One of the nicest aspects of retirement is that your work no longer decides where you have to live.  But does that mean moving to a retirement community in a warm, sunny climate is in your future?  That decision involves a lot more than getting away from your local version of lousy weather.

Where you choose to live needs to be a well-thought balance between what you’ve already built and what you yearn for.  I’m not talking about square footage here.  Where you live now has a lot of pluses (unless you just moved there). 

You already have your network of resources in place—your primary care physician and specialists if you need them, your dentist, your hairdresser, your car mechanic, your plumber.  The list goes on, but you get the point:  When you move, you need to find new back up for what you can’t do yourself on, well, pretty much everything.

And, of course, there’s the daunting task of moving itself.  (Just moving everything to the garage when I got new carpeting last fall was enough to make me promise I’m going to live here forever.)   Moving does help you get rid of stuff you no longer need, but with a bit of discipline, you can do that without putting what’s left in a moving van.

Usually, the big loss of leaving where you are now for “somewhere better” is the network of relationships you leave behind–neighbors, friends who like to do the things you like to do, family, and business associates (who just might be people you want to know three years from now when you get tired of “being retired.”)

Those three are just the tip of the iceberg, too.  You can thrive with a retirement move, but it needs more thoroughly researched than watching the Weather Channel for your dream location a few times a month.  Before you put a For Sale sign on where you are, there are a lot of things to ask yourself:

• What do I not like about where I live now?  Sometimes, just retiring might solve the problem.  Traffic for regular commuters can be horrendous.  Once you make your own schedule you may be able to avoid it most of the time.  Or maybe it’s a case of not having friends where you are now.  Are the time demands of your job what’s keeping you from making them?

• What problems am I expecting this move to solve?  Changing geography doesn’t change who you are.  A new location quickly becomes a disappointment if you think it’s going to get rid of woes that move right along with you.  What are the real issues and what other solutions are there for solving those problems?  Look at all the options rather than just assuming a move will solve everything.

• Who am I going to miss?  Make a list of all the people you love who are going to stay where you are now.  Is the move you’re planning worth having them somewhere you’re not?  It’s easy to lose track of your valued everyday relationships when the romance of living year-round in a resort climate blooms.

• How long do l want to live there?   Maybe it’s not something you will want to do long term.  If you aren’t sure, you don’t have to buy real estate right away. Consider living in the new location on a rental basis for six months or a year rather than pulling up stakes and moving there forever immediately. 

• Is this something that I’ll enjoy everyday? What do you think of the “off season” where you’re planning to move?  A Seattleite who moved to Arizona on retirement admitted when she moved back that having to open the garage door with an oven mitt in the summer was just too much for her.   Some people are fine with taking a fifth wheel to a sunny clime for two months in the worst of winter.  Are you sure you’re not one of them? 

• What kind of lifestyle am I envisioning?  Barbara Morris refers to retirement communities as “senior ghettoes.”  Pay attention to that.  When you segregate yourself from the full breadth of society, your view of the world starts to shrink.  The best way to stay vibrant is to keep your world expanding.  If you do end up in a 55+ community, have ways to get beyond the walls and stay in touch with the full social range.  Relying on the compound fun exclusively will make you old long before you need to be.

• What else is going to change that I haven’t factored into this idea?  There’s a lot more to it than getting away from the snow…gray skies…humidity…whatever.

Moving may be the best answer.  But be sure you’re asking the right questions when you decide.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

Having enough money doesn’t mean you need to retire–look at Warren Buffet…

Check out Mary Lloyd’s May 27 guest post on Karma Kitaj’s blog Retirement as You Want It/.

There are really good life coaches out there who GET IT about the importance of customizing your retirement years.

Karma Kitaj is one of them. She seems like my emotional twin in the attitude with which she reviews my book Supercharged Retirement. Check out her blog for what has to say about the book and the possibilities for “after we give up work.”

Read Mary Lloyd’s guest post on the Seattle Examiner site.

Steve Juetten graciously invited me to write a piece for his blog for the Seattle Examiner.  He posted it this morning.   He’s a financial planner who”gets it” about the need to mesh financial planning with non-fiancial planning to have “retirement” be satisfying.   I’m hoping Steve will do a guest piece here, but in the meantime, check out my guest post as well as the rest of his blog.

By Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver

Clips from a business speech:  (about 13 minutes, but it covers a lot of ground)

Mary Lloyd author of Super-Charged Retirement on Vimeo.

by Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver

Today, I had to accept the awful truth.  I am not invincable.  I am not even well at the moment–unless you think five naps a days is normal. 

I’ve been telling myself for over two weeks that I was NOT going to go to the doctor.  That I didn’t NEED to go to the doctor.  That it was just a matter of letting my body have the time it needed to get over whatever this is.

I dislike going to the doctor intensely.  It’s an antiseptic experience that drains my wallet faster than a good sale at REI.  I usually feel like I’ve just been duped yet again when I leave the clinic after I ask for some help.

