Retirement:
What It Means To You
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By Kathleen Gurney, Ph.D.
CEO, Financial Psychology Corporation
Set realistic but challenging goals.
Develop a game plan for success. Your game plan and strategy should incorporate your personal and financial information. Don't leave yourself out of this important formula and equation for success.
Stay in control, monitor and update your progress.
Be a futuristic planner.
Start by knowing yourself - Take the Moneymax Personality questionnaire to find out what your financial personality is.
Retirement means different things to different people: embarking on a new career, traveling, learning a new sport. For all of us, however, it is a time which should provide peace of mind and the opportunity to fulfill our dreams, desires, and goals.
The key to a successful retirement is the freedom to have choices. The amount of money you have saved, and the way you have chosen to invest it, will dictate the quantity and quality of the choices you will have. The less money you have when you retire, the fewer choices you will have to realize your dreams and goals.
Saving for Retirement Is A Journey, Not A Destination
When you think about your retirement, think of it as the longest and most important journey you will ever take. It will certainly be one of the most adventuresome, since you aren't certain of the events you'll encounter along the way nor how you'll really spend your time once you get there.
For some of you, that may provide a lot of concern and uneasy feelings because you're the type of person who likes to be well organized, controlling all the details so there are no surprises. If you've started to plan early and make informed and wise investment decisions as well as life choices, you'll be more confident and assured of realizing a secure and successful retirement.
For others, the feeling of uncertainty in life is not as emotionally troublesome. This tendency to be more complacent can produce either positive or negative consequences, depending on how one deals with it. If the tendency creates too much of a complacent feeling, one could easily procrastinate in assuming control of one's money today, not educating oneself and taking advantage of investment opportunities. On the other hand, if the tendency allows one to make confident and rational financial decisions without a lot of worry, then it reinforces positive results.
Worry-Free Retirement
The equation for a successful vacation is educating oneself about what's available and then choosing what looks like the most appealing and suitable destination. A successful vacation requires doing your homework and knowing what you want the time to offer. By the time you're done researching and planning your trip, you're usually confident your trip will be enjoyable.
Planning a successful retirement is similar to planning a successful vacation. It requires knowing yourself and what is appealing and suitable; it requires knowing how you want your money to be used to assure it's success and it requires making sure you can afford to take the trip. Like a successful vacation retirement doesn't materialize instantaneously, it evolves in stages. Generally, we learn more and more as we get involved in the planning. It's the combination of meaningful education and experience that equips individuals for more confident investing and a worry-free retirement, but knowing one's self is essential.
The Choices You Make Today Predict Your Future
Whatever decisions you make today regarding your retirement savings will dictate the financial future you will actually have, the amount of money you will have to provide the freedom and flexibility to do what you would like to do. If you make the decision not to save today, you have actually made the decision to have less money in the future. There are three key factors that make a significant impact on your retirement savings success: how much you save, how long you save it, and how you invest the savings. The sooner you start to save, the more you are able to save. The better you stay the course of your plan, the better your chance to have a secure and successful retirement. You will be making the best use of the money you earn today by saving as soon and as much as possible. If you have a 401(k) savings plan, the plan has the opportunity to multiply significantly over the years, without taxes, and with your employer matching some portion of the amount you save. Likewise, if you invest your taxable savings wisely, you will make the best use of your money and have more money in the future. So it makes sense to learn more about planning for your retirement savings and take greater control of the financial opportunities you have today to assure your predictable future financial destiny.
Charting Your Course and Determining Your Most Advantageous Strategy
Whether you are just embarking on your retirement savings journey or well on your way, it is important to know how you personally want to use that money, your personalized goals and objectives for your retirement savings. What are your expectations for how you want your money to serve your needs?
For some of you, that money is earmarked only for your retirement years. You have successfully met other financial challenges in the past or you will save for them outside of your retirement plan.
For others, you will be forced to use your retirement savings for other events and obligations along the way, buying a home or educating your children. It is important to account for those events in your retirement planning and that makes the planning more challenging. Knowing how much money these events will then require and when you'll need the money is only the first step in assuring that all of these events will be funded. Next, is developing your personalized game plan to make sure you're continually aware of both your short-term and long-term financial goals. Always keeping in mind that you must not forget to pay yourself first and make sure that you'll have enough money saved to successfully achieve your retirement goals.
To make confident investment decisions, you need to know yourself and trust that you're doing what is most appropriate for you. Investing is quite a personal experience. The investments that satisfy you will not necessarily be the investments that will satisfy others, even your spouse. That is because you have different attitudes and feelings about your money, different goals and a unique way of dealing with your money. How you think and feel about your money often makes a significant impact on what you do with it. The more you understand what you want your money to accomplish and the way you will deal with it, the greater likelihood you will have in achieving your money goals.
It is important to take some action on your behalf. Taking action, even a small action on your behalf will increase your sense of confidence in your skills and abilities to make wise investment decisions for yourself. The longer you delay, the greater the opportunity you can pass by in accumulating wealth. The sooner you start saving the greater the chance you'll have to accumulate wealth, achieve your goals and have options. Often the best way to proceed is slowly and steadily. It is better to positively increase your level of comfort so that you don't give up after a setback or uncomfortable feeling of loss. These experiences create a frame of reference from which we can make judgments as to whether actions are appropriate for us or not.
Set realistic but challenging goals.
Develop a game plan for success. Your game plan and strategy should incorporate your personal and financial information. Don't leave yourself out of this important formula and equation for success.
Stay in control, monitor and update your progress.
Be a futuristic planner.
Start by knowing yourself
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www.kathleengurney.com