These days when we retire we are in general much fitter and much healthier and hopefully have some 25-30 years of active life ahead of us. The change from a work environment to one where there is no structure and nobody telling us what to do is dramatic and one of the biggest changes of our lives. Whatever number of hours we worked and spent travelling to work, and whatever aspirations we have for retirement, filling 40-50 hours each week on top of previous leisure time, for the next 25 years, is a major challenge!

That’s why going on a pre-retirement course can be one of the best things you can do.  Tony Clack, Managing Director of Laterlife Learning who run pre-retirement courses in the UK says ‘a recent retirement survey we conducted showed a 30% increase in the level of enjoying retirement for those who had attended a pre-retirement course. In particular course attendees were much more likely to say retirement was fantastic and at the other end of the scale only those who hadn’t attended a course said they weren’t enjoying it or hated it’.

This result has been backed up by Greenwich University in the UK who conducted a more in depth survey and say ‘For the sample as a whole there was a highly significant difference between those who had been on a pre retirement course and those who had not in overall life satisfaction’.

So why are pre-retirement courses so effective? Laterlife Learning claim that theirs are particularly effective because they engage delegates in thinking through their retirement plans from their own perspective – they are highly interactive facilitated courses which cover each lifestyle aspect of retirement. The key benefit is that the courses aren’t just about passing information; the exercises and discussions assist participants to identify what is important to them personally and to identify the actions they need to take to ensure they enjoy and make the most of their retirement. As one participant said:

 ……along with the others attending the course, I found that I was being made to THINK about retirement, in all of its aspects, and challenged to question many of my pre-conceived ideas…

Another interesting fact from Laterlife Learning is that the majority of people retiring still intend to carry on working in some way in their retirement. This can include voluntary work but increasingly in current times this includes work to supplement their retirement income or even taking the opportunity to start their own business.

Laterlife offers an extensive set of facilities after the course including the www.laterlife.com web site, a set of retirement guides and free email newsletters covering a wide range of topics of interest to those over 50 and especially aimed at making the most of retirement. It also offers case studies of what people are doing in retirement at www.ukretirement.co.uk

In addition to the pre-retirement courses section of the Laterlife web site you can visit the  dedicated pre-retirement courses site at www.retirement-courses.co.uk. If you are interested in doing a pre-retirement course online then visit www.planningmyretirement.co.uk. Some of the course information is UK specific and the course has a UK flavour, but if you are interested Laterlife are offering 30% off the normal price to ‘Escape from America’ visitors – just use the promotional code  escape  

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