Start the New Year with a Renewed Sense of Purpose!

Create a personal life plan for your retirement.  Learn how understanding your core needs, values and strengths can become the foundation for planning a blend of activities that keeps you physically active, mentally challenged, 

emotionally recharged, and socially engaged.

 

Join us in our next workshop!

Saturday, January 11, 2014

9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Hosted by Pemmican Lodge

102- 5 Ave S, Lethbridge AB

Cost $97.00 includes 55-page workbook and

Retirement Dimensions™ 

For more information or to register, contact

Barbara Cavers

403.553.2973

bcavers@la.shockware.com 

10 Tips for Managing Your Holiday Stress

“This time of year, there’s a lot of cultural pressure to feel happy, joyous and grateful. But in reality, a lot of people experience more stress and anxiety than holiday bliss. Sources of holiday stress include pressure to shop, cook, entertain, organize family gatherings and then, after the party’s over, pay off the bills.” Suzanne Gerber of Next Avenue consulted several experts on stress and came up with 10 suggestions to help ‘keep your holiday cool’.

My four favorite tips were:

1. Expect things to go wrong.
2. Let others help.
3. Take time for yourself.
4. Don’t try to resolve family conflicts.

Good advice. You can find the entire article on Next Avenue 'where grownups keep growing'.

I hope that you find joy in the holiday season and that the New Year brings you health, renewed engagement with life, and satisfying relationships with friends and family.

Revisiting and Revising Our Memories

I was recently sorting some photographs and came across this picture of my parents, taken in 1999. For years I had felt only sadness when I looked at this photograph, as it was taken just a few days before we put my father into longterm care due to dementia-related problems. We all knew what was going to happen that week, all of us with the exception of Dad, that is. So, in spite of the fact that it is a lovely picture of two happy people, all that I could feel was the sadness of knowing that everything was soon going to change for Dad and for all of us.

A few years ago, I decided to put this photo on my fridge door. Each time I noticed it, I chose to look at the warm smile on my father’s face, the laughter on my mother’s, and the closeness between the two of them.  

That’s what I now see, and I love this photo.

Sometimes it just feels better when we rethink and revise our memories, choosing to focus on the positive elements. We are not forgetting the other feelings; we are simply making a conscious choice about what we are going to see first, what we wish to highlight, and what we chose to place in the shadows.

You could live a long time . . .

In reflecting on her life expectancy, Lyndsay Green says, “I know that the average life expectancy is rising dramatically and I fit the longevity profile. I’m already 60 years old; I have no major health issues; and I come from long-living stock. So, barring a killer disease or an accident, I am likely to become old, - maybe even very old.”

She entitled her 2010 book You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready?  She interviews forty elders, combining their accumulated wisdom with her own research, in order to “identify the practical decisions and techniques that would let me make use of their advice right away. I was feeling the wind of age on my back and wanted to get moving.”

Green examines her own anxieties about aging and explores her own misconceptions about growing old. “What the elders taught me turned my thinking on its head. Their most important lessons are almost all paradoxical: they run counter to our society’s obsession with staying forever young, and to my own assumption that I must fight aging at all costs. Instead, aging well depends on acceptance, sometimes even an embrace, of the aging process.”

One of Green’s misconceptions was that “My old self would be just like my young self, only greyer and saggier.” However, as she rethinks this idea, based on the company of elders and their families, she comes to realize that she will need to cultivate new strengths and new find new strategies. “I realized that I had better start now to develop what I was going to need.”

My workshop, entitled Retire to the Life You Design^© will help you get started on planning the rest of your life in three key ways:

• Identifying your core needs for personal fulfillment

• Using the Six Circles of Life for achieving balance in your mind, body, and spirit.

• Exploring numerous and diverse leisure and volunteer activities that match your interests and skills

• Finding ways to create meaning and leave a legacy

This workshop will help you to connect you connect who you are with possibilities for your future. Through our process and tools, you begin to create a plan to retire to the life that you design yourself, a retirement unique to you.

My next workshop will be held

Saturday, November 9, 2013

9 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

New Location:

Pemmican Lodge

102 5 Ave S, Lethbridge AB 

Cost $97.00 includes:

55-page workbook and

Retirement Dimensions™

 For more information or to register, contact:

Barbara Cavers @ 403.553.2973

Email: bcavers@la.shockware.com

The 6 most important retirement planning questions

Steve Vernon suggests “as part of your retirement planning, take a little time to imagine that you'd live forever. What would you do differently? The same? Talk it over with your spouse, family, and friends. Not only will it be a fun discussion, it will probably give you some powerful insights into how you can make the best of your rest-of-life”.

He poses six questions for us to consider when planning our retirement lifestyle: who-what-when-where-why and how?

Why: What are the reasons for the life you want? What would you do if you had one year to live?  What would your retirement look like if you could live forever?

Who? Who do you want to spend time with? Which people -- spouse, partner, family, old friends, co-workers, new friends -- give you the most pleasure and meaning in life?

What? What will you be doing after you retire? Will you continue to work? Do you want to travel? Are there hobbies you'd like to pursue now that you have more time? What about volunteering? Or do you want to spend more time with family and friends? What gives you the most joy, meaning and purpose in life?

When? When will you stop working? Will it be when you're tired of your current job? Or when you no longer need the money? Or maybe you'll keep working until you're no longer physically able to work? Will you stop working abruptly or phase down? The answers for each person will depend on how much money you need for living expenses, whether you enjoy your work and whether you have a "bucket list" of other things you want to do.

Where? Will you live in your current house? Or will you downsize to something that's in the same general location? Maybe you'd like to move far away or be close to children and grandchildren. Or do you plan to go where your work takes you?

How?  The answers to the preceding questions will dictate how much money you'll spend on living expenses, which in turn tells you how much retirement income you need.

Vernon urges us to “discuss these questions with your spouse, partner, family and close friends -- people who care about you and are in the same boat. Be open to their points of view without judgment -- you might be surprised at the insights you'll gain. The discussions will also bring you closer together to your family and friends. It's a great use of your time!”

For the entire article and the rest of Steve Vernon’s series called  “16 weeks to plan the rest of your life”, see this link.

22 Things Happy People Do Differently

22 Things Happy People Do Differently

"There are two types of people in the world: those who choose to be happy, and those who choose to be unhappy. Contrary to popular belief, happiness doesn’t come from fame, fortune, other people, or material possessions. Rather, it comes from within. The richest person in the world could be miserable while a person living in the slums of a third world country could be happy and content. I have spent plenty of time amongst both groups to have seen it first hand. Happy people are happy because they make themselves happy. They maintain a positive outlook on life and remain at peace with themselves."

The question is: how do they do that?"

If you would like to learn more about the good habits that happy people maintain to enhance their lives - the things they do differently, you might want to check out this blog entry: "22 Things Happy People Do Differently". Adopting a few of these habits might make quite a difference in your life.

Upcoming Workshop:

Saturday, November 9

 9 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

 

New Location:

Pemmican Lodge

102 5 Ave S, Lethbridge AB

 

Cost $97.00 includes:

55-page workbook and Retirement Dimensions™ tool

 This seminar is an introduction to a program that will help you to connect who you are with possibilities for your future. Retire to the Life You Design^© guides you through a personal process to design your retirement with a blend of activities that keeps you physically active, mentally challenged, emotionally recharged, and socially engaged. The program will equip you with tools, models, information and resources to help you continue your exploration and discovery after the workshop ends. Through our process and tools, you begin to create a plan to retire to the life that you design yourself, a retirement unique to you.