Test

Challenge is an unavoidable part of life, and retirement doesn't change that. Some challenges arrive uninvited: changes in health, relationships, finances, or family circumstances, for example. Others are challenges you choose for yourself, such as learning something new, improving your fitness, developing new relationships, travelling, returning to work or pursuing an ambition.

Challenge also plays an important part in personal growth. It asks something of you. You may need to learn, practise, experiment, tolerate uncertainty, use existing strengths differently or develop resources you don't yet have. 

The important question, therefore, isn't whether you will experience challenge in retirement, but how you can befriend it so it works for, not against you.

The level of challenge you experience isn't determined by the type of challenge alone. It also depends upon the resources you have available to deal with it.

The same challenge can feel manageable to one person and overwhelming to another because they have different levels of knowledge, skills, confidence, support, time, money or other resources available to them.

Your own experience of a challenge can change for the same reason. Something that feels overwhelming now may become manageable if you acquire more knowledge, develop your skills, increase your confidence, find support or discover a better way of approaching it. Equally, too little challenge can mean you're not using or developing the resources you already have.

This gives us an important principle for the CHALLENGE stage: the right level of challenge depends on the relationship between the demands placed on you and the resources you have available to meet them.

Understanding that relationship helps explain why challenge can sometimes feel too little, too much or just right.

Too little challenge can lead you to avoid things you are capable of doing, stick to familiar routines, or miss opportunities that could add something important to your retirement.

Too much challenge can have the opposite effect. If something feels overwhelmingly difficult, you may experience high levels of stress, lose confidence, withdraw or abandon what you were trying to achieve.

Between the two is a level of challenge that asks more of you without overwhelming you. I call this the Goldilocks Principle of Challenge: not too little, not too much, but just the right amount.

Finding that level isn't an exact science. It involves trial and error as you discover what stretches you sufficiently to make progress while remaining manageable.

This is where the Stretch Zone Model comes in.

Your Relationship With Challenge

At the start of this course, you considered the challenges and opportunities retirement might present. Before exploring the Stretch Zone Model, take a few minutes to think about your relationship with challenge now. 

Think back to the challenges and opportunities you identified earlier in the course and consider:

• How do I generally respond to challenge in retirement? Do I tend to welcome it, avoid it, worry about it, seek it out, or does my response depend on the circumstances?

• What challenges have I taken on since retiring, or as I prepare for retirement? How have I responded to them?

• Are there challenges I may be avoiding because I don't yet feel sufficiently confident, prepared or resourced to take them on?

• Are there areas of my retirement where I could benefit from more challenge?

• Have any of the opportunities I identified at the start of the course become challenges — or have any challenges revealed opportunities I hadn't previously recognised?

• What have I learned so far about the amount of challenge that seems to bring out the best in me?

Don't worry about solving anything at this stage. Simply notice what your answers tell you about your current relationship with challenge.

Keep your responses in mind as you explore your Comfort, Stretch and Panic Zones. They may help you understand why some challenges feel manageable, why others feel overwhelming and where you might benefit from stretching yourself further.