Tag: Bec Wilson

Epic Pursuits Before and During Retirement

In a previous post I explored happiness and fulfillment in retirement drawing on the work of Bec Wilson, creator of the Epic Retirement Flagship Course and the author of the book, How to have an Epic Retirement.  In that post, I shared some of Bec’s suggestions concerning “Epic Pursuits” that could enable us to achieve an “engaged, curious and happy life”.  In her Workbook accompanying the course, she suggests that epic pursuits are “things you really enjoy doing, and that you want to deepen your knowledge of and get better at”- a source of joy, learning and contentment.  The Workbook helps us explore our achievements, passions, purpose, interests, and values as a basis for deciding what epic activities to pursue in retirement.

I retired as a Professor of Management in 2017 and ceased management consulting work in 2024, following the serious illness of my consulting colleague who was my co-facilitator for the previous 16 years – we had run hundreds of workshops together.  In reflecting on my own life story to date, I began to identify what epic pursuits I have undertaken both before and during my retirement:

  1. Research and writing
  2. Tennis and pickleball
  3. Social networking
  4. Travel overseas

Research and Writing

I have developed the art of writing over many years and followed the exhortation of one of my professors: “if you want to learn to write – write, write, write”.  So my writing has included theses, articles, book chapters, conference papers, blogs, e-books and training courses.   Hence my non-fiction writing has included the following:

  • Master’s research project and doctoral thesis (100,000 words) – doctorate awarded in 1996
  • Multiple published book chapters and articles on action earning and action research published in academic journals (one of my co-authored academic articles won an Award for Excellence from The Learning Organisation: An International Journal)
  • Co-author/editor of two books on action learning and action research
  • Chief editor and occasional author for a journal on action learning and action research
  • 4 blogs covering internet/social media marketing
  • Current blog, grow mindfulness.com, which has 791 posts, 977 moderated comments and a total word count in excess of 550,000 words
  • Created 15 poems incorporated in my mindfulness blog
  • Broad based articles published on Squidoo (over 100 before it was terminated), HubPages, ArticleDirectory.com and Wizzley.com, a writer’s community (also co-creator of this social media site with colleagues in Germany and the US)
  • Creator of a 6-month, online course on Social Media Marketing (comprising 24 PDFs)
  • Supervisor of Master’s and Doctoral students including recommended content and format edits; examiner of Doctoral thesis for 12 Universities, including 3 overseas (Britain, South Africa and New Zealand)
  • Developed short e-books on Affiliate Marketing and The Inner Game of Tennis.

Recently I also published an Amazon Kindle e-book, Writing for Wellness: A Pathway for Chronic Illness. 

My research and writing goals for my retirement are:
  • Complete 5 more Kindle e-books drawing on my Grow Mindfulness blog and my other publications
  • Research and write 2 X 1,000+ word articles per month for my Grow Mindfulness blog which covers topics such as mindfulness practices, chronic illness, leadership, management, health and happiness

Tennis and Pickleball

I have played tennis for more than 65 years but owing to a number of chronic conditions I have not participated in my weekly social tennis since February 2025.  Tennis was very much a part of my life since I was 9 years old.  I played at primary and secondary school, in the seminary in Melbourne, competitively at A grade and Pennant levels and socially after this.  Tennis gave me a sense of competence, motivation for maintaining my fitness and a source of relaxation.  I have written a poem about my gratitude for experiencing the joy of tennis.

However, I am currently experiencing the following chronic illnesses that impact my ability to play tennis (even socially at night):

  • arthritis in the middle finger of my right hand (I am right-handed)
  • osteopathy affecting my hips and other parts of my body
  • multi-level spinal degeneration (likely impacted by my MCAS chronic condition)
  • exercise asthma.

I decided to explore pickleball as an alternative to tennis and found that I am able to play this sport to an intermediate level.  I recently wrote about my joy in playing this game in a blog post and a poem titled, For the Love of Pickleball.  I have avoided competitive pickleball sessions and focused on social games to protect my fragile body. 

