Why do I feel lost after retiring?
Feeling lost after retiring is common, and it is not ingratitude. What actually happens when work stops, and what tends to help.
Research
Notes on what actually happens when work stops.
Almost everything written about retirement is either financial or sugar-coated. This is neither. These are observations from the practice and from the research, published while they are still being worked out rather than once they have been tidied up.
Recent essays
Why can't I spend it?
The numbers work and you still have not booked any breaks. Why spending in retirement is a different problem from saving, and what helps.
I was made redundant and I did not choose this.
Losing a job you did not choose to leave, in your forties, fifties or later. What actually happens, what the evidence says, and what helps.
What happens to the brain as we age?
The ageing brain is usually described as declining. The evidence says something more accurate: it is changing, and some of what changes is getting better, not worse.
The study
Once a year this practice runs an original piece of UK research into what people actually feel when work ends. The study focuses on new retirees and their experiences within the first year of this key life transition: what's worked, what hasn't, what's caught them off guard. The findings will be published whether or not they are comfortable.
Take part
I would love you to complete this survey. It is anonymous, and it feeds directly into the 365 Saturdays Study, the research I run each year into the retirement landscape in the UK. It takes a few minutes. Nothing you write is linked to your name or your email address, and findings are only ever published as totals, never as anything traceable back to you. There is no right answer, and you can stop at any point.
Take the survey(opens in a new window)
There is a great deal written about how to afford retirement and almost none about how to be in it.
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