Unlock the best of you with
The IMPACT Model
The IMPACT Model helps you achieve positive mental health and wellbeing, personal growth and even professional transformation in retirement. Based on 20 years of coaching and therapy experience working with clients from a wide range of personal and professional backgrounds, my Model offers a practical framework for achieving your retirement goals and objectives, dreams, and ambitions.
The IMPACT Model has six stages of transformation based on six powerful concepts. It will provide you with the foundations for personal and professional growth and development as you negotiate this stage of life. To learn more about The IMPACT Model, you can read the information about each stage of this accessible and proven personal transformational process.
Impact
Conversations that make the difference
All of us have experienced feelings of hope and relief when we talk to someone who knows exactly what to say to us. And all of us have felt frustration and disappointment when a conversation fails to give us what we need. A Conversation with IMPACT includes the qualities and characteristics you need in your retirement conversations to make the difference you are after.
You know something needs to change, but recognise neither you nor your existing support network is able or willing to give you the conversations you need.
My Retire With Impact Questionnaires will show you how to identify the qualities and characteristics missing from your existing conversations so you can:
- Change how you talk to yourself
- Change how you talk to others
- Change how others talk to you
Meaning
From mystery to understanding
Achieving progress as you plan for or enter retirement depends on making sense of why things are as they are. Without a clear understanding, you remain a mystery to yourself, making progress difficult or even impossible. Demystifying – making sense of why things are as they are – makes change happen and helps us find real meaning.
Could you be focusing on what you do know, the symptoms and effects of your difficulties, not the causes? Might you be misdiagnosing the problem and choosing the wrong solution?
My demystifying tools, the Meaning Map and Observing Self, will help you to:
- Make sense of why things are how they are.
- Identify the causes of difficulties.
- Identify solutions to solve problems.
Patterns
From what isn't working to what will
Unless you can step back from and understand your PATTERNS of thought, behaviour, feeling and relating, you may struggle to move forward in your retirement planning or life. What are you doing that is not working, and what are you doing that is? Answering these two questions sets you on your way.
If you put your retirement difficulties under a microscope, what patterns would you see? Would you see helpful patterns consistent with positive mental health and wellness or unhelpful ones that prevent and undermine it? If you identify with the latter, your patterns need some attention.
The Cliff Edge activity, Pattern Interrupter and Pattern Builder tools will show you how to:
- Weaken your unhelpful patterns
- Encourage helpful patterns
Acceptance
Not resignation but transformation
Achieving personal growth can stretch, challenge, and reward you. However, if your retirement goals and expectations are unrealistic, you can become exhausted and demoralised. When this happens, you open up Fantasy-Reality Gaps (FRG), which represent unsustainable ways of living, and ACCEPTANCE is how you close them.
Do you want to be someone you are not or cannot be in retirement? Do you want what isn’t possible with your current resources? Is impatience for your desired retired lifestyle pushing it further away, not bringing it closer?
My FRG activity will help you uncover and FRGs and reveal which areas of your life they are undermining. It will show you how to:
- Let go of your fantasies through acceptance.
- Get your transformation back on track.
Challenge
Not too little, not too much, but just right
If you had the answer, you would already be the person you want to be, planning for or living the retired life you want to lead. The challenge is to find out what stands in your way and the strategies to get around it, using The Goldilocks Principle of CHALLENGE: not too little, not too much, but just right.
Do you have too little or too much challenge in your life, making retirement planning or retired life harder than it needs to be? Whichever way you turn, does progress feel impossible because challenge is your enemy, not your friend?
My Goldilocks Principal of Challenge will make challenge work for you, not against you, by helping you find the right amount. I will:
- Take you through my 0-10 challenge.
- Take you through my challenge audit.
- Transform your relationship with challenge.
- Make challenge a positive force in your life.
Transformation
Enjoy the journey, reach the destination
Like everyone, you want to be well on your way to your desired retirement destination. And yet, if it were that easy, you would be there by now or close to it. Only an effective approach to transformation will take you to where you want to be along an enjoyable and rewarding journey.
Are you on the wrong journey for your desired destination? Or a journey without a clear destination? Or maybe you have no journey to begin with and no destination to aim for?
My Bridge of Curiosity, Destination Finder and Darwinian Tree activities will get your transformation back on course by showing you how to:
- Rediscover your destination.
- Realign your journey to your destination.
Are You Ready For Retirement?
Take my comprehensive Retirement Readiness Quiz to assess your current retirement readiness and discover the specific areas where The IMPACT Model can help you transform your retirement experience.
What my clients say
I got structured, real, and lasting transformation
I didn’t want a cosy retirement chat. I wanted change. That’s exactly what I got: structured, real, and lasting transformation.
Retire With IMPACT helped me listen and act
My wife said she wanted to enjoy retirement with me, not live it separately. That was the wake-up call. Retire With IMPACT helped me listen and act.
It was a turning point in my retirement.
Talking to Mark was the first time I didn’t feel judged or dismissed. It was a turning point in my retirement.
It gave me the psychological plan I didn't know I needed
I’d planned for my finances, not for my identity. Retire With IMPACT gave me the psychological plan I didn’t know I needed.
It changed everything for my retirement
The work we did wasn’t about fixing me. It was about helping me understand myself, it changed everything for my retirement.
I was falling apart inside
Everything looked fine on the outside, but I was falling apart inside. Retirement coaching helped me put the pieces back together.
Resources and Insights
Retirement Coaching New Challenges in Retirement: Why They Matter for Wellbeing
Explore the psychological and social shifts that come with retirement, why they can impact mental health, and how to address them proactively.
Retirement Coaching Psychological Readiness for Retirement: Beyond Finances
Retiring successfully involves more than having a secure pension. Discover why emotional and mental preparation is the real key to a happy post-career life.
Retirement Coaching Psychological Readiness for Retirement vs Financial Readiness
Compare the differences between financial planning and cognitive readiness, and learn how to balance both aspects for a comprehensive transition.
Retirement Coaching The Retirement You Planned vs the One You’re Living
When expectations meet reality, friction can occur. Learn how to bridge the gap between your idealised plans and the daily realities of retired life.
Retirement Coaching Assertiveness in Retirement: Why It Matters
Discover why setting boundaries, communicating clearly, and asserting your personal needs is vital to building a rewarding lifestyle in your next stage.
Retirement Coaching Consistency in Retirement: Why It Matters Most
Building new routines and habits is key to avoiding stagnation. Learn the importance of consistency in keeping your personal growth active.