I am thoroughly enjoying the social aspects of pickleball and experimenting with new shots and ways to improve each time I play – a great source of learning! One clear advantage is that I can build on the skills and court craft I acquired through my many years of playing tennis – more than 10,000 sets of tennis.  I have played tennis on multiple surfaces – grass, concrete, bitumen, artificial grass, ant bed, clay and flexipave.  I have enjoyed playing social tennis locally as well as overseas in Auckland, Boroughbridge (Yorkshire, UK), Port Moresby and Lake Annecy (France).

My pickleball and exercise goals:
  • Continue to play social pickleball weekly
  • Undertake daily exercises provided by an exercise physiologist for my chronic conditions
  • Resume regular Tai Chi activity (both as a mindfulness practice and source of health benefits).

Social networking

I joined a social network for writers-with chronic-illness about two years ago.  The group, Creative Meetups, has a Zoom meeting each month which is currently facilitated by Jennifer Crystal, author of One Tick Stopped the Clock and a writing-to-heal coach.  The online sessions involve a stimulus piece provided by Jennifer along with time to write to the relevant theme and an opportunity to share our writing whatever form that takes.  I have been very inspired by this social connection and the creative writing of others, some of whom have very serious chronic illnesses.

The inspiration I have received from this group sharing has enabled me to write a series of poems about the stimulus topics and incorporate them in a relevant blog post.  This has proven to be an excellent stimulus to my own creative writing.  On a health front, I find that I really enjoy writing and that my pulse rate drops when I am in the process of creating a post or poem – I tend to “be-in-the-zone”.

My social networking goals are:
  • Continue to participate in the monthly, online meetings of the writers-with-chronic-illness
  • Use these meetings as a continuous source of inspiration
  • Continue to create poems stimulated by the shared stories and writing of the Creative Meetup group
  • Explore volunteering particularly visiting hospital-bound war veterans.

Travel Overseas

When I reflect on my achievements in this area, both domestically and internationally, I can feel a strong sense of gratitude for the opportunities I have had and also for the health and fitness that enabled me to undertake the relevant travel.  I have focused on my overseas travel in this post.

The best way to recall and record this travel is to categorise the travel by year:

  • 1994 – my wife and I and our two boys (aged 3 and 6) travelled to England for the World Congress on Action learning and Action Research (I was President, at the time, of the ALARA Association that sponsored and organised the Congress).  We were able to stay in Yorkshire and Bath (the location of the Congress).  We also spent a week at Lake Annecy in Northern France  with our Yorkshire-based in-laws.
  • 1995 – I travelled to England by myself to undertake research as part of a validation process for my doctoral thesis.  This research trip enabled me to visit action learning/action research experts in London, Lancaster, Nottingham, Bristol, and Brighton.  At the time, my adult son was on a working holiday at a restaurant in the Lakes District and one of my daughters was working as a child carer in a castle in Lockerbie, Scotland.  We were then able to travel together by train to Edinburgh, through snow-covered terrain.
  • 1997 – I travelled to Cartagena, Colombia, via Singapore, Los Angelos, Miami, and Bogota (a 36 hour trip).  I was attending a World Congress on action learning and action research as President of the ALARA Association (joint sponsor).  I had participated as a member of the international Planning Committee and attended the Congress as Convenor of the Organisational Development Stream and a member of the Expert Panel session.  We were overwhelmed by the 1,800 participants from 61 countries who turned up for the event (despite only 500 people registering in advance).
  • 1998 – three trips to Singapore to run workshops on action learning in Port Moresby for the International Management Centers (UK).
  • 2014 – my wife and I travelled in November/December via Hong Kong to Frankfurt, Bingen (Germany,  where we spent a week in a friend’s unit), Paris, Venice, Florence, and Rome.   We were able to spend 7 nights in each location and spent New Year’s Day in Rome (-4 Degrees Centigrade, turning a fountain to ice). 
  • 2017/2018 – my wife and I travelled in December/January via Hong Kong to Milan, Lake Como, Turin, Santa Margherita, Bologna, and Venice (New Year’s Day there).

My wife and I had planned to travel to Paris and Northern Italy again for my 80th birthday (2026).  However, I have reluctantly acknowledged that I have reached a fragile stage in relation to overseas travel, given my osteoporosis and multi-level spinal degeneration.  I can no longer sit or lie down for extended periods, even in business class plane travel. This means that I will have to travel “closer to home”.  This does not preclude my wife from travelling overseas, either by herself or with a companion.  I will have to concentrate on domestic travel and use virtual travel to enable me to gratuitously experience travelling overseas.

