Frame your retirement planning with this one simple question
A couple years ago I came home after lunch to discover my front door smashed and my house ransacked. Nothing was stolen, but everything was everywhere. Draws and cupboards were open. Clothes were spread out. Boxes were tipped over. And so on.
The police said the culprits were drug addicts looking for cash.
And when I hear some peoples’ hard luck retirement stories, my mind turns to those drug addicts and my ransacked house. That’s because retirement can ransack people of opportunities.
Opportunities like:
talking about what they know and enjoy
using their unique skills and talents
going somewhere familiar each day
feeling like they belong to a group of like-minded people
making a difference
doing good
and so on.
Missed opportunities like these add up too, like interest on an unpaid debt, diminishing a person’s emotional satisfaction and wellbeing.
Anyhow, one way to avoid being ransacked in retirement is to ask yourself a simple question before you retire. It’s a question that can help to frame what really matters in your retirement planning.
That question being, What will you lose beyond your salary when you retire?
For instance, those drug addicts didn’t steal anything material from me. But they did steal something. It just took some time for me to realise what. Turns out, it was my sense of privacy and my trust in people.
For a short time anyway. Until I realised what I lost.
Need help discovering what you may lose when you no longer work? Or when you no longer do the work you do now? Then step into my Retirement Coaching Asylum: