Ready for Retirement?

Saying so long to work might be the biggest career move you make. How can you decide when it’s time to go?

Long gone are the days when it was mandatory that Canadian workers retire at 65. Now, people can call it quits at any age as long as they have the resources to make retirement work. When to leave the workforce, though, is not an easy question to answer.

Choosing a retirement date takes some serious introspection. However, if you’re not ready to face a world of no work, then don’t give it up, says Kate Dack, a Victoria-based clinical coun­sellor and founder of Retirement Coaching Canada “When some people get to 60 or 65, they’re still feeling energetic and productive,” she says. “Retiring may not seem like such a great idea.”

Getting yourself ready for retire­ment involves a lot of mental work, says Hani Kafoury, a Montreal-based psychotherapist and career coach at Transition Consulting Services. The first step, he says, is to recognize retirement as a real possibility and then to start planning a new real­ity with less, or no, employment.

Take this quiz to see how well prepared you are for retirement.