The New Retire-Mentality

Planning Your Life and Living your Dreams ... at any age you want - Mitch Anthony

Traditional view of Retirement - we should do what we don't enjoy to accumulate the money we need someday do what we want.
"Once we become adults, we often lose track of life's simple pleasures and of our own personal goals. We take a wrong turn or two, then spend a good part of our lives doing things we'd rather not - while not doing many things we'd enjoy. While we may obsess about how unhappy we are, we don't focus clearly on what we can do to change the situation: on how we can invest our time, energy and, yes, our money to consciously create the life we want." - Marc Eisenson, author, Invest in Yourself: Six Secrets to a Rich Life.

But we should be living the life we want and don't put the money cart ahead of the life horse. Be creative and a new mind set, you can both find and fund the life you really want.

People think retirement is a spectator sport and watching from the sideline. Life is more exciting if you are in the game! Liberty is about do what you want when you want to. Because I value freedom so much, I exercise the necessary discipline to maintain it.

Traditional retirement is unnatural. Even if you can afford to retire, the worst thing you can do is withdraw completely from the race. People are happier if they are busy doing what they love. Rethink what Retirement mean to you.

Recent study conducted by Gallup and Paine Webber - Retirement Revisited reveals details of what investors want to do after they retire. 85% said they want to continue work in some for. Respondents' answer fell into the following 5 categories:
1. I want to work as long as I can (doing what I do now) - 15%
2. I want to become an entrepreneur - 26%
3. I want to find a new job - 34%
4. I want to find some balance between work and life - 10%
5. I want the "traditional" retirement - 15%

"Retirement is changing. Many individuals are retiring from their career professions only to take on new work. These changes point to the need for reshaping our ideas and institutions associated with retirement and developing new perspectives on the nature of work." - Dr. Phyllis Moen, Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center.

If there is no finish line, we will begin to focus on doing working today that capitalizes on our gifts and gives expression to our deepest-felt desire. Instead, we can begin to make choices that are not based on money but on doing work that brings us a sense of purpose and satisfaction.

Work may always be a part of your Life. Work provide great intangible rewards to our mind and spirit, etc.

How one ages successfully
"No one but me will define what my life will be" - Paige. An attitude to help to live longer.
A sense of Mastery to describe how individuals must believe in their ability to influence events and control their outcomes to be positive and productive in their later years. A person who takes a passive approach to life and lacks the ability to take action will experience a lack of productivity at any age. If people are willing to try new things in their mature years, their self-reliance and effectiveness can flourish to all-time highs.

"I've noticed an interesting phenomenon with my retired friends who have become ill and/or died a short time into their retirement. The physical malady almost always seemed to be preceded by a mental one - boredom. They are disengaged from the part of their being that gave them satisfaction their entire life. They'd try to fulfill themselves on the golf course or through some exotic travel but kept coming back to the same problem. They felt too young and useful to be 'goofing off' all the time. If they didn't respond to this problem with some meaningful pursuit, they just seemed to get sick, and sometimes they died. For these people, a life of ease was really one step from a life of disease." - Art, retired attorney, 70

"The only thing that has ever made me feel old is those few times where I allow myself to be predictable. Routine is death." - Carlos Santana.

"I am long on ideas but short on time. I expect to live to be only about a hundred" - Thomsas Edison

One way to keep these powerful internal forces alive in our life is to continue being engaged in work and activities that place a demand on our physical, mental, and creative resources.

It is only when we start looking backward and talking about life in the past tense that we know the process of old has begun in our life. "I don't ever look back; he might be gaining on me."

3 indicators of successful aging are:
1. Avoiding disease and disability
2. Maintaining mental and physical function
3. Continuing engagement with life.

First key to aging successfully is to take an interest in yourself. Those who succeed are self-respecting enough to keep their bodies fit, their minds challenged, and their hearts engaged. There are many paths one can :
1. Maintaining a social network of friends and associates
2. Continuing education and mental challenge
3. Exercising your body
4. Giving to others and being needed

Researchers concluded that new retirees need a social network more than they did when they are working.

