There’s no magic warning light that comes on in life telling you it’s time to retire, and the templates we used to map our lives to have been broken by increasing longevity – leaving us with no real ‘retirement age’.

Instead, we are limited by how our body, mind and spirit hold together in the second half of our life. That means choosing the right time to retire is in your hands – or, at the very least, it could be, if you are proactive.

It used to be that knowing when to retire was a relatively simple calculation, but these days its much more complex.Credit: Getty

The reality is people aren’t proactive enough. Only 31 per cent of people retire by choice in Australia today. The rest are retrenched or retire for one two other reasons – their health declines, forcing them to; or they must care for a loved one whose health is declining. When you don’t choose retirement consciously, it can be much more difficult to adapt to.

When I speak to employers with an older workforce, they want people to be more proactive too. More employers than ever say that they’d like their employees to better understand how to build financial security for retirement in midlife.

Then, they’d like them to contemplate their choices as they reach that financial security that allows them to lean into the good bits of life a little more. They point out that they’d rather not push people who are struggling with cognitive or health issues into redundancy or retirement.

They’d much rather people choose to enter the next stage of their life with goals in place, excited about their plans before their health or cognitive ability declines. So, how do you know when you’re ready to retire?

Knowing........

© Brisbane Times