Some of this is the nature of the beast.  Modern medicine is monstrous assortment of machines, needles, computers, and contraptions with a face stuck in every once in a while to make it look “human.”  It’s a lot of anonymous waiting and undignified “procedures.”  At lot of people end up worse off for getting into it. (The most recent figures put the annual death rate from medical mistakes at 98,000 and from adverse drug interactions at 100,000. )

But this time I had to admit that whatever is wrong hurt–a lot. 

So I tried an acupuncturist, which was a  vastly different experience.  After an hour of informative conversation with that knowledgeable person I spent  another half hour making myself lie still with tiny little needles poking out of me.  (The needles were nowhere near as traumatic as I expected but you do sort of feel like you are in a fake horror movie–the first time anyway.)   She advised me to add some supplements to my diet and I was out of there.  NO tests!

Acupuncture helped with the pain some, and with a diagnosis, but I started to not feel right about my stubborn stand in not seeing my primary care physician (who is also a nice, capable person–but rushed).

Two days ago, I finally had to own up.  My resistence was more ego than intelligence.  I didn’t want to go to the doctor because I didn’t think it would do any good.   I wasn’t AFRAID of it.  I just didn’t want to give in and subject myself to the whole prolonged, expensive drill.

But then I got to thinking about the responsibility of it.  What if there was something wrong that could have been easily discovered and easily remedied–and that had really bad consequences if left undetected?

I wrangled with my ego for the better part of two days, trying to unravel just what about the process had me so turned off.  All I could hear was myself repeating  “No.  No.  No.”

Then it finally dawned on me.  I did not want the malady to BECOME my life, which often happens when you seek entrance into our “health care system.”  I didn’t want to be a victim of anything, including a disease.  I didn’t want to sit in a lot of cold hard chairs in lifeless lab lobbies waiting to be called for yet another test after the previous one came back “normal.” 

That’s when I saw the solution.  I am an adult.  I didn’t have to agree to every imaginable test.  Just the basic ones that ruled out big problems.  That was responsible.  Agreeing to an open-ended list “just in case” was not.

So I went, my doc and I talked, and I agreed to some simple blood tests.  If they all come back okay, I will see if things improve on their own for a few weeks before I puruse anything else.  The doc is okay with this approach.  And I am relieved–I haven’t let my loved ones down by ignoring a health problem.

Medical attention is not a case of putting yourself in some doctor’s hands with blind faith.  Doctors PRACTICE.  You need to be fully engaged in getting their help or they are going to be doing a lot more guessing than they should have to.  Pay attention to what your heart, gut, and mind are telling you when you go in and don’t agree to stuff that doesn’t seem right.  Run your health care.  Don’t let it run you.

By Mary Lloyd,  CEO Mining Silver

This article originally appeared in the September edition of Barbara Morris’s oline newsletter, Put Old On Hold.

A few weeks ago I had the chance to go on a weekend bicycle trip with a group that included a new friend.  He rode a recumbent bike because of a neck injury that would have otherwise ended his cycling fun.  He taught me something that I’m realizing relates to far more than riding a bike.  I asked him if it hurt when he rode.  He said, “I’ve reached the point where it’s important to distinguish between ‘pain’ and ‘discomfort’.”  That’s a good thing for all of us to know. 

Pain is when something hurts so bad you can’t keep doing what you are doing. 

Discomfort is when something about the situation creates less than a perfect experience. 

If we are doing it right, we’re paying attention to the pain and ignoring the discomfort.  We don’t get much encouragement for going about it that way.

In one camp are the “no pain no gain” folks, who claim you have to work through the pain.  They’ve been falling out of favor recently, and that’s good.  If you are truly in pain, it’s time to alter course, be it backing off on an exercise routine or letting go of a certain version of a life.

But the messages that suggest we need to “fix” every little discomfort do just us just as much of a disservice.  The idea that nothing should ever hurt makes great business for pharmaceutical companies and therapists, but is it realistic?  No.  And it means you miss a good opportunity to prove your mettle.

On the bike trip where I first got to thinking about this, I had the chance to feel assorted discomforts.  The second day we had rain.  We rode anyway.  It got a colder than what I was dressed for.  It was still a good ride.  We addressed the discomforts when they got to be excessive—like finding shelter in a bike-friendly convenience store along the trail during the worst of the deluge. 

But none of us gave in to the bad weather entirely—and that engendered a greater sense of accomplishment.  (The next day we were going to ride a dirt trail over high trestles and through long tunnels.  Lots of them.  When we got to the trailhead, it was 42 degrees and foggy.  That one, we aborted.  There is discomfort and there is lunacy….)

But back to the idea of living with discomfort.  Take the common cold.  I’ve had friends tell me they give it three days and then go to the doctor.  For what?  It’s a cold.  Bed rest.  Lots of fluids.  And a big dose of patience is pretty much all that’s going to work.  Instead, the expectation is that there is some medicine that will make it all go away.  Nope.  But now in addition to the cold, you’ve wasted money and time on a doctor’s visit.  Did you really need it or were you just impatient with the discomfort?

The distinction is every bit as useful in assessing a job situation.  Perhaps you have to work with someone you don’t like.  Is that pain?  Not unless you make it so.  Discomfort, yes.  But pain from such a situation is usually more a case of what your ego is telling you about how awful it is.  Learn to live with the jerk and you win twice—by mastering that skill as well as avoiding the frustrations of a job search.

