"Success" is defined differently according to where you are in life. For some people, the word means having millions of dollars in their bank accounts, winning a prestigious award, having recognition and tons of friends, i.e., some form of "fame and fortune."
In retirement, my definition of "success" is being able to do what creates meaning in your life, and that could consist of many different things. In a recent talk, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, said she tells people to ask themselves, "What do you love more than yourself?" For her, the answer was writing, and that's what she does. Your answer might be teaching, creating, solving problems, cooking, being with the grandchildren, traveling, or so much more.
Working from the premise that we are here for a purpose and that the purpose is to help others in some way, how can we use our retirement time to achieve our own form of success?
You can bring more happiness and satisfaction into your life by merely taking the time to do an intensive self-inventory and then acting on the results you discover. Finding your success in retirement and then doing it will bring you more satisfaction and happiness than all of the money and power in the world.
Each month I will share a couple of components of living a successful life in retirement that I have found from my readings and have found personally useful. Choose those that are most meaningful to you and run with them.
For this month, we'll start with three pre-inventory suggestions.
1. Start keeping a journal. In it write ideas that pop into your head at any time. Include your reactions to a movie, a book, a letter, a conversation--anything that is meaningful to you.
Record what you are grateful for each day. Most importantly, write down your plans as they begin to form in your mind. Start keeping track of what you like about each segment of the day. Are you an early riser? Do you like to work late? Are there certain types of people who motivate you, make you feel good about yourself? Analyze them. Analyze why you react to them as you do.
Eventually your journal will contain a myriad of information, which, as you reread, may begin to form a pattern. Certain ideas, topics, people, keep reoccurring. All of that is significant.
Make it a point to write every day, even if only for a few minutes. Your journal is a reminder that you are on the path toward your own personal success. It is a visual reminder to keep you on target, to remind you to stay focused.
2. Take control of your thoughts and your attitude. Keep in mind a very important fact: We become what we think about all day long. Norman Vincent Peale stated, "You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are." You have to really think about that. Along the same line, Aurelious said, "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it."
Thoughts are very important, and you are the only one who can control them. If you have negative thoughts, negative pictures in your mind, in all likelihood, you are headed in a negative direction with negative results.
On the other hand, positive thinking is productive and fulfilling. In The Millionaire's Secrets, Mark Fisher said, "Extraordinary people know that ideas are very real entities, that every idea we emit tends to concretize, attracting the people and circumstances that can help make it a reality. And it doesn't matter if the idea is positive or negative."
You can train yourself to think more positively by training yourself to choose what you pay attention to and what you say about it, both to yourself and others.
Who chooses your thoughts? You do. Who chooses your attitude? You do.
There is so much power in being able to internalize the fact that we are in charge of our thoughts, feelings, and reactions. We can't control what happens to us, but we are always in charge of our reactions to it.
3. Meditate on the good things currently in your life. Train yourself to relax and visualize yourself doing what you want to do.
Relaxation is a simple process. Sit in a chair or lie on the floor. Take a few deep breaths, exhale slowly, and allow all of the tension to flow out of your body. Feel your body become loose and limp. Visualize a soft, internal light shining on the top of your head, relaxing all of the muscles of your scalp; see the light move down to your forehead, your cheeks, your chin, erasing all the worry, all the tension from your face. Feel your face become loose and limp and your jaw hang loose. Feel the warmth and relax the muscles in your neck, your shoulders, both arms, torso, buttocks, thighs, calves, feet, and toes. Once all of the muscles in your body are relaxed, breathe in, then out, in, then out, allowing your mind to relax and concentrate only on your breath.
Remain in this relaxed position for ten to fifteen minutes, then visualize on the blank screen of your mind, exactly what you would like to see yourself doing, exactly what gives you the greatest pleasure. Who's involved? Where are you? What is the temperature? Try to notice details. They may change daily, and that's okay.
When your mind is relaxed, ideas flow more readily. Have you ever had the experience of going to bed after an argument with someone, and once your head hits the pillow, you think of the greatest things you should have said? Or you have the greatest opening for the letter you have put off writing? The reason the ideas come now or in the shower or when you are driving, is because that is when your mind is most relaxed. That is when your mind can more readily access the right part of your brain where the creativity lies.
Relaxation has numerous physical benefits-lowered blood pressure being one of them-but the reason I emphasize it here is because relaxation also makes your mind work better when going through the various exercises. Before you begin your self-inventory, you must first complete some very important exercises. Relax.
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