Refresh the soul — Friday the 26th — Change

The Biggest Change Is On Its Way.

If you have trouble accepting change, this will be a big problem for you.

Oh yeah, it’s coming. It has its own unique name:

Retirement

This is what everyone is supposed to look forward to in life. But what if you don’t like change? How’s this going to work for you?

Yes, it is possible to fail at retirement, and there are many reasons for it:

• Fail to plan
• Fail to plan financially
• Failure to create the life you want in retirement

Does your version of your retirement match your financial planning? You can also have the best-laid plans. Once there, you realize that’s too much change.

In the words of the songwriter Paul Simon, “you make a new plan . . . ” How many of us dreamed of becoming . . . something? What you wound up doing, your reality, was quite different. Retirement is like that.

My wife worked for a single company for thirty-five years. After retirement, we moved into our forever retirement home to find that it was not as expected. We spent two years making it ours, our dream. After we finished, within ten days, my wife (and the singer, Peggy Lee) said, “Is that all there is?”

As a young person, your attitude, your position, your home, and even friends had to change because of circumstances. You probably didn’t like that either.

Retirement will be no different. If you’re like us, we don’t golf, play tennis, pickle ball, or handball. No, balls that are in play have a place in our retirement.

I’m A type and my wife is B or C depending on where she finds herself and with whom. If I’m with her, she’s probably a C type. She’s happy to have me represent us both. When by herself, she’s a solid B, borderline A.

The point is, neither of us can just sit and wait for something to happen. We make it happen. She said, I’m going back to work. I built three companies before I fully retired again last year. Or did I retire?

Every day I spend two to three hours writing. I’ve written two books since I fully retired in August of last year.

In Summary

Even if your retirement begins in the next few months. Unless you want RETIREMENT to weigh you down, you had better do a bit of simple planning.

Oh, please don’t expect those plans to be permanent. However, each time you make a change, it will refresh your soul. If you let it.