3 Tips To Help Prepare You For Retirement

As an alum of the Modern Elder Academy, participants have opportunities to participate in numerous webinars in which people share their wisdom about life after a main career. In one of the our recent conversations, several three particular experiences were shared repeatedly:

• I miss the people I used to see at work more than the work.
• I am not sure what to do with my time.
• How do I make new friends at this age?

Since I write about these topics, I shared what I have learned about positive aging and making friends after retirement.

Much of retirement planning has been focused on maintaining health and building wealth. While that is important, as the webinar discussion showed, there is much of life that is being ignored. Based on my work with clients, if people have good health and “enough” money to support their lifestyle, it is everything else they are worried about—the nonfinancial aspects of retirement.

What Does It Mean To Be “Ready” for Retirement?

Joseph Coughlin, the Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, in collaboration with John Hancock have developed Longevity Preparedness Index (LPI). This index “redefines what it means to be ready for life tomorrow.” Coughlin defines “preparedness, an active process of awareness, assessment, and action. It is not a checklist or a hope.” Being prepared for a fulfilling long life involves:

• Awareness of what lies ahead in older age,
• Assessment of how realistic our assumptions are, and
• Action to put systems, supports, and social networks in place before we need them.

Even though the index is new, the data tell an interesting story:

• Women are more prepared than men in most domains of longevity preparedness, particularly in care and social connection.
• While financial preparedness remains critical, “the everyday infrastructure of life, relationships, housing, activities, and community are equally critical to well-being in older age.”

My research and writing support these findings.

Tips To Help You Prepare

It is also not surprising that the “everyday infrastructure of life” is a theme. Returning to my webinar conversation, one woman expressed her frustrations. After she retired, she traveled and worked on her bucket list. But she was tired of that. She found making new friends challenging at her age. And she wanted to continue to contribute but felt she was too old to reinvent herself. She volunteered for various organizations, but she had not found that to be rewarding.

One tip I share with clients at all ages is to seek out role models about a decade older. Ask yourself: Who is living a life that looks attractive to me? What about that life is attractive? You may or may not know the person. We Whether you know the person or not, you can learn a lot by observing how others are living this phase of life.

Regardless of your age, who is your role model for this phase of life? If you don’t have one, start looking around. Who inspires you to be more? To continue to grow and be involved? To contribute more of your gifts and talents?

Since identity is closely tied to what we do, we can feel lost when we retire. Dave Buck discovered in his Retirement Time Analysis that “over 70% of participants still tie their identity and sense of worth to their career.” When the structure from work disappears, people can struggle with what to do with their time. Buck calls this time the “retirement time vacuum.” Without a plan, Buck says retirees can feel “disoriented, anxious or guilty for not being ‘productive.’”

Buck describes how people approaching retirement should map out the first 90 days of retirement. Similar to an onboarding plan for high level executives, the idea is to prepare people for the “emotional volatility” from leaving one’s job and one core area concerns time. Since “the average retiree needs to fill 40% more of their waking time,” Buck’s first 90 day plan involves helping people with time management readiness—anticipating how to use this additional time in the day.

When working with clients, I emphasize visioning how they want to spend their time. Before retirement, start exploring, experimenting, and investigating interests, activities and organizations in which they might want to get involved as a volunteer, member, or hobby.

The third tip is to focus on relationships. As Robert Waldinger emphasizes in his book “The Good Life: Lessons from the Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, healthy relationships are the key ingredient to the good life. To do this, you may need to reconnect with old friends, plan to spend more time with current friends, or cultivate new relationships. While all these activities take time and intention, the investment will be worth it. For many reasons, it is hard to make friends as adults. I explain the challenges and strategies for making friends in this previous Forbes.com article.

Many people are living healthier and longer lives. But as Coughlin’s LPI revealed, being ready for retirement, includes being aware of the opportunities and challenges. Assess your assumptions about this time in life by being realistic and take action so you have the social and support relationships in place before you need them.

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