Life in balance at 60+ starts in our 50s.
We read that 60 is the new 50, and in some ways, I agree, many of us maintain an active lifestyle and an interest in how we look that wasn’t as commonplace 50 or more years ago. Partly as people had harder lives, working both inside and outside the home. But now … Life in balance at 60+ could be the goal for most of us.
I found an article linked to research The Main Challenge of our Times: A Population Growing Younger by Marcel Boyer and Sebastien Boyer where they discuss life expectancy as more important than years lived. This got me thinking on the need to plan for life in balance at 60+
A 65-year-old in 2010 had the same life expectancy as a 59.5-year-old in 1950.
Do you want Life in balance at 60+? Given this, should we be working beyond the traditional retirement age? Probably, but we need employers to want to keep or recruit an older workforce. And more encouragement for phased retirement is helpful so at a certain point we can move to e.g., a 3-day working week, shorter days, or, like me, longer time away from work for personal development.
We differ and for some, life in balance at 60+ , could be that later mid-life is the time to retrain for a new career, the encore career. For others to move to a more part-time approach to work to allow time for study/interests of family care.
Working less hours, can mean we need to work longer to increase our retirement fund, but it can also allow us to have the time to do more of what you want to when you are active and healthy. That’s why I travel now having the adventures while I can still do active activities. For someone else it could be to reduce their working hours to study or to spend more time with people they love.
Life in balance at 60+ is having life in balance for the individual.
You could wait and drift, but better to think now about how you want your life to be. And whatever you decide, this is not a choice forever, but for now. Perhaps you need to work full time because of financial commitments, but once you have cleared the mortgage what then? How would you like your life to be?
And if you know how you want your life to be like, I’d love to hear from you on your plans for Life in balance at 60+. Feel free to comment below or email.
And, to make sure that you never miss an article, here’s the link