Keys to Making Your Next Phase Meaningful
By A. Andrew Raub
Normal doesn’t always mean normal. This is especially true when it comes to life transitions. For example, marriage, parenthood, entering and leaving the workforce, home ownership, health challenges, relationship changes, and the death of a loved one are all fairly “normal” transitions in life—except when they happen to you. Your life is thrown upside down, and your world can be torn apart during these “normal” events. And even though you know they are coming, you often arrive unprepared for the changes ahead and become consumed by the chaos or fear of this new period of life.
For many of you, retirement is that looming life change that you’re either facing in the near future or have just entered. I know…I’m right there with you. I turned 60 years old earlier this year, and I find myself getting closer and closer to retirement age. But the retirement that we’re looking at doesn’t look like the retirement that my parents or your parents knew—it’s a new animal altogether!
Years ago, when we thought about retirement from the vantage point of our early 30s, the ages of 60, 70 and 80 seemed old. It was easy to plan for retirement in our minds because the thought of ending work was decades away. But now we know the secret: we aren’t as “old” as we thought we would be! Times have changed. People are living longer, and retirement is lasting upwards of 30 years rather than 5 or 10. Many of us just aren’t ready to “pack it in” yet.
The good news is that “retirement” is changing and being redefined by people just like us who are choosing to think in terms of the “next phase of life” rather than retirement in its traditional sense. This is a real paradigm shift, but one that opens up all sorts of new and exciting possibilities.
This next phase of life thinking presents fresh chances to:
- Recreate a life plan that centers on goals and values that you didn’t have the time and freedom to pursue when you were working full-time.
- Build a contingency plan to cover sudden life and health changes for which you might otherwise be unprepared.
- Achieve a balance between leisure and satisfying work or pursuits that continue to build you as a person and give back to others in meaningful ways.
Essentially, this “next phase” planning gives you a chance to simplify your life by choosing to put first things first. You can be intentional about your pursuits and purposeful about where you spend your time. You can create your own plan to pursue rather than be driven by the agendas and demands of others.
So let me ask you: do you have your own plan for your next phase of life? Do you have a clear vision of what you want it to look like? Are you making progress toward those goals? I hope so—I want you to see your dreams fulfilled. You may be thinking, “That’s all well and good, but how do I simplify my life and create a plan for my next phase?” I’m so glad you asked. Let me show you something that I’ve found helpful in my own life.
Creative Dreaming For Your Next Phase
- Grab a pen and piece of paper. Focus on just one area of your life: health, leisure, home, finances, work, community, spirituality, etc.
- Write down the answer to this question: “What are my goals and ambitions in this area of my life?” Try to list at least three things.
- Next write down your ideal vision of what you would like this area of your life to look like in three to five years.
- Then, ask yourself what would keep you from reaching your goals and your ideal future? Write those obstacles down.
- Now step back and look at what you wrote as your ambitions, your ideal future, and obstacles. As you look at these, think about what steps you can take to overcome your obstacles and reach your goals. Write down as many steps as you can.
- Now start making things happen! Share your thoughts with others and get their feedback. Spend some time thinking about what you could do today to take another step toward your ideal future. Or make a list of “first steps” you can take this week. Keep things simple—baby steps each day make a big difference!
- Repeat this exercise with other life areas. You can also download our free worksheet to help you with this exercise.
Exercises like this have made all the difference in the world to me between talking about my dreams and seeing them realized. Jean and I have always wanted to travel more, but we never got around to it. The big obstacles were leaving my business for periods of time, money, and our joint inability to sit down and plan trips. As we talked about it, we discovered that for us, this goal of traveling together meant taking at least one two-week trip each year to a new and exciting destination and taking extended weekend trips every other month. Now, with our wonderful staff and successful business, we have overcome the first two obstacles. Then, we realized that if someone else would do the detailed planning we didn’t enjoy, we could achieve our travel goals. That’s when we found Liz. A semi-retired travel agent, Liz loves to plan trips and has the contacts and the know-how to do it right. She planned every part of our recent trip to Scotland and England. Now Jean and I have the confidence to schedule trips as we always dreamed.
For some of you, this creative dreaming exercise might be very easy, while others might struggle with some of the steps. You might find that you can write down tons for one area, but can’t think of a thing for another. Or you might realize that you have one dream that touches several areas of your life. Any and all of those are fine. My goal here is simply to help you make progress to meet some of your goals and dreams as you journey toward and through retirement. Let’s be intentional about our next phase of life and plan ahead to take advantage of the new opportunities that retirement brings.
I’ve found that having a clear vision for the future, knowing your reality, and then having a plan to reach your dreams is really the foundation for knowing what to do with your finances. This is the first step in planning for your financial future and it’s the foundation for our tagline: Life Simplified. Money Clarified.