Steve Juetten includes retirement issues in his personal finance blog and was kind enough to ask me to do a guest post about the non-financial aspects of retirement planning. Check out his column. And read my post!
by Mary Lloyd, CEO Mining Silver LLC
Steve Juetten’s personal finance column had an interesting review of Supercharged Retirement today. Steve notes that planning for retirement involves some work–at least if you are going to do a good job of setting yourself up for a great life. (He also says that Supercharged Retirement is a big help in getting on with that work.)
But don’t let that word “work” chase you off. This is the kind of work that’s fun–the kind that helps you learn what you really want and figure out how to make that happen. Retirement might last a long time. Put the effort into making it good before you step into it.
When we plan vacations we don’t mind the effort it takes. When we plan a party, we don’t groan with what we have to get done. We just get on with it because the result of the effort is worth what we are putting into it. Same deal with planning for retirement. You want to get this RIGHT. And that takes some thought and some work. FUN work.
By Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver
This article appears in the April 2009 issue of Barbara Morris’s online newsletter Put Old On Hold.
The current stresses have a lot of us feeling like we’re pushing bus-sized boulders up the Matterhorn. The trauma of having so much change so fast for so many is truly numbing. But we still have to live it. So the question becomes: How do I do this well? What can I change about the way I’m going at it that would make it easier?
Well, I’m not sure a major upheaval can ever be “easy.” But the thing I most need to change–and am least inclined to alter–is the idea that “this should not be happening.” So that’s a first step. Let’s work on getting past that. It doesn’t make any difference whether it should be happening or not, it is happening. The first step is to accept that.
That leads to the next question: If it’s happening, am I doing what I can to deal with the new situation? Your answer may be as simple as “I’m eating at home more” or as extreme as “I’m living in my grandmother’s basement while I look for another job.” But in every case, the change you make needs to be on target with your changed situation.
But is it? Sometimes we change things just to feel like we are doing something. When we do that out of panic instead of based on a planned effort, we waste time, money, and momentum at a point when we need to conserve all three.
This week started for me with a string of losses. Nothing from which I can’t recover, but quite a load for one morning. I’ve put a lot into getting people to value the talent and experience of older workers. I’m committed to this mission and passionate about the need for change. But as I struggled with my Monday disappointments, my thoughts suddenly turned toward going back to school. To study nursing!
That might be a great strategy for some of you. But I don’t do well with the sight of blood. I do not belong in nursing, even if nurses are in such short supply they can find a job in a day. But the “sure thing” seemed like the right call for a few hours there.
Don’t do it. Don’t grab at something just because it seems like the “sure thing.” Especially if it’s got nothing to do with who you really are. Sure things don’t stay that way. Just ask the bankers. Or the folks who were relying on Enron pensions.
What should you change? Change your strategies. Maybe it’s time to take it up a notch at work so people know how valuable you are. Maybe it’s time to spend less of your evening in front of the TV so you can work on things that can help your dreams take flight. Maybe it is time to take well-developed skills into a new industry or new direction in the same industry—or to learn new skills.
You’re the one who knows where things are starting to pinch personally. But to see a better way to address them, you need to stay calm. It’s hard to be calm when they’re announcing layoffs like they usually to announce Saturday night football scores on the ten o’clock news in September.
Be calm anyway. Prayer helps on this. Or meditation. Or just listening to your breath.
It also helps to regularly brainstorm other ways to deal with your current situation. Do this often. I’m always surprised with what comes up. And even more surprised with what comes up when I do it again a few days later. Once I started brainstorming, nursing disappeared from the radar, incidentally. I found some new ways to approach the challenge that I’m so passionate about. More options to try. More “next things” to get to.
Does that solve the problem? No. Having more to do is just, well, more to do. But Edison’s 1000 attempts before successfully inventing the light bulb does hold strong truth. Looking for another way is the way to get through this gracefully.
Learning how to do that gives you something you could never have gained with uninterrupted prosperity. You will gain resilience. And that’s priceless because it will serve you every time something doesn’t go your way. Being able to bounce is a very good thing.
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Mary Lloyd offers seminars on how you can create a meaningful retirement for yourself and consults to businesses on how to retain, attract, and use older talent well. She is the author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love, released April 2009, and is available as a speaker. For more on better ways to use the last third of our lives go to => http://www.mining-silver.com.
The following audio clips are from an interview Mary Lloyd did with Barbara Morris of Put Old on Hold on June 6, 2008. Each clip touches on a different aspect of retirement. They are between a minute and two minutes long.
NOTE: These clips are from a telephone interview and are AUDIO ONLY.
Yes, you need money to be able to retire. But you need a whole lot more and it’s about time somebody starting blogging about that. So here I am, at your service. My name is Mary Lloyd and my mission is to make sure people live the years after retirement on fire and on purpose. You don’t have to save the world–unless you really want to. But you do have to do things that are really important to you if you want to have a good life once it’s time for “the good life.”
I write, speak and teach about this topic because we all need to plan for more than bunco parties and time with the grandkids once we no longer need to show up for work everyday. My current book Bold Retirement is available both online (www.mining-silver.com) and through your favorite bookstore. I’m also working on another about how work needs to fit into this time of life . (Okay, I can hear you boooing. Find out what I have to say before you give me the hook!)
My intention with this blog is to get people thinking about retirement differently–and more completely. As a culture, we tend to look at it as a benevolent form of termination. You are done. You will still have money in the bank every month, but you don’t have to do anything to earn it any more. The typical reaction to this is to claim the right to do nothing with gusto–and then jam anything you can find into the day so you can brag about how busy you are.
What we need to do instead is think about how we really WANT to spend our time. And then to follow through to make those things a major part of everyday life. Leisure is only pleasant as an antidote for work. We need to find the things we believe in strongly enough that we want to work on them “just because.”
This blog has been set up in several sections. I will make regular (or semi-regular) posts as what’s going on in the world warrants. But there are also articles written for other publications that are archived here as well. As I get better at it, there will be audio and video (I hope). And we have decided to include a page of events so you know what Mining SIlver is currently doing.
Mining Silver–that is my hope. That each of us finds our own unique value–our silver– and uncovers how to use it after work becomes an option.
Having enough money is a key piece of living the “retirement” stage of life well. But having enough meaning is even more crucial. That is what we will explore on this blog.