The PHASE Into Retirement(TM) Field Guide Your 5-Step Roadmap to Purpose, Health, Activities, Social Connection & Everyday Joy in Retirement
Most people spend decades planning the financial side of retirement - and almost no time planning the life side. This Field Guide changes that.
The PHASE Into Retirement(TM) Field Guide is a practical, research-informed workbook built around five dimensions that predict whether retirement becomes a season of flourishing - or simply fading: Purpose, Health, Activities, Social Life, and Everyday Life. The PHASE(TM) framework is grounded in decades of gerontology, psychology, behavioral science, and longitudinal aging studies.
This is not a motivational book. It is a planning tool - one that takes the life side of retirement as seriously as most people take the financial side.
Each chapter walks you through the research behind one PHASE(TM) dimension, then guides you into honest reflection exercises that reveal where you are strong, where gaps exist, and what your next steps should be. Write-in spaces throughout make this a working document you return to and build from over time.
- Purpose - Who are you becoming when the career chapter ends? How do you build identity and meaning beyond a job title?
- Health - What habits will give you the energy and clarity to fully live the retirement you're designing?
- Activities - How will you fill your days with intention - with pursuits that engage curiosity and give structure to unstructured time?
- Social Life - Which relationships will sustain you when work's built-in social world disappears?
- Everyday Life - What routines will replace the structure that work once provided?
You cannot accidentally create the retirement you want. But you can intentionally design it - and this Field Guide is where that work begins.
These five pillars form a living ecosystem. Strengthen one, and the others rise with it. The PHASE(TM) framework helps you see those connections - and act on them.
This Field Guide delivers its full power when paired with your personal PHASE Into Retirement(TM) assessment results. Complete your assessment at PHASEIntoRetirement.com - it takes less than fifteen minutes and makes everything that follows directly personal.
Published by PurposeNext. Visit PurposeNext.com & PHASEIntoRetirement.com to learn more.
Gerald Bierling: Designed the statistical methodology behind the PHASE Into Retirement(TM) assessment. Nearly 30 years teaching research methods and statistics at McMaster University, with over 25 years as a research and statistical analysis consultant specializing in demographic change and survey design.
Kai Gray: Built the PurposeNext platform from the ground up and leads development of Grace AI(TM), the engine that delivers personalized retirement readiness insights. Over two decades of software development experience. M.Eng.M., Tufts University; B.S., Boston University.
Cam Marston: Nationally recognized generational and workplace expert, author of five books, and speaker who has spent over two decades advising organizations on how people navigate change. Host of the podcast What's Working with Cam Marston. B.A., Tulane University.
