RETIREMENT? NO. REFIREMENT! "Questions and a Case Study"

Routine and Daily Questions

These are a key part of the process - they keep us on track, and make the journey manageable.

We need to build into our routine a time in our day that we ask ourselves the following:

Basic Questions

Did I do my best to...? (Score between 1-10):

1.   Find meaning and purpose?

2.   Build positive relationships (including with family)?

3.   Provide my clients with value?

4.   Be open and to encourage luck and randomness?

5.   Review the key three outcomes for the year, month, week and day? Did I do my best to execute yesterday’s actions to achieve my outcomes?

6.   What are my three outcomes for tomorrow? What am I going to do to achieve them?

7.   Play, have fun and give my clients the opportunity to do so?

8.   Make the very best of whatever happens?

(If you want to start small, start with questions 5 and 6.)

Questions of Routine

Did I do my best to…? (Score between 1-10):

1.   Maintain healthy eating habits and to stay on track to achieve (target weight) by the end of (date)?

2.   Complete my 15 minute hard exercise routine 4 x a week?

3.   Complete my 20 minutes meditation daily 3 x a week?

4.   Complete Lumosity training / Listen to a Bandler CD/MP3?

5.   Complete my stretch workout 3 x a week?

6.   Complete my 5 people-that-I-appreciate exercise (what I see, hear, feel) daily?

7.   Complete my 5 experiences-that-I-appreciate exercise. (what I see, hear, feel) daily?

8.   Remind myself of my priorities for the year, month and week. Decide my key three priorities for the following day?

9.   Ensure high quality sleep?

Note – Please note that I’ve developed these in line with my own particular plans and values. If you’re going to do the exercise it’s worth developing what works for who you are and what you want to do.

Additional Questions

Did I do my best to:

1.   Choose success?

2.   Choose to add value to my clients, family and friends?

3.   Choose health (purpose, exercise, food, meditation, sleep)?

4.   Choose to embrace the full catastrophe of life?

Case Study: William 

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William worked as a visual artist and graphic designer, fighting for years as a freelancer, and sometimes enduring company work for projects both boring (corporate calendars) and exciting (designing the layout of local playgrounds.)

Although he was younger than most - mid-fifties - he decided that it wasn’t worth continuing on the treadmill of demand; it seemed like all of his money was going on new technology and all of his free time went into learning new skills. After a bout of repetitive stress injury (RSI) coincided with a death in the family, he decided to take a break, but the graphics industry is legendarily ruthless, and once a person steps out of the flow of demand, it’s very difficult to ever ‘get back on the horse.’

He was feeling defeated one day and visited a playground he had designed, beside which was a large football/cricket pitch that was being maintained – and he remembered a young man that used to visit his grandmother and help to mow the lawn; he would talk to William in a funny way that he appreciated - that man seemed to be so at peace with himself.

It only occurred to William now that the man was a volunteer.

William now mows the lawns for his elderly neighbours, and although he is not as young as the man he had once met, whenever he talks to the neighbour’s grandson, he feels there is some sort of symmetry in his life.

The Question:

Are there any events in the back of your mind that inspire you to do something constructive? What memories could you draw from to give you a sort of symmetry now?

*** 

This is the continuation of a serialization of this new ebook on active retirement, by Ugandan Petero Wamala and American Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., which ebook is available through amazon.com for $0.99: 

https://www.amazon.com/RETIREMENT-NO-REFIREMENT-surviving-continuing-ebook/dp/B06XV52HPQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490748919&sr=8-1&keywords=retirement%3F+no%2C+refirement%21

Would-be authors are invited to see my site
http://WriteYourBookWithMe.com.