What if there was a video game where people could put on a pair of virtual reality goggles and experience life in retirement? Players could create their own avatar, live anywhere in the country, watch their computer-generated grandkids graduate from an Ivy League college, and even accept a Pulitzer Prize for their recently penned autobiography.

A perfect virtual day could start with coffee in Paris, a long walk on a beach in Hawaii, an afternoon meditation at the base of Mount Everest, then some leisurely reading of a great classic novel while sailing on the high seas. It would be perfect! Until they took off the glasses and were confronted with reality, which today includes a global pandemic, social unrest, a widening wealth gap and an ever-growing political divide. These are the goggles that our clients are looking through, and now more than ever they need more than our financial advice to sort it out.

I would love to tell you that I have all of the answers and that things are poised to turn around and get back to normal, but they’re not. Even so, we can’t risk losing our clients’ best laid retirement plans to the current mayhem that seems to be directing many people’s lives.

The U.S. Army came up with an acronym to describe periods like this in the late 1980s: It’s called “VUCA”—an acronym for “volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.” It describes an approach for thinking and contextualizing when systems face failure and group behavior changes. Quite frankly, I think it would have been the perfect name for this pandemic: VUCA-20 instead of Covid-19, because let’s face it, these four factors describe a lot of what life looks and feels like today.

The military developed the idea in response to our constantly changing and rapidly evolving world. Since then, it has become a staple of the business world as an approach to strategic planning. As you might expect, it can also be applied to retirement planning.

It’s an important approach for a number of reasons. First, much of the research and statistics we have on life in retirement has quickly become outdated. I recently came across the Society of Actuaries’ “2019 Risks and Process of Retirement Survey,” looking at the non-financial aspects of retirement.

The survey made a number of discoveries. Eleven percent of the retirees said adjusting to retirement was emotionally challenging. Only a quarter felt that they had adjusted immediately or within a year. A little less than half said they were “somewhat happier” than they were when they first retired. Thirty-eight percent said they only occasionally feel lonely in retirement. Only 12% said they felt lonely often or very often.

The research is great, but the society also correctly noted that these results may change as a result of Covid-19. Actually, they already have. Parents are worried about their adult children whose careers and lives are being delayed or postponed. Many teachers and school administrators are now considering retirement because of the new technology demands placed on them. Similarly, many first responders are feeling constant stress and threat amid the pandemic and social unrest and are leaving the ranks in droves.

These are just some of the people we serve whose thoughts and feelings are changing—and who are working overtime as they process all of these new things.

In a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, these people might feel anxious or less motivated. They might feel their lives or careers have stalled, that they are frozen when it comes to decision making. Their health and well-being are also at risk, and that might cause them to self-medicate.

So when we take off the VR goggles, we see this list of horrors and must figure out how to cope. This also makes the VUCA approach valuable. First, it concisely frames the way people are feeling.

Second, it gives them something to grab on to at a time of volatility—rapid fluctuations in the stock market, people’s income, businesses, relationships and health. People don’t know when they will be able to travel again, freely socialize with others, go back to the office or take off their masks. Nor do they know what direction our country will be headed in the next four years.

The VUCA approach has also forecast today’s complexity. Everything seems more complicated to our clients, whether they are trying to figure out their newly updated phones, effectively use Zoom videoconferencing or other meeting applications, determine what places they are physically allowed into, or determine whether they will still have a place in a changing workforce. There are an increasing number of things people have to think about and analyze as they make decisions.

The ambiguity part of the model helps us deal with the fact that it’s getting harder and harder to sort out what’s right and wrong. The black and white world that many of our clients grew up in doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and that adds to their stress and anxiety.

Everyone deals with the new reality with greater and lesser success. Some people may in fact feel stable in their health, income or relationships. Others may have adopted the new technology with confidence. The goal is to highlight how people are thinking and feeling and then help them develop strategies to cope.

I’m not suggesting you call all your clients and ask them if they are familiar with VUCA and launch into a dissertation on it. I think it’s something that can be put into a blog, newsletter or podcast and then used as a reference point for further discussions.

In addition to laying out the problems clients may be facing, advisors will also want to provide some strategies for dealing with them. One thing advisors can do to help their clients cope with volatility is force them to keep their values in mind. This starts by asking a client to write down their top five values, which ought to be the basis of any decisions they make. They might be losing track of those values in times of turmoil. But when their decisions support their values, it feels good to them and instills confidence.

Additionally, advisors should ask clients to look ahead at best-case scenarios, which will offer some stability in their thinking and future goals.

To deal with uncertain times and time frames, clients must focus on what they know and can control—namely, their attitude and personal well-being. By being open-minded and flexible, by focusing on keeping their bodies and minds healthy, the clients will find that the uncertainty takes a back seat because they are giving less time and attention to it.

It seems tough to tackle or eliminate the world’s complexity. That’s why clients need to look at adding people and resources to their teams. They may need to talk to a therapist to help process things, find a personal trainer or nutritionist to help them get healthy, or join an online club that meets regularly to eliminate boredom. By adding people to support and guide them, they won’t have to figure out all the moving parts on their own.

In our ambiguous world, many competing ideas and opinions can skew a client’s thoughts and feelings, and that means they can’t take things at face value. They need to be lifelong learners and identify places and people (like you the advisor) they can turn to when they need to re-center their moral compass. This includes being open to new ideas and exploring emerging topics.

The idea of VUCA won’t necessarily be used by game developers to create that next virtual reality game, but advisors can use the topic to help clients deal with our rapidly evolving and ever-changing world. It will not only help them understand the way they are thinking and feeling, but also get them back on track to make the most of their time and life in retirement.

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].