Planning For Your Retirement - An Alternative Perspective

Retirement is changing. The traditional type of retirement that our parents and grandparents enjoyed is often no longer enough for the baby boomer generation. Today's retirees are younger, richer, fitter, healthier and better educated than previous generations. They also have much higher expectations.

Twenty or thirty years ago, retirees generally looked forward to a (hopefully) extended period of rest and relaxation - time spent on the golf course with their friends, a few extra holidays, the odd watercolour or cookery class, maybe a caravan or boat to while away those leisurely days… in essence, a general sense of being put out to pasture at the end of a long working life.

But many baby boomers want more than that. We're not ready to go quietly off into the sunset, thank you very much! We have too much that we still want to be, do and have.

Although, as a nation, we are gradually getting the message that, financially, we need to plan and make provision for the end of our working lives, most people don't tend to give the emotional, spiritual, domestic, relationship and leisure implications of retirement a moment's thought. In fact, most of us spend more time planning our annual holiday than we do planning the non-financial aspects of our retirement.

Even though the majority of us look forward to our post-work lives with happy anticipation, we need to think about and manage our retirement carefully in order that this becomes a time of renewal, purposefulness, life enrichment and personal growth, rather than a gradual decline into old age and dependency. We need to consider how we will manage the life and lifestyle transitions that retirement brings and we need to ask ourselves a series of powerful questions that will challenge our thinking about retirement and help us to ensure that we get the retirement we deserve.

There are 15 separate factors which have been identified as essential to a successful and fulfilling retirement. Let us consider just 3 of them:

• Family and Relationship Issues,
• Dependents and Care Giving Responsibilities and
• Replacement of Work Functions,

and outline some of the questions that pre-retirees find most useful and thought-provoking.

Family and Relationship Issues

One of the most powerful questions that you can ask yourself with regard to this next stage of your life is:

What would my ideal retirement look and feel like?

And if you have a partner, this question should be closely followed by:

What does my partner's ideal retirement look and feel like? and

Do the two match up?

The failure to develop a clear understanding of your own retirement expectations, the expectations of significant others and how to blend the two together can be a recipe for retirement disaster. For example, what is your definition of 'healthy togetherness' with your partner? And does your partner share that definition? How many interests do you share as a couple? Have any of those interests been 'forced' upon you as an individual? Are you still happy for that situation to continue?

If you and your partner are both due to retire at the same time, can you cope with suddenly spending large amounts of time together or will you be sick of the sight of each other within a fortnight? Are you likely to want to spend more time with your loved one than they are prepared to give? Do they have other plans for how they will spend their time and who they will spend it with?

Be aware that even couples who have happily rubbed along together for many years can by surprised by the effects that retirement can have upon their relationship.

If you are single, you are likely to have different concerns. Are you worried about becoming lonely and/or isolated in retirement? Perhaps you would like to have a new relationship - how could you come into contact with suitable potential mates, particularly when you will no longer be out at work every day? Do you want/need to make new friends? (Be aware that even the closest of workmates can disappear from your life once you are out of the workplace and not seeing each other on a daily basis.) How do you feel about meeting new people and where could you do that? If you want to expand your social circle, you will need to find out where like-minded people congregate and make the necessary moves to join them. Are you prepared to do that?

Dependents and Care Giving Responsibilities

Next, it may be useful to spend some time considering how you feel about the other significant relationships in your life. For example, those with your children, grandchildren and elderly parents. What expectations do they hold about your retirement? Do your expectations and their's blend together?

Will someone be expecting more of you than you are prepared to give? Does someone have their eye on you as a potential babysitter or caregiver and what effect will this have upon your plan to sail your yacht around the world? What kind of caregiver would you be if you were called upon to cope with a relative with a long and/or debilitating illness? How would you manage if the need to care for your grandchildren or an adult child was suddenly thrust upon on you?

Again, these are the kind of questions tha
t make us feel challenged and uncomfortable - but, I am sure you will agree, that it is vitally important that you ask them.

Replacement of Work Functions

Finally, let's consider some of the potential challenges associated with the process of disengagement from work and how you will replace the feelings of satisfaction, importance, usefulness, companionship and productivity that you obtained from your work.

How will you add structure and a sense of purpose to your days? How will you continue to obtain a sense of achievement and a ‘job well done'? How important is your work to your sense of identity? And what might be the implications of this for you in retirement? In fact, do you even want to retire at all? Would you prefer (or do you need) to carry on working in some capacity? Have you always wanted to start a business? Or write a book? Do voluntary service overseas? Do you have an interest in or a need for a second or retirement career? What will that be and how much time do you want to devote to it? And finally, how are the skills, attitudes and behaviours that you used to succeed in the workplace different from the ones you will need to succeed at home?

Again, these are provocative questions, but consider the implications of leaving these questions unasked and unanswered…

Remember - this is YOUR retirement. You've worked all your life for it. You could spend 30 years or so in this next phase of your life and you have a right to be happy… It's up to you to make sure that you get the retirement you want and deserve. What questions do you need to ask?

Ann Harrison is a certified Retirement Options™ trained retirement coach and distributor of the Retirement Success Profile™ - a unique, personalised, scientifically-designed life-planning tool for people who are either planning their retirement or who are already retired. Ann can be contacted via her website, http://www.ContemporaryRetirementCoaching.com.