Retirement Conundrum Should I, or should I not retire?
Several months ago I wrote a guest article about pending retirement. The main message of that article was that a successful retirement benefits significantly from some pre-retirement exploration of your current and future «time envelope ».
We each have one hundred programmable hours every week that we need to fill in a meaningful way – and it helps to think through that before retirement so you can engineer a more graceful transition into retirement and put your time towards things that really matter to you.
One of the responses I received was someone who was petrified of retirement and so was avoiding thinking about it at all cost.
Over the years, I have met quite a few people who had the same general approach – wilful avoidance with the hope that somehow the situation would resolve itself.
Why, I have often wondered, are they avoiding the subject so completely?
What is causing such stress to them that they won’t even turn their mind to it to consider what it could look like for them?
I suspect it is one of (or some combination of) four specific aspects of the retirement question that freezes them into inaction:
Their financial situation once the bi-weekly cheque stops coming in.
The social hit they’ll take when they no longer spend time with their co-workers.
A lack of purpose in their life caused by the vacuum of no daily work to perform.
It’s difficult to develop a credible plan to follow when there are so many unknowns.
There is so much emphasis in our world around the importance of working, and our own work, that it is not very difficult to see how any of these four challenges could stop someone in their tracks.
So, what can you do if you are feeling stuck by one (or more) of the above challenges?
Let’s deal with challenge #4 first – if it’s the complexity of putting a plan together and you’re not the “do-it-yourself” type, then reach out to a trusted friend, associate, or trained professional and sit down with them to start working through the layers of thinking through post-retirement. Just because you don’t like planning doesn’t mean that “no plan” is a smart move. Retirement is coming and you need to face that reality straight-on.
The act of developing a plan will clarify a great deal. You will likely discover the situation is less bleak than you currently fear.
For challenges #2 and #3, the action to take is identifying specific sources you can develop immediately to ease the concern of the pending retirement withdrawal.
For social networking, that means activities, hobbies, sports, or skills development might you consider. Enroll in a training course? Join a sports league? Volunteer your time for a cause that gives you purpose? It’s an almost endless list of possibilities once you start breaking it down.
Ask yourself these questions:
What do I like doing that others might enjoy also?
What else (other than my current work) do I derive meaning and purpose from?
What causes do I believe are important that I would like to participate more in?
What could that look like? You should work through the 100-hour exercise laid out in my earlier article.
If it’s the financial challenge (#1) that is stopping you in your tracks, developing a solid financial forecast of your retirement years will almost assuredly ease your mind. (Review the past issues of Reflections for additional guidance.)
In Canada, we are lucky to have indexed government sources of income like CPP and OAS up-to our dying days. In addition, you might have other sources, such as former employer pensions, RRSP accounts, or TFSA savings. Even if each one of these buckets is only modest, adding them together may provide you more ongoing income than you expected. And if there is a gap between funding the retirement you’d love to experience and the forecasted income, you can develop a plan to close that gap through a combination of cost-trimming and possible post-retirement income.
In Canada, we’re forecasting a major labour shortage for the foreseeable future as the boomers retire. The largest cohort of the economy has reached retirement age and their exist is already causing challenges to many businesses.
That’s good news for you if you do want to continue to work in some capacity post-retirement – where does part-time work, possible consulting or contracting, or leveraging your skills & experience in a side-hustle fit into your retirement plan?
Of course, the key to all of this – you really do need to develop that plan. It’s your roadmap to a safe, meaningful, and secure retirement. What’s holding you back from developing it?