all about reflecting on your retirement.
Now, I’m going to break this video down into chunks because it’s already heading up to four minutes and people come and tell me that my video shouldn’t be too long! So, I’m going to stop now and then we will start again and we will move on to part two within my book