There are very few things that are certain in the future, but one thing we can count on is that you will retire. What is your retirement goal? Do you know what that looks like?
However it feels, we can believe there are two things are at the root of your retirement dream. First, we know you want to live your life with dignity. No one wants to be stuck asking for handouts or forced to move in with family. You want to have enough financial means to ensure that you do not become a burden to your loved ones. Secondly, we think you deserve to have the grace to make your retirement dreams come true. You deserve to have a choice.
We want to walk you through a brief exercise to help you gain clarity around retirement. We call this The 4 Retirement Futures. The figure below will help you with this exercise.
Your Four Retirement Futures
First, take a moment and think about when you want to retire? Is that five or ten years from now? Whenever it is, this exercise is about where you are today and where you’re headed. In the work we do, helping people prepare for retirement and their financial future beyond, we know that you are likely to end up in one of four situations.
Sadly, too many people are overwhelmed when it comes to thinking about their financial future and trying to plan and prepare for that. Maybe they’re taking a piecemeal approach with no clear sense about how to move forward. They feel like they’re in survival mode, just holding on and not thinking about your future.
And then there are those that are apprehensive. They’re just following the system. If Medicare starts at 65, that’s when they retire. They are doing what everybody else is, but at least they don’t feel stuck. They feel behind, like they’re constantly trying to catch up.
Those people that end up in content feel like they’re better than more, and they probably are, but it’s made them complacent. They can see a destination, and have taken some steps, but they could move beyond complacent to happy.
At happy, they’ve got clarity and confidence that they can live their life with dignity and grace.
Which Line Are You On?
So out of these four places, overwhelmed, apprehensive, content, and happy, where do you want to be? Happy, right? Everyone does. People think the pathway to these circumstances are a straight line, but they're not. The path is a curve, and they accelerate away as time goes on.
So, the curve down to overwhelm accelerates away more rapidly as the years pass. The curve down to apprehensive is still downward, it's just not as steep, while the curve up to content and then steeper curve up to happy also accelerate away but in an upward position.
Which line do you feel you’re on now if nothing changes?
What's Your Next Step?
Line 1, the green line to happy, is really a result of decisive action. The first decisive action is making the choice to jump the line, the second one is to follow the plan. And then, finally, once we get into that rhythm, it's possible that we might have opportunities that we can take to accelerate the results and get to your ideal financial situation for retirement earlier.
If you’d like to jump lines and help get to your happy financial future even faster, book a free fifteen-minute call with us. In this call, we’ll look at your savings, your goals, and when you want to achieve them by. We’ll see what’s possible for you in terms of your plan, security, and growth.
We’ll look at your current situation, how much you’re saving, where you’re saving it, and how much you want to spend, and find out what’s working and what’s not, and what you’ve tried so far.
We’ll identify the number one thing that’s holding you back from confidence, freedom, and wealth, and give you a three-step action plan to get you more growth, clarity, and security even faster. You’ll leave the call feeling clear, confident, and excited about taking your finances to the next level.
To book your free call go to hffinancial.com/schedule-call. There’s a quick form to see if it makes sense for us to talk, because we can’t help everyone, then after that form you will be able to book in a time to chat.