Both pain and discomfort serve useful purposes if we choose to let them. 

Pain tells you it’s time to stop doing what you are doing.  Pain makes you stop doing what you are doing.  Quite often, pain requires you to seek help, whether it’s for a broken leg or an impossible business situation.  Pain precipitates change.

Discomfort, on the other hand, is a challenge to keep going.  It provides the opportunity to reaffirm your commitment to whatever you are doing.  Working through it confirms that what you’re working on is important enough that you are willing to put up with less than perfect circumstances to get it done.  And often, when you work through the discomfort, there’s a sense of achievement from it that gives you even more motivation to complete what you’re trying to do.

Given the contrast in what each offers, being able to differentiate between pain and discomfort is important.  Can you?  Knowing when to quit is good.  So is knowing when to go on.   

Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50.  Her website is http://www.mining-silver.com.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

If Not Retirement, WHAT?

The downturn has a silver lining if you use it to customize your plans for “retirement.”  Mary Lloyd will discuss how to do that and sign her book, Supercharged Retirement:  Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.

Thursday, Sept. 10 at 7:00 PM
 Barnes & Noble Booksellers
 Vancouver Plaza
 7700 NE Fourth Plain Blvd,
 Vancouver, WA 98662
 (360) 253-9007

Join us if you can!

by Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver 

Assuming retirement is the only way to get balance in our lives is silly.  But achieving balance while employed fulltime takes some effort—and courage.  Would your life be better if your work was shaped differently?

Some basic questions:

Does what you do have to be done during regular work hours?   The “9 to 5” job is essential when the next guy is adding a bolt to the assemblage you just worked on.  It was also best when the fastest way to share information was to stop at the desk of the coworker you needed to talk to.  But today’s “product” is often information and the quickest way to get it to someone else is electronically–even if you’re sitting next to him. 

If you work with information, you might well be able to do it just as well in the middle of the night.  If what you do is independent of what others do for the majority of the process, when you get it done might be negotiable—as long as you know how to do it.  

Does your work have to be done at the Company’s physical location?  Working at home is far more productive for many employees.  Some companies have reduced the amount of space they lease for doing business by using this strategy.  Both Company and individual worker can benefit big time with telecommuting arrangements if they are carefully crafted.  What would you lose by working off site?  What would the Company gain?

Is it essential to work for someone else?  Yes, you need a paycheck, but lots of people do very well pursuing them as freelancers and contract employees.  Being your own boss gives you the most flexibility for meshing work with the rest of your life. 

But there are risks.  If you think working for yourself is the answer, do your homework.  What’s the market for what you want to do, who will hire you, will that kind of work go on indefinitely, etc.

If you decide to go for it, there’s set-up work to be done to get it right.   Success hinges on the following, at a minimum:

• Prove to your boss that you are productive without constant supervision.  You have to be a “self-starter” to be able to not work at the office.  From this day on, get things done without asking unnecessary questions, calling avoidable meetings, and otherwise wasting time—yours and others’.  Get on with the task before someone checks to see if you are working on it.  (Waiting to start until a supervisor—or the person who needs it—asks how far you are on a project will imprison you in that cubicle forever.) 

Work smarter.  Get hints from the “old pros.”  Don’t spend work time on non-work activities (personal phone calls, texting, online games, social sites).  How can your boss trust you to work at home if you’re playing solitaire every time she walks by your desk?

• Be incredibly good at what you do.  Learn your craft and develop an in-depth knowledge base.  Learn the interpersonal territory well, too–be it as a sales person, a supervisor, or a troubleshooter.  Become aware of how well you are doing the job relative to others at your company and beyond.  Strive to excel.  Do this before you utter one word about working from home or with unconventional hours. 

Being really good at what you is prime job insurance.  It’s also going to be your ace when you start talking to your boss about a different way to work.

• Design your nontraditional strategy so that improves your quality of life rather than just complicating it.  Everyone else is still going to be working the old way.  Set boundaries so their inefficiencies and interruptions don’t invade the time you’ve opened up for other things.  

Be accommodating on legitimate requests.  But get proficient at saying “no” to the people who want you to do their jobs because you know more than they do.  (This is the one negative of being good at what you do.) 

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This post originally appeared as an article in the August edition of Barbara Morris’s online newsletter Put Old on Hold.

Steve Juetten has a great post this morning titled “Six retirement traps and how to avoid them.”    He’s a financial advisor who really gets it!  His first two “traps” are lack of  a retirement map and self-limiting attitudes.  He goes on the mention four financial bad ideas, but it’s great that his post starts where those who are thinking about retirement need to start–with what they want to DO and how they want to go about it.

There are a lot of pieces to this retirment puzzle and we each have a different set to work with.  Is a move to a warmer, drier climate really what you need?  Or are you going to be oblivious of the weather of you get involved in that amazingly cool thing you thought had already passed you by?  Are you assuming  you know the answer to those–and similar –questions or have you taken the time to carefully check them out?