My travel goals are:
  • Expand my digital photo album to incorporate photos and videos of my previous overseas travel (to enable virtual travel)
  • Visit overseas sites virtually via the drone photography that is readily available on the Internet
  • Write a blog post recording domestic travel undertaken before and during retirement
  • Develop domestic travel goals for the next five years.

Reflection

Bec identifies 5 stages of retirement planning – “fragility” being one of them.  However, this may be a stage in relation to one or more epic pursuits – it may not extend to all our activities.  For example, I am still able to play pickleball but I cannot travel overseas.  I think one of the challenges is to learn to adapt retirement planning progressively as we age and not let fragility in one area contaminate our thinking about other areas of activity or epic pursuits.

The core challenge of aging and retirement is to make the most of our “spare time” in retirement, the surplus in our life.  As Bec notes, if we do not actively plan our retirement, we can be overwhelmed by boredom and negatively impact our longevity.  It is much better to plan for happiness and fulfillment in retirement.  If we grow in mindfulness through a range of mindfulness practices we can enhance our physical and mental health, develop constructive routines and find creative ways to grow and contribute.

By recalling and recording my epic pursuits before and during retirement, I have become more aware of the opportunities I have had in my life and feel a strong sense of gratitude for what I have been able to achieve.

________________________________

Image by Ahmet Yüksek from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Happiness and Fulfillment in Retirement

In the previous post I explored aging and retirement planning.  In that post I drew on the work of Bec Wilson, creator of the Epic Retirement Flagship Course and the author of the book, How to have an Epic Retirement.  In the current post, I want to focus on Bec’s discussion of happiness and fulfillment in retirement while drawing on the writings on the topic by other authors.  At the outset, Bec debunks the image of a retired person who is spending their days in a lazy chair on the beach while drinking wine – research highlights the fact that this portrayal is a recipe for boredom and a shortened life span.

Ways to achieve happiness and fulfillment in retirement

Bec offers a series of suggestions for how we might go about achieving these retirement goals:

Examining your personal stories for sources of happiness and fulfillment

In her Epic Retirement Workbook (that accompanies the Course), Bec offers a way to examine our personal stories including recording our key experiences and challenges, triumphs and passions.  She also offers some probing questions to identify themes in our responses such as resilience, creativity, and sources of happiness.  This approach to recording personal stories is consistent with the research supporting the use of storytelling to manage life transitions.  Such storytelling is often described as narrative therapy – an emerging area for university-level study.

Identifying your purpose and source of happiness by exploring your curiosity

Bec’s Workbook has a series of questions designed to elicit your level of curiosity about your future options, friendships, challenging pursuits, and what you might do with your time in retirement.  She maintains that without a degree of curiosity in your retirement years, “you might find yourself isolated, bored and even becoming stale”.    Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, encourages us to cultivate openness and curiosity to achieve intimacy with ourselves, live life fully, develop self-forgiveness and “a deep sense of belonging”.

Creating meaning in your life as a retiree

Bec discusses various ways to create meaning because research confirms that a meaningful life can lead to happiness and a sense of fulfillment.  She encourages retirees to volunteer to contribute to a cause beyond ourselves and lists multiple arenas in which to volunteer, including volunteering for charity shops, aged care residents and sporting clubs.  A psychologically-rich life can generate a meaningful life and a sense of fulfillment. Pursuits such as the following can create meaning in our retirement years:

  • Collaborating with others in learning
  • Exploring part-time work options
  • Pursuing new sporting challenges and social relationships
  • Expressing gratitude and kindness which are contagious and cultivate health and happiness in others and ourselves.
Identifying your skills and strengths to develop your sense of purpose

Bec suggests that developing a happy and fulfilling life as a retiree depends largely on having a sense of purpose.  She draws on the work of Richard Leider and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to maintain that developing a sense of purpose involves employing your skills and strengths in areas that you are passionate about, are congruent with your values and contribute to something beyond yourself (such as a charity or other  organisation pursuing social goals).  In her Workbook, Bec offers a columnar chart to assist us to identify the relationships amongst our skills, passions, values and purpose.

