The Finance Blogger

A recent conversation about transition from a career to retirement with my doctor revealed that although he was thinking about retirement he really had no plan. He is 54 and is the only plan is that he wants to work until he is 65. Obviously money is not the issue for him, but what he will do in retirement is an issue. He is only now beginning to think about it. Some would say that he has lots of time, over 11 years to get ready. And yes this is true. But depending on what he wants to do in retirement, he may need to start the planning now. He may need to begin the transition very soon.

He mentioned that he would like to do more research and possibly lecture. Neither of these issues is being addressed at the present time. His health is good, although these days one never knows what is around the corner. My main message to him in our short conversation was that he needed to develop a transition from career to retirement that works for him and helps him achieve his goals.

Transition from a Career to Retirement

Everyone is different of course and has a variety of interests. Whatever you would like to do in retirement should be carefully thought about and then a plan developed to help you get there.

In the doctor’s case he would like to do research and lecture. This is his goal for the time he retires. Note that this is, in addition, to travel, spend time with the family, etc. Now that he knows what his goal is, the next step is to map out a step by step plan that takes him in the direction he wants to go.

Perhaps he would benefit from attending school and training. Maybe getting involved with a research group,  finding sponsors for the type of research that he wants to do. Once he has done some of this research there is no doubt he will be asked to guest lecture from time to time. There are a lot more details to be worked out but hopefully, you get the message, start now and plan.

Establish a goal for when you want to retire in terms of what you would like to do and then set up a plan to achieve this goal. If it is a worthy goal, you will have to be prepared to work hard to achieve it.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.