Two weeks ago, I spoke at the Ameriprise National Women’s Conference in Austin, Texas. It was enlivening to be among so many bright women, all of whom were financial advisors or their staff. One of my takeaways from the conference was the deep sense of ownership these folks have in wanting to create a great plan for retirement for their clients. My presentation was about the health and satisfaction outcomes of retirement as we know it today and how things are changing. Lots of our current indicators show that we need to prepare for and live into retirement differently than we have previously. Our rates of depression, dissatisfaction, and chemical abuse in retirement are rising as people live longer. In my presentation, I put out the call for doing more retirement LIFE planning in addition to our financial planning. In fact, I think both types of planning should be done in a one-to-one ratio with the other. Only 30% of those retiring have put any meaningful time into working through how that phase of life will support their health and well-being, which in turn determines what lifestyle they will need to support financially. Think of all the years you made the conscious decision to invest in your retirement savings. How were you being intentional about preparing for your quality of life in retirement (not just how to finance it)? Most of us think of retirement as simply stopping work and having more leisure time. The reality is that in retirement, the type of work changes. There are a number of areas we need to focus on in this next chapter in order to live out healthy lives. In addition, new situations frequently arise during retirement such as changing family relationships and perceived demands, marital tensions, health challenges, and the resulting need for new pastimes. Each may ask us to create a new plan along the way. This phase of life is about being ready to flow with change much more than pushing forward with a hard-driving plan. The more we can do some self-examination in advance, the more ease we will have in adapting along the way. Being intentional about planning life in retirement also has ramifications for our retirement portfolios. Financial advisors can tell stories of how often clients make large, unanticipated financial decisions once they are a couple of years into retirement and time is getting long. We might see people suddenly decide to buy into a business, buy a bigger second home, trade off the RV for something more substantial, or decide to move to a different part of the country, etc. It's a bit of a dance to plan retirement well. It would be nice if, in our 20s and 30s, we could know what we'll want to do in retirement and then save and plan for it accordingly. However, some of that insight only starts to appear on the horizon in our late 50s and early 60s, and some of it appears a few years into actually living retirement. Absent any deeper life planning, a financial plan for retirement can only anticipate some of the high points and some of the worst-case scenarios for which to be prepared. The reality is, there's a whole lot more middle to retirement and we now have that middle for many more years as we live longer. It's never too late to take stock and set new intention about how we want to live and what we want to do with our remaining years. It will not only improve the financial decisions we make along the way, but increase the quality of our life and health for the rest of our lives. How are you forming a life plan that will guide what you need to do financially to support it? Who knows, you may end up doing something that changes the world.
5 Comments
Tidying Up, Marie Kondo's Netflix show based on her book, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up", is in the media spotlight these days. It is inspiring many to clean out and purge their drawers and closets and cupboards after they have discerned whether each item is bringing them joy (and happily stocking the shelves of thrift shops). The premise is that our lives will be lighter and more joyful with less clutter, and we can all use more joy in our lives! It got me thinking about the things that need to go as we grow into the later chapters of life. So many of us view retirement as doing life as we've known it, except we work less and have more time to do what we want. That's only part of what it's all about, and yet it's all many folks envision and live. Retirement and the later years of our lives bring the invitation to tidy up so we can move through life and the world in new ways, not just change up the list of our routines and hobbies. Life becomes less about the acquisition of things and stuff, ego conquests and achievements, and long to-do lists. While much of what we've acquired on those fronts may remain, they are but a container for a new, deeper way of living, if we dare let ourselves move to that place. It is a choice some folks never make. As we move into this chapter, we are free to purge busyness for the sake of keeping the calendar full, and to ditch doing things because we've always done them, keeping up appearances, as well as the quest for more things, stuff, and status. That may include relationships that keep us occupied but not nurtured, or worse yet, torn down. We can let go of driving so hard and doing things out of will power in favor of learning how to pay attention to flow and how we can move most easily WITH our lives. And finally, we can get down to doing the things that align with our sense of why we're on the planet, the things we know matter the most (or doing inventory to discover them), and the things that we want to make sure happen with the time we have remaining. What does the art of tidying up include for you as you move into and through retirement? It may not involve a trip to the local thrift shop...and it may be the ride of your life.
|
AuthorRuth Tongen helps people plan and live meaningful, fun and healthier retirements. Archives
January 2022
Categories
All
|