A Wellbeing Survey was published that used Martin Seligman’s five pillars underpinning the ‘flourishing life’ to comment on wellbeing. The survey also revealed a number of self-care activities that help in building wellbeing.
The goal in life should be to flourish. That’s what psychologist and founder of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, says. In 2016, the Australian Psychological Society reported on an Australian Wellbeing Survey that used his five pillars underpinning the ‘flourishing life’ to comment on wellbeing.
It can be helpful to see your retirement as a gift of time. Actually, it’s more than helpful—it’s part of the reality of retirement.
When Leonard Cohen died in 2016, aged 82, he had lived well past retirement age. Although he never actually retired—or set up a school of retirement—there are valuable lessons we can learn from his life.
A survey and report by the Harris Poll organisation shows that Americans are envious of friends who put on social media pictures of lavish vacations and purchases. They admit that they do the same thing, but that doesn’t take away the envy.
Many of us have been told we should set smart goals, write them down with the date to achieve them, and we can achieve everything we want. Studies provide some evidence for the value of writing down goals to achieve them, but there’s so much more.
When people in retirement homes were asked about their regrets, it was less about the things they did, but ‘the things they didn’t do—never learning to salsa dance, never travelling the world, or never learning to play a musical instrument, for example’.
Some in the retirement field talk about the ‘longevity risk’ in retirement. Usually, it’s a reference to finance and is about having enough money to last the whole of life. But there are other ‘spans’ that are also important.
We can create our own story in retirement. It’s good to learn from others and their experience. It’s worth reading up on options. And it’s worth checking and understanding trends. But we need to live out our own story.
There’s a trend among the middle-aged to focus on work and income at the expense of their personal wellbeing. It’s often done with the hope that they can work on wellbeing later—in retirement, perhaps.