Direction And Achievement
First and foremost, a written non-financial retirement plan gives clients a path to take and focus on when they lose their work routine and identity and have a smaller social network. This is so essential to a successful transition, because without a plan it’s easy for the honeymoon phase to last six months to a year, rather than 30 to 60 days.
As a result, people can get lazy and feel lonely and disconnected if they don’t keep up with others and find new things to occupy their time and mind. Furthermore, many people enter retirement without a way to measure their success during it. I often ask people, “How will you know if you are winning at retirement?” Most respond, “I don’t know.” A written plan provides that direction as well as a set of things to work toward and accomplish.
Process Emotions While Aiming Higher
Retirement is not what it used to be. People don’t just retire and head off to the rocking chair. Clients today refer to it as their next act or second act because they plan to use their time and resources to do something that is important to them. By helping a client start down this path before they retire, advisors are essentially giving them a head start. Just as my dad encouraged me to think and plan ahead, so should clients. That way, they don’t have to wait until they are actually retired to start trying to figure it all out. They are walking into retirement better prepared.
Reducing Stress And Increasing Commitment
I have said countless times that retirement is the most anticipated phase of life but also one that is the least understood. People assume it’s this perfect time where everything goes right. But it’s not. Retirement can be stressful—in fact, it’s one of the top 10 most stressful life events.
This can cause people to waver about their decisions. We’ve all had clients who frequently change their retirement dates or time lines. There always seems to be a reason to keep working and saving money. But a written plan interrupts that pattern because clients no longer face the same voids in life after work when they have an actual plan and when they start talking about things they want outside of work. The plan changes the focus from where they are at to where they can be … and that makes people much more likely to follow through and stay committed.
Memory Lapse
People forget things and their minds can wander. This doesn’t change when clients get to retirement. In my “Naked Retirement” workshops, one of the most common things I hear from retired people is that while they were working they would say, “When I’m retired, I’m going to do this or that,” but when they got there, they couldn’t remember those things.
That’s why, again, writing things down can be so helpful. Things clients want to see, do, experience, pick back up, visit or accomplish. It’s the perfect solution for figuring out what they need to do when they don’t know what to do.
While these are just a few of the many benefits to a written non-financial retirement plan, the reality is the financial services industry can no longer afford to let clients approach retirement planning from the bottom up.
We have to start at the top, by focusing first on clients and their overall well-being, and then connect that back to their savings and income. Doing so would create a sweeping change in how our clients view us and the relationships we have with them.
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 pioneer in “The New Era Of Retirement” which focuses on the non-financial aspects of life after work. He can be reached at [email protected].