News you can use

Senior Center News, May 14, 2021

North Central Senior Citizens Center

May 17-21

Menu by Earlene DeWinter, Subject to change

Remember to call before 10 a.m.

Monday — Chicken pot pie, biscuits, salad, fruit

Tuesday — Meatloaf, au gratin potatoes, broccoli Normandy, rolls, cake

Wednesday — Taco burger, Mexican rice, chips and salsa, cookies

Thursday — Ham and cabbage, beans, corn bread, fruit

Friday — Soup, chef’s choice, dessert

The Senior Center’s doors are still closed to the public. We are providing limited services by phone with individuals bringing their paperwork down to the center. Help is also being given over the phone when possible.

Reopening: With the increase of COVID-19 cases in Hill County, we are delaying the opening of the center until this once again stabilizes. The reopening plan has been taken to the commissioners for their perusal. When we are able to open a lot of things will have to change. Upon entering the building, you will have to wear a mask and your temperature will be taken at the door. The number of occupants in the building will have to be limited. We will be continuing the grab and go meals for those unable to eat at the Center.

Transportation: The Senior Center is providing Medical Transportation Only. Remember to call ahead for Friday’s appointments. Monday and Thursday rides have to be worked around grocery delivery.

Congregate meals: We are still continuing to provide meals at the Hill County Senior Center as “grab-and-go meals” while we are still closed. Of course, this is in addition to the Meals on Wheels program. If you would like to pick up a meal, please be sure to call the Center before 10 a.m. to order your meal through the kitchen. Your meals may be picked up at the center from 11:45 a.m. until 12:15 p.m. Monday through Friday. You may order a meal for one day or put in your order for the entire week, whatever is more convenient.

Important phone numbers:

• Montana Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

• RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673

• Tumbleweed Runaway and Family Crisis Program: 259-2558 (local) 1-888-816-4702 (toll free)

• Friendship Line by Institute on Aging - The Friendship Line is both a crisis intervention hotline and a warm-line for non-emergency emotional support calls. It is a 24-hour toll-free line and the only accredited crisis line in the country for people aged 60 years and older, and adults living with disabilities. Toll-Free Line: (800) 971-0016

• For seniors getting frustrated with staying home and needing someone to talk to, you can call 1-877-688-3377 for Montana’s Warm Line.

How to mentally prepare for retirement: 21 tips

There are several things a person needs to prepare for and do when getting ready to retire. Among those things are making sure your health insurance is in place. Other information to help has been taken from the Retirement Tips and Tricks information available on line. Some of that information is attached for your perusal or you can go to: How To Mentally Prepare For Retirement: 21 Tips – Retirement Tips and Tricks Tips 6-10 – continuing from last week. More will follow.

https://retirementtipsandtricks.com/how-to-mentally-prepare-for-retirement-21-tips

#6 Be aware of the retirement transition process

Retiring is a mental process. And to be mindful of this process and the stages of retirement makes you more mentally prepared. Going from 40+hours working life to having all the time and freedom in the world is a transition that doesn’t go overnight. It takes time to adjust and be comfortable again. How long that will take is different for everyone.

But there are five common phases to the retirement transition process. And being aware makes you more mentally prepared for retirement. It gives you landmarks to help judge where you are and what lies ahead of you.

Five stages into retirement:

Phase 1: Pre-Retirement — This phase is a couple of years before retirement. You are probably in this phase right now where you come to the realization that retirement is coming soon. And that it’s not something far away anymore. In this phase, you have the opportunity to prepare for your retirement financially and emotionally, the best way possible. The better you’re prepared mentally, the better chance of transitioning into retirement more smoothly.

Phase 2: Honeymoon — This is the phase where you just retired. The first couple of weeks or months where you really feel the sense of freedom. You celebrate your retirement with co-workers, friends, and family. You can expect mixed emotions in this phase: excitement, fear, anxiety. In general, every life change comes with feelings of discomfort. So it’s very normal to have all different types of emotions. 

In the honeymoon phase, you want to enjoy your new life, but also have a long-term plan ready for how you want to spend your time in retirement. And start healthy new routines that will make your retirement happier, longer, and healthier. Read about what to do in the first week of retirement here.

Phase 3: Disappointment — For some retirees, the honeymoon phase is followed by a period of disappointment. The reality of retirement hits in. And the dreams they had before about retirement, aren’t the reality of their retirement right now. For them, retirement can feel disappointing and an anticlimax. These feelings can sometimes lead to depression. Most of the time, depression happens to retirees who didn’t prepare for retirement enough and didn’t fully know what retired life looked like. So that’s why it’s good that you’re taking the time for your retirement preparation. 

Phase 4: Reorientation — This phase is where retirees are actively developing ideas and move towards a more balanced life. You’re orientating, thinking, and exploring new routes. You take action to the life you want to live, and you plan fulfilling activities that align with your dreams, identity, and your purpose in life. To live a happy retired life is staying active with a combination of mentally, physically, and social activities and routines. And to get inspiration on how to stay active in retirement you can read my article here. 

