Working After Retirement

The idea of working after retirement sounds contradictory...isn't retirement the ceasing of work?

The harsh reality if that most people are going to have to continue to work after retiring to make ends meet. Now this may sound worse than working on a chain gang in prison but it doesn't have to be.

I read a statistic that said that 90% of all workers in the US are unhappy with their job. So if this is what you think as far as working after retirement, then it sounds much more like a punishment than something fun.

Let's look at the problem in a different way

What if we could find a job that:

• Was something we loved to do
• Was something that we were good at
• Was something people were willing to pay us for

If all of this happened we would no longer be working for a living but having fun and getting paid for it.

So how do we find something like this?

How do we find where all three of these criteria meet?

Get a piece of paper or open up an Excel spreadsheet and create a table with the following column titles:

• Item
• Love to do
• Good at
• Willing to pay
• Total

Now start filing in the column called Item as far as skills you have. Reading, writing, woodwork, accounting, engineering, nursing, fishing, sailing, etc.

Once you finish this list, fill in the rest of the columns. For each item, rate yourself on a scale from one to ten as to how much you love to do it.

Then rate yourself on a scale from one to ten on how good you are at it...don't be shy...be honest. You don't have to be the best in the world to rank a ten, if you are better than most people you know, then be generous and give yourself a 9 or 10.

The willing to pay column is a slightly more complicated to answer and may require some help. But let's say you are wanting to make an extra $40,000 per year. As you look at each item, rank that item from 1-10 as to its ability to produce $40,000 per year or whatever you've chosen as your earnings level. So if you put "Sailing" as the item, how hard would it be to make $40,000 sailing? I suppose if you skippered a raceboat you could make that kind of money, or if you taught people how to sail you could make that kind of money so if you felt confident you could make at least $20,000 per year teaching people how to sail, then give it a 5 (you could make 50% of your desired amount).

Again, it may be you are not familiar with how much people are willing to pay for a particular skill, this is where you might need the help of a friend or a knowledgeable consultant to identify the potential earning power.

So when you are finishined ranking everything, add up the columns and put the number in the total.

Focus on those with the most highest totals

Imagine yourself for a moment working in one of your top three categories.

It is something you love, it is something you are good at and it is something people are willing to pay money for.

Sounds like a lot of fund doesn't it?

Not a bad way to spend your working retirement years.

Hope this helps, if not this is not clear, please go to the suggestions section and ask clarifying questions.

To your prosperous retirement.