How To Be Mentally Prepared For Retirement

September 20, 2018

As a CFP® and financial coach, I talk to people every day to see if they are financially prepared for retirement. While that is extremely important, that is really only half of the equation. If you aren’t mentally and emotionally prepared for retirement, then you really aren’t ready.

Thinking about the why

I have seen several instances, including my dad, where people are financially ready to hang it up but they don’t know what it is they are retiring for. Do you know why you want to retire?

A changing landscape

First of all, retirement is changing. People are living longer,so lots of people do work longer, either full-time or part-time and that is OK. Even then, all of us will eventually cut back or completely step away so we have to know what we’re going to do with the rest of our life.

Asking the right questions

If you’re one of the many who find themselves financially ready to call it quits on the workforce, but not quite mentally ready, you’re not alone. To help get there, let’s look at two basic questions:

What am I passionate about?
What do I enjoy doing?

If you can answer those two questions, then you have the start of a plan.

Clarifying your passions and interests

When we look at what we’re passionate about, it is usually going to be anywhere from one to three things. It could be as fun and simple as investing in the lives of your grandchildren to getting involved in community service.

Translating what you love about work into retirement activities

For me, I’m blessed that one of my passions is helping people be financially well, so I get to do that at work. That also means I can do this after I retire. When I retire from getting paid to be a financial coach, I intend to volunteer with financial coaching ministries at our church and in financial literacy classes at our local high school.

To prepare for that, even though retirement is 15 – 20 years away, I’m doing those things at very small levels so that getting more involved will be an easy transition. So, think of the things you do at work and how they may translate to serving others when you don’t need to work for a paycheck.

It’s gotta be fun

We also want to know what we enjoy. Over the last few years I have gotten very interested in barbecue. I mean, I do live in Kansas City, where we may have a borderline unhealthy obsession with good barbecue. For me, it has been fun to learn a new skill, tinker with recipes, take pride in making a delicious meal and most importantly, it’s an excuse to be social. Hey, we can’t eat a whole brisket alone – we “have to” invite some friends over to share. So, whether I ever enter a barbecue competition or not, I’ve got a fun habit that can easily fill up one day a week.

Your hobby could even become a second career of sorts

Now my friend Jon is also into barbecue – big time. Someday I hope to be half as good with a smoker as he is. He started doing competitions years ago. For him, he had found a fun hobby too, but it has turned into much more. When a massive tornado hit Joplin, MO, in 2011, Jon was one of several BBQ competition teams that volunteered to drive down to Joplin and make meals for first responders and people impacted by the tornado. They ended up serving 120,000 meals over 13 days!

That effort turned into Operation BBQ Relief. They now go anywhere in the US that a natural disaster strikes. To date, they have served nearly 1.8 million meals to disaster victims and responders! It has become such a passion for Jon that he now rarely competes as so much of his free time is spent supporting disaster response.

It’s not likely that you’re going to get in on the ground floor of a successful charity, but the key is testing those passions now to see where it takes you.

So, keep saving and investing wisely, but also invest your time in figuring out what you are passionate about and what you enjoy doing. Now I’ve got to go figure out what is on sale for me to throw on the smoker this weekend!