Your retirement speech

When you retire, it is customary for the colleagues to present you with a leaving gift and for the boss to say a brief but sincere speech about the key achievements from your career, what they have valued or appreciated about your contribution to the organisation, what colleagues say about you and how you’ll be remembered both personally and professionally.

Click on the graphic to download the retirement speech exercise and have a go at writing the boss’s leaving speech. What do you want them to say about you, what do you want to be remembered for? What do you want to have achieved or contributed to the organisation or colleagues?

Review

Having done the exercise, what are the main features of your vision for the future?

Focusing on the end goal can help you to see some of the things you may want to work towards, the values that are important to you and things you want to factor into your life plans. It might also help you to realise, success is not just based on what you do, but equally important is how you do it.