Exploring your courage

Bec points out that it takes courage to move beyond our comfort zone, to pursue “endings” to the way we do things and to try new things that are challenging.  She encourages us to tell ourselves the truth about our life, our happiness and sense of fulfillment; to make difficult decisions that will present challenges to our self-concept and our comfort zone; to make mistakes as we try out new things; to dream big; and to say ‘no” or “yes” when it is appropriate for self-preservation or to achieve our potential.

Engaging in epic pursuits

Bec draws on research to show that to achieve an “engaged, curious and happy life” as a retiree we need to adopt three or more pursuits  that we enjoy and that ideally engage us physically, cognitively and socially.  To this end, she lists (on pages 280-281 of her 2025 Book) epic pursuits that “active and engaged retirees” have adopted to pursue their passions.  This can serve as a  stimulus and checklist to help us to identify epic pursuits that might interest us.  Home swapping can also bring excitement and a change of location (either domestically or overseas).

Exploring different types of work that may be compatible with semi-retirement

Bec suggests that this work could provide supplementary income and draw on existing knowledge and skills (such as lecturing, tutoring, consulting or training) or , alternatively, provide the opportunity to learn new skills (such as starting a small business built on a hobby or a special interest area).   Her other suggestions include roles such as driving for rideshare services such as Uber, baby-sitting, pet-sitting, carer/helper, or landlord.  The opportunities are numerous and include having a hobby farm, house-sitting, or developing bed and breakfast accommodation. 

Developing a new daily routine

It is important that this is developed over time as you become more accustomed to life beyond full-time work or being a home-parent.  Research in this area suggests that a daily routine enhances longevity and meaningful living.  A retirement routine is very individual and takes some planning and acknowledgement of your own “circadian rhythms”.  Bec offers suggestions for rebuilding our morning routine and creating purposeful evenings.  Penny Pennington Weeks shares her comprehensive retirement routine to encourage us to plan our own “to enjoy a retired life”.

Practising mindfulness for a happy and fulfilling retirement

Throughout her Epic Retirement Book and Course, Bec strongly encourages cultivating  openness, curiosity and reflection – key components of mindfulness practices.  Research and personal experience confirm the multiple benefits of mindfulness that accrue from regular mindfulness practices such as Tai Chi, mindful eating, and engaging with nature.  Mindfulness practice has been shown to enhance happiness, improve health, strengthen our sense of self-efficacy and enable fulfillment by helping us to realise our potential.

Reflection

I identify as a Morning Person, so in retirement I tend to do creative pursuits such as writing in the mornings and the more routine activities in the afternoons or evenings.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can increase our self-awareness, self-compassion, and perception of options.  We can also reduce negativity and self-limiting beliefs to enable us to achieve happiness and fulfillment in retirement.

_______________________________________

Image by Ahmet Yüksek from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Aging and Retirement Planning

Bec Wilson, creator of the Epic Retirement Flagship Course, reminds us that the concept of retirement has changed in recent times.  “Retirement” used to mean leaving your job and work because of your age.  It was often age-related with organisations setting mandatory age limits for full-time employment.  Bec notes that a more modern concept of retirement involves choice – choosing to live off income from investments, superannuation and pensions while undertaking personal exertion in relation to work that you choose to do (whether paid or voluntary).  There is also the choice not to work at all but to pursue your “bucket list”, including travel options or explore hobbies or other recreational/sporting activities.  Bec explores these retirement choices extensively in her book, How to have an Epic Retirement.

Barriers to retirement planning

People are often fearful of retirement planning because they are concerned that they will “run out of money”.  They may be anxious that stopping work will leave them without a purpose and structure to their life.  Many people define themselves by their work role – e.g. a teacher, social worker, lawyer, accountant, or librarian – they are concerned that they will lose their identity if they stop working.  Others are concerned that they  will not be able to enjoy their retirement because they will be afraid to spend money.

One of the biggest barriers to retirement planning is attitudes to aging.  The impact of negative beliefs about aging is pervasive – reaching into  every aspect of our life.  Research shows that negative aging beliefs can have a damaging effect on us, both physically and mentally.  It can severely restrict our perception of options open to us, including retirement planning.  “Ageism” portrayed in the media reinforces negative portrayal of the aging process, highlighting the elements that “decline” without counteracting that with the positive benefits of aging.

