Retiring can be a huge—and wrenching—transition for those who have worked for decades to establish a meaningful professional identity over the course of their careers. And while some people navigate the new waters well, many others struggle to navigate the changes, Harvard Business Review writes.
Retirement is a transition that involves several key phases: making the decision to stop working; detaching from work; experimenting with new relationships, activities, and social groups; and establishing a new, reasonably stable life structure.
HBR researchers found that satisfied retirees demonstrate four key behaviors—the four “A”s—throughout the phases: alignment between what psychologists refer to as “the self” and “the life structure”; awareness of the interplay between the two; agency in making changes in the self or life structure or both; and adaptability in the face of events or circumstances out of their control.
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