It’s said that only 10 people in the world know the recipe for Heinz Tomato Ketchup. Another legend is that only two KFC executives know all the spices for the company’s famous chicken, and a third is that Coca-Cola’s various secret recipes are so protected that the two people who know them can’t fly on the same plane.

But secret recipes aren’t reserved for billion-dollar companies alone. We all have our own secret recipes as well. Whether it’s a generation’s old family cookie, a side dish reserved exclusively for a special holiday, or a mix of spices that come to life with the right cut of meat on the grill, there’s a time-tested, proven process for delivering something special and meaningful.

Unfortunately, the same idea doesn’t hold true for retirement. There isn’t a special, age-old recipe handed down from one generation to the next that ensures people make a smooth transition from work life to home life. Instead, we continue to cook up old and outdated retirement plans that don’t always taste great and can leave people hungry for more—because they only look at the financial aspects. In other words, we end up leaving out some key ingredients that might have helped us “plate” retirement better for clients, and also enhanced the flavor it provides for them.

Over the last 15 years of studying the psychology of retirement, speaking to and training clients as well as financial professionals on the topic, and writing more than 800 articles on the importance and merits of it, I’ve come up with a secret sauce or special recipe. It’s one that includes a short list of non-financial ingredients that both clients and advisors can indulge in, guilt free, or sprinkle liberally over all of their retirement planning conversations.

I will share up front that this isn’t your typical list of concrete items you can just pick off the shelf and slap together. There’s much more skill to the personal side of retirement that doesn’t come overnight. Which is why it’s so important for advisors who want to be innovators and pioneers in this new era of retirement to jump headfirst into the trenches and start having deeper, more meaningful conversations about life after work. These are skills that will make you stand out and be recognized as a thought leader, which is going to be essential if market performance is the only thing keeping some clients around. Therefore, let’s start the special recipe for a successful retirement.

Secret ingredient No. 1 is a mindset than serves as the base for the rest of the dish. It’s the idea that there is no single, best way to make a cookie or retire. I know great-grandma did it this way and everyone loved it. But six sticks of butter and a year’s worth of chocolate chips don’t work for everyone’s nutritional needs or taste buds. This is so important because no specific sum of money or the attainment of any specific age will ensure happiness in retirement. We have to stop using age and assets as the primary factors for making retirement decisions. They are only two of 10 or maybe 20 things that should be taken into account, and they are the major reasons so many people fail at retirement and waste some of their best years wondering why retirement doesn’t look or feel right.

Fact is, it may be best for some people and personality types to work longer. Others may prefer to leave their primary career and work part time or seasonally to support their desired lifestyle rather than sacrifice their marriage, health or time with kids to save a giant lump sum of money and end up alone. Introverts have different needs for social networks or outside purpose than extroverts do … and there’s a major difference between the way people with kids and grandkids may want to retire and the way a solo ager does. So let’s stop saying the secret recipe is age 62, 65 or 70 and a million or two dollars.

I have a client who goes to an obscure part of Arizona each winter and rents a double-wide trailer with her two dogs. I have another client who rents a $6,500-a-month palatial pad in northern Florida for the first three months of every year. My conversations with both of them always mirror each other. Each one is living their best life and couldn’t see doing anything different.

The fact that there is no single best way to retire lends itself to Secret No. 2: Know yourself. Many people may not realize it, but ancient philosophers had this part of retirement figured out thousands of years ago. In fact, some of the most influential and pivotal figures in both Eastern and Western philosophy suggested that knowing and examining yourself was essential for a meaningful life. For example, Aristotle said, “Happiness depends upon ourselves,” while his forerunner Socrates suggested, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

This is powerful information for advisors because it shows them the retirement journey is personal, something that advisors must know if they want to help clients make the most of it—a personal journey that needs to be discussed and examined before clients retire and rethought as they make their way through it. In other words, there is a crucial human factor here that can’t be replaced, outsourced or minimized with fee compression. That ability to help never goes out of style and there is always a need for it, especially if you’re good at it.

One of the biggest trends I have seen in our business is the increased presence and power of Gen X clients. This group is nestled between some much bigger generations and they haven’t made many waves, but they are the first generation to know you have to save in a 401(k) from an early age and that Social Security may not be there. So more 45- and 50-year-olds are walking into my office with close to a million bucks but no real plan or vision for retirement.

They’ve had their heads down for years and are finally looking up and need help developing a more personal plan for what’s next for them. More often than not, they want to start making some work and lifestyle changes that don’t fit the typical playbook, meaning they want to talk about making an impact instead of money, and making sure they don’t duplicate their parents’ personal and career mistakes, some of which were made at the earliest stages of retirement.

Which is a great introduction to secret ingredient No. 3: Understand the honeymoon phase of retirement.

We all know that clients work hard to reach retirement, so it’s not uncommon for them to want to just relax and do nothing for the first few weeks. The problem is, we are creatures of habit, and once those habits settle in, they are hard to break. That can mean a couple of weeks on the couch turn into a couple of months, and the extra weight a client may have put on as a freshman in college pales in comparison with what they put on as an older adult.

Also, if they immediately lose their connection to friends and co-workers, it might be hard for them to reconnect later.

One recent study by Ameriprise found that two-thirds of recent retirees (66%) said they had challenges adapting to retirement. Their difficulties might be compounded by transitions such as a late-in-life divorce, the loss of a loved one, or a health issue that sidelines them and limits their mental or physical ability or robs them of key family members and friends.

For advisors, that means clients need goals and specific things to do in the first 30 days of retirement, not just a pat on the back and a “Way to go!” For example, they might make checklists of things to do to replace their work identities, fill their time, stay relevant and connected, and keep mentally and physically active. That’s how you make the honeymoon phase work for them instead of against them.

As you might expect, I have a handful of other ingredients, things like self-reflection, critical thinking, and (my personal favorite) passing on wisdom rather than wealth. But let’s be honest, I can’t give them all to you here or it wouldn’t really be a secret recipe.   

Robert Laura is a best-selling author, nationally syndicated columnist and president of Wealth & Wellness Group. He is a seasoned conference speaker, corporate trainer and the founder of the Certified Professional Retirement Coach designation, which focuses on the non-financial aspects of life after work. He can be reached at [email protected].