As for the first part, if you don’t have some sort of plan
for your retirement, you’re leaving it up to someone else to decide your
destiny. If that sounds like a bad idea,
read on and I’ll describe how you might put your plan together.
As for the second part of the quote, timing plays an
important part of your plan. If you are
in your 30’s retirement may seem like it's decades away, and it probably
is. But believe it or not, now is the
best time to start putting together a plan.
Your plan will give you a way to approach important life decisions that
may have an impact on reaching your retirement goal.
If you are in your 40’s, you better have a plan. At this age, you are probably so busy with
the demands of your career, your family, being a consumer, and paying the
bills, you can’t imagine taking the time to think about how you are going to
live once you leave the workforce. But
this is where a retirement plan will be the most useful. You’ll be faced with big decisions in your
40’s. Should I buy the bigger
house? Should the kids go away to
university or live at home? Should we
buy that boat? Should we take the trip of
a lifetime this year? While these may
not seem like life altering decisions at the time, you can’t measure their
impact on your ultimate goal of retirement unless you have a plan. Your retirement plan gives you a measuring
stick to gauge the impact of decisions on your ultimate goal.
If you are in your 50’s (or older!) and you don’t have a
plan, well, you’re behind the power curve.
Now’s the time to get serious and figure out how you’re going to make up
for lost time.
Now, what are the steps?
They’re coming, but first I have a caveat. Don’t think that all you have to do is follow
these 6 steps and you’ll have success.
Don’t think “Hmmm, 6 steps, I can have a retirement plan by this
afternoon!” These steps will take lots
of thought and commitment. You might
even have to backtrack and go through some of them several times. That’s OK.
After all, you’re putting together a plan for how to live the best part
of your life. Isn’t that worth some
effort?
The steps are:
1.
Visualize: Develop a strong vision of what your retired
life will be.
2.
Commit: Ensure others in your life are willing to take
the journey with you.
3.
Prioritize: Put first things first.
4.
Characterize: Assess your current situation.
5.
Improve: Make changes in areas that are necessary for
success.
6.
Achieve: Measure your progress.
In my next series of posts, I’ll go through each of the
steps in detail so you can think about how you can implement these to build
your plan.
Putting together your plan will take some effort, but stick
with it. The end goal is worth the
journey!
