Purposeful Retirement: How to Bring Happiness and Meaning to Your Retirement (Retirement gift for men)

I’m in my first month of retirement and felt I needed some help in getting this phase of my life going in the right direction. I’ve always been a planner and a doer so this book was just the inspiration I was looking for.It’s an easy read with short chapters and thought provoking questions at the end of each. I recommend you take the time to think through these and see what your answers are.There was actually nothing new here that I haven’t thought of before but it put some structure around my thoughts.This book was great for me and I would love to have some of my retired friends read it but I’m afraid most of them who would benefit from it are also those who would find fault in the very thought of a self help book.

Is retirement on the horizon for you? I still have about a decade remaining, but the time will pass by quickly and I am already thinking about what retirement will be like and where I will live. My interest in the topic has led me to read several books on the subject, one of which is Purposeful Retirement.This book focuses its message on purpose. Other retirement books/guides take different angles, but here, the scope is purpose. The author wants you to have an enjoyable retirement that includes doing things that fulfill your personal mission. It could be traditional things that retired people do, like travel. But more often that not, it’s going to mean doing things that bring meaning to your life, like doing volunteer work, spending time with your family and grandchildren, and otherwise doing things that bring personal meaning and satisfaction to you personally.One of the things I like about this retirement guide is that it avoids getting caught up in the finances of retirement. With some retirement books, the bulk of the pages are centered on making sure you have the right amount of money saved or invested and that you follow a strict budget so that you don’t run out of cash. Yes, money does matter to a retired person, but there is much more to living out your golden years than constantly checking your bank account or IRA balance. There is also the importance of living a life of fulfillment and this book is intended to help point you in that direction.This book is loaded with personal stories of people who are retired and the anecdotes it presents are useful and helpful. The common theme is that retirement is about so much more than relaxing. If you retire without a plan or mission in mind, you are going to get bored extremely quickly. You need to take time to think about what interests you, what brings you joy, and what makes you satisfied on a deeper level and then start to prepare for doing these things in abundance once you clock out from your job for the last time.Retirement can and should be the best time of your life. Purposeful Retirement wants you to have the best retirement possible. It’s a quick read that I finished in one session, sitting outside by my pool. There is much to be gained by reading this book and while it doesn’t answer every question or concern you may have, it does succeed at getting you to think about and plan for those work- free days that lie ahead and all of the time you will have to do what you truly love.

Most people plan only for the money aspect of retirement but there is another additionally vital important thing to plan for and that is how you will spend your TIME. Most people do not think much of this past; “ Well, I won’t have to work in this d&mn place anymore!!” or, “I’m going to travel and garden“. What they don’t realize is that when you leave the workforce -you are also leaving a huge social zone as well as an activity that is keeping your mind busy. This book focuses on making a plan of how you will spend your time.Covid isolation and being stuck at home for a year gave me a glimpse of how retirement is going to be and it actually ended up scaring me! I thought having all that time on my hands, if I ever were to have it, I would be the most fit, read so many books, get so many things accomplished and have time for all the things that I have been putting off all my life because I was at work. I was WRONG! So wrong.I am a super productive high energy person yet, because I did not have a plan for how I would spend my time, I became lazy, I put on weight, I didn’t read more than half a book and I basically became a mushroom sitting in one place and re-entered my place of employment LESS better off as an individual than when I was stayed home for a year. This was not the fault of anything being closed -it was completely my lack of having a plan and routine. if that much decline could occur in just one year how bad could it possibly become being off for the remainder of my life?!?? It was a MAJOR wake up call! I now give this book to **anyone and everyone**that I know is retiring and I give it to them at least six months before they are set to retire and tell them to make a point to read it NOW. They all come back saying they never realized the importance of making a plan for your time and know now- that they need to do this.In my opinion, this is the absolute best retirement gift you could give anyone.You are not just giving them a book you are giving them a gift and life after retirement.

I purchased this book pre-retirement. It is an easy read. Some of the information was not new to me but each chapter addressed important considerations to make the best of this next chapter of one's life. it helped me feel more confident about entering retirement and making it purposeful.

I bought it for my husband who retired a few months earlier and he devoured it in 3 days. I saw him picking up the book and sitting in the garden completely absorbed. He said that it was a book he could have written himself. Although he is English and the author from the USA.I read it too and truly enjoy. Good advice for life after retiring.

This book has lots of useful information about preparing for the changes in your life that retirement will bring. It talks about the social, emotional and financial adjustments. There is advice about finding things to do in your retirement and planning activities that will keep you connected with your friends, relatives and community. One of the best ideas in the book is to have a retirement mentor who is someone who has already retired, who can help you adjust. This is a really good book to read if you are going to retire within the next 2 to 3 years.

Really helpful read thank you

Haven’t finished this book yet but a lot of what I have read makes total sense to me. Good advice for someone retiring from a professional life long career and also for a person who can’t see themselves just being idle because they have reached this stage in their life or a person who is idle and unhappy with retirement. I found I am already doing some of what he suggests but still some very good advice and suggestions on making your retirement the most fulfilling time of your life.