Three Ways to Invest in Your Retirement: It's Not About the Finances

How are you investing in your life? In our culture, we give attention to investing our money to prepare for retirement. You may sit down with your investment planner one or more times per year to strategize about your investments and get a map of your financial situation. But do you sit down with someone to intentionally look at the life you have saved or are saving your money to live?

Let's take a look at three levels of where you are investing your time and energy and priority for a meaningful next chapter in your life. What matters for what's next?

Material Goods
The first level of where we invest time, money and energy is getting the 'things and stuff' that we want for our life at this stage. Maybe it's a different or second home, a new RV, a vehicle, or different furniture. Maybe it's finally adding that bathroom we've always wanted, or buying a new sewing machine or equipping a shop for our hobbies.

 "Our needs are progressive; our satisfaction with things
goes down with time as we get used to having them."

Things and stuff will bring joy for a time. Our possessions are ultimately separate from us. Kumar and Gilovich's research shows that our satisfaction with possessions goes down with time as we get used to having them. Our needs are progressive and we will move on to other 'things'.  I remember realizing some years back that as I acquired more things, it required more of my time to manage it all and I was less free to just go and do. If we are investing in things, buying possessions that enable experiences may be the better investment.

Experiences
Experiences have a different trajectory. They bring us joy in the moment, provided we are present in the moment to take them in. Satisfaction with an experience actually goes up over time because the experience becomes a story that we can tell over and over, in our own minds or to others. Even an experience that didn't go well can become a great story. Maybe even more so!

Knowing where our passions lie (I can help you with identifying those), gives us a great start on knowing what kinds of experiences we want to invest in. And sometimes, completely getting out of our element makes for a page-turning experience.

Experiences nearly always link us to other people or nature, whether shared at the time or through the telling of it later. The more an experience links us, the more our satisfaction goes up.

Research shows that the anticipation of an experience brings out more happiness and excitement than waiting for a 'thing' to arrive, which can sometimes bring impatience and frustration.

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Some years back, my brother made an offer to all of his siblings that he would pay for a trip for each of us wherever we wanted to go in the world. That idea had some great benefits built in, if we allowed it. He wanted the benefit of learning all about what was meaningful for each of us and also wanted the benefit of the shared experience as we got to do something we'd always wanted to do. We could also choose the benefit of anticipation. Since I was going to be the last to do my experience, I got the longest time to dream and plan and anticipate, so I got the greatest benefit. There is also the added benefit of telling stories and reminiscing about the experience together afterward. What a brilliant idea!

The Third Option
Investing our time and energy and money in things and experiences can eventually leave us with a feeling of lack without incorporating this third level: relationships. The beauty of relationships is that no matter what your financial picture, you have what you need to invest in them. And they are what assign meaning to the other two investments. Relationship also includes the relationship with nature, yourself and the Divine (if you are so inclined).

"No matter what your financial picture is,
you have what you need to invest in relationships."

This chapter in life is more often about having fewer but deeper relationships. How are the relationships you have around you? Do you have a lot of acquaintances but not a lot of friends? Or lots of friends but you're not sure they would be there when the chips are down?

Sharing experiences is great fertile ground for building the relationship. I would also challenge you to be about investing in the depth of your relationships. Along my travels, an adept therapist taught me about the different levels of intimacy we can choose to invest in:

1. Idle chatter:  How's the weather? How about those Vikings (or Eagles or Patriots)? Joke telling also belongs in this category, unless it is loaded with opinion.
2. Sharing facts: What do we or did we do for a living? Where did we grow up? How big was our family? This is information that we would be comfortable sharing publicly.
3. Sharing opinions: This is where a little vulnerability opens up as we expose where we are on a topic, knowing the other person may or may not agree (and may not know how to disagree kindly). This could be about our favorite artist, the kind of restaurant we enjoy most, all the way up to our political and religious views.
4. Sharing feelings: This is disclosing how we really are and inquiring how the other really is. This is beyond the customary "fine" or "plugging along" that would be exchanged in the first level. This looks more like, "I am feeling lonely today" or "I am so relieved because I had been worrying about ...".
5. Sharing needs: When we are more invested in the relationship, we ask for what we need from the other person. "I would like for you to support me when I have to (name a situation)" or "I want to feel more heard by you. Please don't cut me off mid-sentence."    Most models stop here, and frankly this is deeper than many of us go in most of our relationships. But this person taught me about a really important level of intimacy beyond this level...
6. Sharing relationship direction: How are we doing together? What are our shared needs? What do we want to do to deepen our relationship? This is often the work that couples engage in at retirement (and before) in order to go beyond each doing their own thing without connection, or as I term it, "Being alone and lonely, together".  This can be great for forming and growing wonderful, deep friendships, as well. Are you connecting?
   

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Where are you Investing?
Make great choices about where to invest in your next chapter. The ways we choose to invest in things, experiences and relationships determine our return on investment. If we acquire material goods that help us have more experiences, that's a better buy. If we build our experiences around relationship-building, that's a more powerful use of time. And if we deepen our relationships, they will always feel like they give back vs. take our time and energy.

Questions for Reflection:
How are you being intentional about how you will spend your time and money in this next chapter?
Are the 'things' you are buying going to enable experiences for you?
Are you clear on your priorities and what you are passionate about?
Are you planning your experiences (the ones you can plan), in alignment with what you are passionate about?
Who is in your life that you have meaningful relationships with? How are you nurturing those relationships? How are you building more relationships with more depth?

Ruth Tongen helps you take stock, plan and live retirement (or your next chapter) in a bigger, happier, healthier way. She can help you find an 'aha' and move that to an aspiration and then on to an action. Move past sticking points and begin living on purpose.

E-mail her: [email protected] with questions or to explore how she can help you live a great next chapter.