"Much of whatwe think of as aging is really just a by-product of inactivity and poor nutrition, and it's not hard to change that." - Miriam Nelson

You don't have to be 65 do do what you want to do
" A wealthy businessesman was horrified to see a fisherman sitting beside his boat, playing with a small child. "Why aren't you out fishing?" asked the businessman. "Because I caught enough fish for one day," replied the fisherman. "Why don't you catch some more?" "What would I do with them?" "You could earn extra money," said the businessman, "then with the extra money, you could buy a bigger boat, go into deeper waters, and catch more fish. Then you would make enough money to buy nylon nets. With the nets, you could catch even more fish and make more money. With that money you could own two boats, may be three boats. Eventually you could have a whole fleet of boats and be rich like me." "Then what would I do?" asked the fisherman. "Then," said the businessman, "you could really enjoy life." The fisherman looked at the businessman quizzically and asked, "What do you think I am doing now?"

"It's not important to run on the fast track but on your track. Pretend you only have 6 months to live, and make 3 lists. Things you have to do, things you want to do, and things you neither have to do nor want to do. Then for the rest of your life, forget everything on the third list." - Robert Elliot

Boxes of Life
1. Up to age 22 or so - Education
2. Age 22 to 62 - Work
3. 62 to death - Leisure

The desired life course is one integrates all of these aspects of life into a balanced approach to everyday living. A great life is one in which we are constantly learning something new, engaging in work that challenges and fulfills us, and reserving time for rest and relaxation. It is a most unnatural life that tries to squeeze these 3 activities into one box of the lifeline. Happiness and fulfillment for a lifetime come when we learn to fluidly integrate all three.

"Fear not that your life will come to an end but that it will never have a beginning." - John Henry Newman.

"One day my daughter asked me to come out and play. I said, 'No, Honey, Dad's too busy.' My daughter said, 'You're always too busy' and went out to play. That night I kept turning it over in my head. Why do I work hard? Answer: to get freedom. Why do I want freedom? Answer: to spend time with those I love. When am I going to have this freedom or make getting it a priority? Answer: probably about the time my kids are gone. I realized I had put myself in a vicious cycle of motion and money and had everything turned upside down." - Ted

Meaningful life - a life full of meaning. There are many aspects of our life that give us a sense of fulfillment - family, achievement, exploration, freedom.

7 intangibles
1. Happiness is wanting what you already have - things won't make us happier. "Money won't make you happy, but neither will poverty." Happiness is a state of mind and not a state of material ownership.
2. Fulfillment is optimizing the use of your abilities - doing things that you love to do.
3. Balance is walking the tightrope between too much and not enough - work, family and leisure - when we get them in balance we enjoy life. There is a fine balance to be achieved in attending to the physical, emotional, social and spiritual sides of our being.
4. Satisfaction is improving the quality of our efforts and relationships - constantly striving to improve key relationships in our life, and if we are living in a thoughtful, self-examined life, we will feel a sense of satisfaction
5. Security is possessing the freedom to pursue our goals - a sense of security when we know we will have the freedom to continuing pursuing those goals in work, family and leisure.
6. Significance is making the best use of time - to feel they are making contribution that is signficant.
7. Success is the satisfaction of reaching our goals - a sense of success start with first having a goal.

Your life is not about making money - your money is about making a life. These 7 intangibles cannot be bought, but you can easily sell them out.

You can adjust your current situation to make a more balanced life. Being willing to shift circumstances if it can help you procure a more balanced lifestyle (trading the amount of money make to a balanced lifestyle). Living within or below your means to move faster to make it financially vitable. Forming a plan to use the money you have to purchase the life you want.

"I have come to the conclusion that more retirements will fail for non-financial reasons rather than for financial reasons" - Michael Stein, author, The Prosperous Retirement

The Prosperous retirement wheel - money is at the hub of Stein's wheel, but eight spokes come out from this center - physical health, mental health, diet, exercise, social relations, personal relations, intellectual stimulation, and spiritual balance.

"Many people are so occupied with getting out of a career trap that they seem to care little about what happens after they leave their jobs. Despite the fact they have planned other aspects of their lives, they seem to feel retirement will take care of itself. The opposite is often true." - Edwood Chapman

Future retirees need to be asking what they want to do with their life during retirement, and what the personal implications of retirement are for them. Baby boomers are looking for a meaningful role in their later adulthood. Money is important to them, but so is the quality of life in their retirement. People have to make plans to occupy their mind, time, and energies in retirement.

In all stages of our life, we need to understand what matters most to us and create strategies so we can concentrate most of our time in the areas we care about.