In contrast to such reinforced negativity, positive beliefs about aging have numerous benefits including longevity; enhanced knowledge, understanding and wisdom; improved capacity to handle stress; heightened creativity; and improved physical health.  Positive beliefs about aging also free us up to explore the many options available to us in planning our retirement. 

We can develop positive beliefs about aging by increasing our awareness of the pervasive presence of ageism while exploring positive images of aging portrayed in memoirs and stories of exemplars and by interacting with aged people in our family and social network.  With this kind of ammunition we can more readily challenge the assumptions behind negative stereotypes of aging.  We can also begin to explore options for ourselves as we begin to consciously plan for retirement.

One member of the community-based The Epic Retirement Club, Sam Sang,  maintains that we each have “retirement superpowers” – unlimited energy, instant skill mastery, endless travel.  Other members empathise the freedoms that they and other retired people enjoy.  This community sharing of real retirement experiences  contrasts sharply with the pervasive perception that retired people do not have the capacity to contribute to society, are unable to enjoy life and experience severe limitations.

Planning for retirement

Bec is motivated by the desire to help people better understand the choices they have by learning about what supports are available to assist with retirement planning and, in the process, to “figure our what’s really important to you.”.  To this end, she not only provides her Epic Retirement book and Flagship Course but also a 150 page, practical Workbook to “guide you through each module” of the Course.  Bec suggest that you undertake the Course and complete the Workbook with your partner or an “accountability buddy” who  could be a friend.

The Course and Workbook are structured around what Bec calls the Six Pillars of retirement – time, financial confidence, health, happiness and fulfillment and travel.  For each of these pillars, she provides a series of questions and points for discussion, along with quizzes and the space to record our own answers.  For example. Bec provides a basis for calculating longevity to highlight that we often have much more time in retirement than we envisaged based on old data – nowadays, people are looking at 30 or more years in retirement given increased longevity owing to medical breakthroughs, new health and exercise regimes and extensive lifestyle advice.

To assist us to develop financial confidence, she provides the means to calculate whether we have the financial resources to support a comfortable or modest retirement or whether we will be dependent on a Government pension.  A number of exercises in the workbook support this latter source of income.  Bec helps us to complete both the asset test and the income test to enable us to see whether or not we qualify for the Australian Government pension and related financial and health concessions.  For those who are on the borderline of the relevant pension cut-offs, she assists us with suggestions of how we might qualify for the pension in the future.

In relation to health, Bec offers suggestions for ways to improve health outcomes and longevity, including diet, exercise, building a daily routine, managing health risk factors and ensuring you undertake preventative testing at the recommended intervals.  For those of us who experience chronic inflammation, she strongly argues for the need to reduce inflammation by identifying and managing triggers (e.g. foods, environmental toxins and harmful stress).

Her discussion and questions concerning health and happiness are comprehensive and covers aspects such as transitioning to retirement, research about happiness, creating meaning, maintaining and developing relationships, epic pursuits and goals.

In relation to travel, Bec shares the idea that there are potentially three phases of retirement travel: (1) active and independent travel, (2) less active, slower pace travel with the possibility of assisted travel, and (3) travel closer to home (avoiding the rigours of international travel and seeking more comfort).

Reflection

My wife and I are completing the Epic Retirement Course and Workbook together.  We find that this approach is a catalyst for a number of important discussions, including what we will do in retirement; where we want to travel to (we have already been overseas a number of times); how we can create a comfortable retirement; what financial planning we need; what are our assets and overall financial position; how much we will need to live on; where we will like to live in retirement; how we provide for our children; and how to structure our wills.

Bec identifies 5 key stages of retirement: (1) prime time, (2) adjustment, (3) epic retirement, (4) ageing, and (5) frailty.  Even though my wife and I are at different stages of retirement (owing to a 10 year age gap), we are able to use the Epic Retirement Course and Workbook to work towards an agreed, shared retirement future.

Mindfulness practices can help us to develop positive beliefs about aging and contribute to our longevity (we have been married for forty years).  As we grow in mindfulness, we can broaden our retirement options, enhance our creativity and develop new skills relationships and travel options.

________________________________

Image by 🌸♡💙♡🌸 Julita 🌸♡💙♡🌸 from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.