When it comes to preparing for retirement, I often advise clients to get some practice in. When you’ve worked consistently for 30 or 40 years, it’s often hard to truly let go of that career mindset and find new purpose in life. By taking the time to practice retirement now, while you still have a few years left to make changes, you’ll gain a great deal of perspective on how you want your golden years to look. I’ve found this kind of exercise helps motivate some clients to accelerate their retirement
plans. For others, they’ve re-examined their priorities with far more clarity. That’s why it’s critical to your long-term retirement
success to have a trial run (or two) before you finally pull the pin. What should a practice retirement look like then?
• Commit as much time as you can. If you’re used to taking a week of holidays here and there, then just one week of practice retirement won’t cut it. If your employment situation allows, try and maximize a significant block of time to live out sample retirement days. You need to feel truly separate and apart from your workplace; something that will take more than a
few days away.
• Avoid work distractions. Many of us have instant access to our offices through phone, email and text. That can be a pro for productivity but a con for self-care. Set your out-of-office reminders and voicemails to direct elsewhere and disconnect as best you can. In retirement, you won’t be answering these calls so practice retirement should be no different!
• Tell someone what you’re doing. You’re far more likely to achieve a goal when you tell someone about it out loud. When preparing for retirement, tell your friends and family what you’re about to do. Let them keep you accountable to testing the waters of post-career life. You’ll feel better about the process and might find some shared support among those around you!
• Truly live it. If you think retirement is golfing 18 holes, seven days a week, then do it. If you think retirement is going to be spending days with grandkids, do it. If you think retirement is going to be about hobbies, volunteering, or lunch with friends, do it. You may have fantasized about your retirement days for years, but until you actually live those dreams out, you’ll never
know how much you’ll truly enjoy them. You may find fishing gets tedious by day five or that gardening doesn’t fill your days like you hoped it would.
A good practice retirement may help pave the way for the real thing. It’s the kind of revealing process that I hope every person can go through, though not all employment circumstances afford it. My biggest takeaway is simply this: you should go into retirement with purpose and 100% confidence that you are going to love how you live your life!
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