Retirement Tip: To keep from stagnation – Read

Did you choose cliche?

Last week I asked if you were living a cliche lifestyle. A cliche lifestyle – to review- is one where comfort and familiarity rather than purpose drive activity. Sometimes this lifestyle of habit and convenience just happens when you aren’t looking. You have goals. You have a mission for the retirement years. Yet somehow those goals got subverted by life. You don’t think about them daily. You don’t have a plan which guides you step by step and little by little closer to reaching them. Or maybe you do have a plan but you don’t remember the last time you checked it. Does your mission seem distant and unreachable? Have you stopped believing that you are extraordinary and that you have what it takes to achieve an outrageous lifestyle? If this is true for you then step up your reading.

Do you know enough?

Reading is a way to get into the minds of people; to understand how successful people operate and learn the thinking that helped them be extraordinary. If you had a plan for your retirement in the first place, chances are that you read some books that helped you. Read them again. New ideas and processes don’t stick easily in the brain. It is so easy to revert back to the old, comfortable ideas and behaviors without constant reminers. If you haven’t read classics like The Magic of Thinking Big and How to Win Friends and Influence People, you need to learn to empower yourself and understand people. One reading is never enough with powerful books so if you read them before, re-read them. You are a unique and powerful being. There is not another one like you. If you don’t understand and believe that truth, then your life will be ordinary

Have you understood the possibilities?

If ordinary is all right with you, that is fine. Millions of people are content with ordinary. They live comfortable, predictable lives. Nothing requires you to be any different from them. If, however, you think from time to time that there ought to be more to life than your routine and that you were designed to be extraordinary then don’t settle for. Dust off the unfulfilled dreams for your retirement and start believing in your power. Make a plan (or dig out your old abandoned one). Take some action each day. Check in with retirement bloggers who are living their dream retirements and become part of their community by leaving comments and asking questions. You aren’t alone and you aren’t helpless – unless you want to be.