Phase 5: Stability —  This is the stage of “retirement.” You’re not planning, preparing, and moving towards retirement; you’re living it and enjoying it. You’re satisfied and happy with who you are as a person, where you’re at in life, and you’re content with all the activities you’re doing in retirement. You’re feeling self-fulfillment.

It’s essential in any phase to be pro-active and take charge instead of waiting for a situation to unfold.

#7 Discover your new identity

In western society, what you do is more important or gives you more status compared to who you are as a person. And working for 30+ years or more within a specific field or job position gives you an identity. Your job likely has become a big part of you, and you feel a sense of loss of your identity once you retire. So to be more mentally prepared for retirement is knowing or discovering your identity. 

For people who have put all their time and energy into their job, can have a hard time in retirement figuring themselves out again. And other people who know their qualities, values, and personal characteristics outside of work will have less of a struggle with it. 

Getting to know yourself again is:

• Questioning yourself: What do I like? What did I like to do in the past? What don’t I like? What are my core values? What are my talents, weaknesses, strengths?

•  Knowing your body: your intuition can lead you to your dreams and desires. It’s a quiet voice and feeling that get’s often over yelled by your thoughts in your head. Listening to your body and that soft voice can give you a lot of answers you’re looking for in life. Your gut is your source of knowledge. Know how to find this source.

• Getting out of your comfort zone: the only way to find out what you want in life is trying things out. And that often means getting out of your comfort zone. Only by challenging yourself, you can learn more about yourself.  

• Get help: rediscovering yourself is very challenging, and sometimes you need a little bit of extra help to push you in the right direction. You can get help from family and friends or get professional advice from a life coach to re-figure yourself out again.

#8 Discover your new purpose in life

Having a job creates a purpose in life. It gives you direction. You need the paycheck to pay the bills and save money for retirement, but also achieving goals and successes at work gives you a sense of fulfillment in life. Doing a job well gives you satisfaction and a worthy, useful, and accomplished feeling. And once you retire this, all goes away, and you need to discover a new purpose in life to make it meaningful.

Continuing to find fulfillment and satisfaction in retirement is essential to living a happy retired life. So that’s why it’s necessary to think about your new purpose in life before you retire. This way, you can directly start your purposeful life in retirement instead of struggling once you retire. But what is a purpose?

Your life purpose consists of the central motivational goals of your life — the reasons why you get up in the morning. Purpose can guide life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer a sense of direction and create meaning in your life.

You can find your purpose by finding your passion that leads to your purpose. What gets you excited and want to get out of bed in the morning? Is it helping others in need? Educating yourself? Being surrounded by family members? What is your heart telling you?

Maybe your purpose is evident to you, or you need to do a little exploring to find your purpose. When you know what your purpose in retirement is, it makes your transition much more comfortable. You’ll have a compass that guides you. And you can set goals and create action plans to achieve these goals in retirement. Which ultimately leads to feeling accomplished, satisfied, useful, and worthy.

You can draw up a personal mission statement that includes your purpose. This way, you can run all life decisions by your mission statement and see if they are compatible.

#9 Replace work routines with new routines

Work gives you a purpose, identity, social connections, and a steady routine. The loss of structure and routine can bring up sadness and depression. And a lot of retirees miss the social contact and the stimulation the most in retirement.  

To be successful in retirement means that you find fulfilling replacements for your work routines. You need to find happiness in (new) interests, relationships, and activities by creating new routines.

The enormous amount of freedom with retirement can feel a little bewildering at first, and you can feel lost. And by creating routines, it will help you to:

• have something to hold onto in endless free retirement days

• limit wasting your days

• set the (positive) mindset for the rest of your day

• create momentum, which will lead to future success and goal achievement

To be mentally prepared for your retirement, you can think about how you want to replace your work routines. It’s best that your new routines are a combination of physically, mentally, and socially activities, so you stay stimulated on all fronts.

#10 Create a plan and set goals

Once you thought about how your retirement needs to look like, you can start creating a plan and set a goal(s) to set it into motion. But before you can create your plan, you need to set a goal first.

Make sure you write down your goal in the SMART way (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) to make it more tangible. Work backward from your goal to set milestones in your plan and put your actions into a schedule. Create a timeline and break large tasks into smaller and more manageable chunks. This way, you plan to do small daily tasks that will ultimately lead to the accomplishment of your goal. And dividing your goal into small tasks will helps you not to get overwhelmed. And also makes the goal more mentally achievable.

According to a study, writing your goal down on paper, you’ll have a better chance of achieving that goal then if you don’t. And creating a plan helps you to organize your retirement plans and gets you more prepared. You can adjust this plan along the way because your life is a constant’ work in progress,’ which continues to evolve in often unexpected ways. 

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 
Rendered 03/26/2024 11:41