Money is not the most important thing.
Retirement is a scary and exciting word at the same time. It is scary because it is full of unknowns, and it is exciting because it opens up a whole new set of possibilities.
I am going to share with you 3 ideas that will help you to create an exciting, more realistic, and more personal retirement plan that caters only to you.
Don’t worry about money.
I am not saying don’t think about it. But don’t do that before doing the next 2 steps.
Most people make the mistake of only focusing on how much money they need after retirement. The problem is money is not the end, it is only a mean to an end.
It is like saving money to buy a house, if you don’t know what kind of house you want to buy, you will never know how much you have to save and you will either over or under-estimate the cost.
Know yourself, more specifically, know your values
This is probably the most difficult and most time-consuming part because a majority of people don’t really know their values.
What are your values? Your values are things that you treasure the most. It can be something tangible but most of the time, they are not.
They are things that give you joy, make you fulfilled, or give you a purpose.
For example, my values are vitality, growth, connection, and contribution.
Don’t just plan, plan and validate
After you find your values, and come up with an initial plan, which I will go into detail about in the subsequent articles, the next thing you need to do is to validate.
For example, if one of your values is to seek new experiences, and you plan to get an RV and travel across the country with your significant others. Don’t start researching for a new RV, or worst, taking out a 2nd mortgage to pay for one. Rent an RV and do a road trip for a week or two to see whether it is something you enjoy doing.
You can also take the same baby-step approach to test anything you want to do in the future to validate your assumption.
What is next?
There it is, 3 ideas that help you to start thinking about your retirement more systematically.
Your assignment for the next couple of days is to start thinking about your values.
If you already know your values, then write them down. If not, my next article will talk about how to find your values. Stay tune…