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One of the great opportunities that retirement presents is this: to spend significant time doing what you really enjoy.

Now, it is possible that your whole career has been doing the things you love the most; this may not be true for many but if it's true for you, you will likely want to continue. However, that doesn't mean that you need to express what you do in exactly the same way as you have for the past 30 or 40 years. You may want to engage those same passions but do so in a new way.

If you are like most of us, it is more likely that your approaching retirement offers a chance to reset and recalibrate; the past is the past, but now you have a chance to discover and explore what could be your "sweet spot", going forward.

Birkman.me offers you an objective way of measuring what really matters to you, both in terms of motivation - the key element with respect to being energised - and in terms of environment. What do we mean by environment? Just this. Say you are passionate about numbers: that is a motivation; but whether you want to pursue your engagement with numbers in a busy, noisy room full of debate and argument, or in the quiet of your own room: that is environment.

And for most people, the motivational part is multi-dimensional. Yes, there are people who just love numbers, and nothing much else; but most of us have some combination of things. Staying with the numbers example, imagine three people who love numbers passionately; but one is even more passionate about music, the second loves working with technology and getting outdoors, and the third loves helping people and getting things organised. What might the sweet spot look like for each of them?

Well, there are certainly activities which might appeal to all three of them; but in terms of something that will fully engage them, there are likely to be differences. One of them is going to finally get the time to take their drumming to the next level, the second is rebuilding an old Hillman Imp to take to the time trials and hillclimbs; and the third is volunteering at the Citizens Advice Bureau or Debt Advice Centre. Numbers are the common thread, but the complete picture looks quite different in each case.

And these are just simple examples: there are more than 36,000 permutations of positive motivation and that is before we take into consideration, things you really don't want to spend any time doing.

So, even if none of these examples seem familiar to you, your Birkman.me report will describe your unique motivations and preferred environment. You will have some guidance on where to go looking for opportunities that will delight and fill you with deep satisfaction.

That sounds like the third age of a life worth living.