What is your retirement strategy?

This is not about investments!

Retirement strategies means more than managing your investments. Having enough money when you retire is important but not the only thing you need to manage. Retirement can mean 10 to 30 years (maybe more) years of your life. What you do with those years will make the difference as you look back on the day you die. Retirement strategy means what you did with those years, how you handled the resources of time, life experience and accomplishment. Were those years satisfying and fulfilling? Did you meet your life goals? Did your life matter? The answer lies with you and how you met the challenge of retirement.

It’s very personal.

Retirement strategy is a personal decision. There isn’t any universal measure of success or failure. It starts with what is important to you. It can be personal and self-satisfying or universal and altruistic. It can be timid or bold. In the end, nobody else’s standards matter. You are the master of your life.

Have conviction! 

Once you decide to make a plan, you have committed to taking control of your retirement lifestyle. You won’t accept just anything. Your life is important and you will do whatever necessary to make it as you want. But what are the options. I see it like this. There are three retirement strategies that you can embrace in your retirement plan. They are all good because they represent your decisions. So long as you have considered the options and selected the one that makes you happy, any strategy can be the right one for you.

Once you pick, you aren’t stuck with your choice. You can change strategy at any time. Don’t get hung up on which is the right one. Start by picking the one that feels right. The worst thing you can do is fail to choose because when you don’t choose a strategy, you aren’t in charge. You don’t know what will happen and somebody else will make decisions for you.

Strategy One: Stick with what’s working.

Maintain your current portfolio of life activities, relationships and environment. Change the amount of time you allocate as needed but don’t change much else. This would be most appropriate when you are pretty satisfied with your lifestyle or it might be what you choose while you try to decide what changes you want to make.

Strategy Two: Learn some new things.

Choose this strategy when you know that there are some parts of your lifestyle that don’t work they way you want. This doesn’t mean you change everything at once. If you find more than one deficiency then pick the one that is most important and learn something new to make it better. This could mean taking up a new activity and becoming good enough to satisfy yourself. It could mean improving on skills you already have and becoming more expert. Then change your lifestyle to include your new skills.

Strategy Three: Shake things up.

This is the most risky because you move away from what is familiar and you can’t always get back if you find you made a mistake. It also has the most potential to transform a dull retirement into something outrageous. This strategy could mean moving to another place, traveling more frequently. It could mean making a reality out of a long time fantasy like becoming a beachcomber or a volunteer for a foreign aid program. With this one, there are ways to test out the changes on a short term basis before committing to permanent change but if you don’t feel drawn to a big change in your life, this one may not be right for you.

Your turn! 

I hope you have chosen a strategy and aren’t letting control of your life drift. Leave a comment to let me know which path you are on and how it’s going.