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Mini-Retirements and New Year Resolutions

After reading the 4 hour work week (well, perhaps I should say skimming through), I came across the idea of mini-retirements. Of course, it is not always possible to implement every single thing that is written in the book but I tried to take a mini-retreat during the holiday season, not really being bothered about the money that I would have to spend.

My idea of retirement has changed over the years. I previously shared some of my thoughts on retirement. And I must say that it is quite aligned to what Tim Ferris says in his 4 hour work week book. Basically, retirement is an insurance policy or last resort if I am spending my life doing work that I do not like. Ideally, I should be enjoying my work so much that I do not want to retire. And if that does not happen, then of course, retirement is the only option left to get out of the hole that I might be in.

2011 is really just around the corner and I took a mini-retirement/retreat at a really reasonably nice hotel. Sipping margaritas and listening to lounge music, taking strolls by the beach, dipping in the emerald blue infinity pool and just lazing around with magazine in hand. These were some of the things that I did and I feel rejuvenated to get back to work when the new year starts.

Usually, I spend the year reflecting about what I have done in the past one year and set some resolutions that I would like to achieve for the new year. But I realised that I should just throw away the idea of making resolutions this year. I am bad at keeping them anyway and just feel that I am at a certain place in my life where I am pretty contented with where I am at right now. So I don't really need to make any resolutions at the moment - or at least for the year 2011.

2010 has been a good year for me. At the blogging end, I managed to make inroads into areas I never thought possible. Financially, everything is going well and I would like to think that I am quite financially secure at the moment.

I registered a new domain (sgstockscreener.com) and it has been getting good hits too. So that has been another area which I have been proud of. Just registering the domain and getting the site up was a feat by itself considering how prone I am to procrastination. There are definitely other areas that I would like to explore to bring my blogging to the next level. But that will have to wait till the new year and we will see how things go.

I wish all my readers a happy 2011.



3 comments:

  1. Hey FF,
    Where's this beautiful place you retreated to? Sounds lovely.

    Totally get the idea of retirement being a resort to prevent one from doing work one does not like. I'm dreading this as well.

    Also, congratz on your new site. Yeah, I've visited it a couple of times too but I didn't realize it was yours haha. Congratz again.

    If you've time, perhaps you'd like to check out a related post of mine at:

    http://therichkidwannabe.blogspot.com/2011/01/resolutions-for-new-year.html

    Feel free to comment FF.

    Cheers,
    ~K

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  2. Happy new year to you too!

    What a co-incidence! We both shared similar reflections on new year's eve :)

    No new year resolutions for 2011 as we both are "contented". But that does not mean no direction. We are both working towards the same thing - we focus on the one thing.

    That's why I started my virgin post with "12 months to financial freedom" - not retirement. Although I used the "retire" words in the posting, it's more to say I will retire from "formal work".

    If we can do what we like, and get paid for it, then we don't ever need to retire :)

    Congrates to your own domain website!

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  3. Wah, reading this post again gives me sweet memories. 1 year has passed so fast! I should do a mini-holiday again.

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