One of the questions I constantly received from many individuals when I announced my retirement was-what are you going to do? This, no doubt, is one of the key considerations before anyone decides to take the plunge.

Educator Barbara M. Walker has put together a neat slim guidebook entitled Create Your Retirement that provides the reader with 55 valuable ways to reply to the question-what you are going to do in your retirement?

Walker divides her advice into 5 principal sections concentrating on such topics as: what are your skills, learning how to use the Internet and its many possibilities, the fun aspect of retirement, and giving something back to society. Each section contains various exercises that analyse what you have to offer and how to prepare yourself for the next phase of your life.

The transferring of skills is probably one of the most important aspects of realizing a satisfying retirement. As Walker points out, you can create new roles for yourself. It is also important to view retirement as a career change. Remember, you are not retiring from life, but rather from your profession or employment.

Walker maintains it is essential to look at the big picture and don’t be afraid to step out of your familiar box. Analyse what you want and go for it. Perhaps, it is some vocation you always want to pursue, but for some reason never followed up.

A considerable part of the book is devoted to exploring the Internet and how to best gain maximum benefit. The possibilities of the Internet are endless in planning your retirement and forging new relationships. All you have to do is to learn how to surf the net and think of it as one big huge worldwide library containing unbelievable resources.

Other sections explore how you can give something back to society such as volunteering, or even showing someone a skill you may have acquired such as sewing, baking, etc. There is also reference to how to psychologically set yourself in the right frame of mind and to continually self-analyse yourself in order to meet your goals and objectives.

As the author mentions in her preface, “retirement is a time of living and doing exciting things; it is the time of loving and helping others, and it is about finding the ‘real you’ within and manifesting that in all its glory!” Therein lies the fundamental objective of the book that I am sure will prove to be of great interest to the soon-to-be-retired as well as the retired.