Non-Financial Side of Retirement … Are you ready?
The Non-Financial Side of Retirement … Are You Ready?
Retirement? It’s the subject on everyone’s mind. What I recently realized is that we tend to focus only on the financial aspect of this. I get it. It’s very important to be financially ready to retire. We spend the majority of our life planning (by working, by making money and saving it), but not enough time is actually spent planning what we will do with our lives once we are retired. Being retired means different things to different people.
As financial planners, we see a lot of clients who know they want to plan for financial side of retirement and need to have certain savings, but not everyone has thought thru these questions:
What will retirement will look like?
What are you going to do with your free time?
Who are you as an individual?
What makes you happy?
What drives your day?
What engages you, what hobbies do you have?
What is your health like?
As human beings, we go thru life stages: Childhood to Adolescence to Young Adulthood to Primary Career Years (and optimum health in this stage!) to Elderhood (somewhere after age 65. If you ask the Social Security Administration, they might not want you to retire until you are 85!
The world is changing: we are living longer and our bodies are not as worn out. Shouldn’t we want to extend our Primary Career Years well into our 70s or maybe 80s (not necessarily by working, but more by being physically active!)??? We should!
We need to transition from “What I am” to “Who I am” in this next stage of our life.
MainStreet Financial Planning had an opportunity to sponsor a seminar in the San Francisco Bay area on this subject, and I can tell you that I was blown away by this presentation. Sara Zeff Geber, Ph.D. (the presenter) with her business, LifeEncore, helps baby boomers resolve this exact dilemma. Her next workshop is coming up on Nov. 1, 2014 in Redwood City, CA.
I also highly recommend reading the book Sara co-wrote, “Live Smart After 50”
In her presentation, Sara Zeff Geber suggests that what you should start thinking about is what you Have (financial part); what you Enjoy (travel, volunteer, etc.); what you want to Learn; how you want to Live.
The best part of this is that there is no one model that fits all.
Life gets interesting! Get out there and start exploring & planning. It’s never too late:)
