The Most Important Part of a Great Retirement

When you listen to the majority of people talk about retirement, you start hearing words like retirement calculator, which when you look at it begin to sweat as you realize you're far beyond schedule. You know what I mean!

After counting the number of years until you retire, the next thing that's talked about the most is how do you save and invest enough money for retirement.

That's when you get into all sorts of interesting and frustrating, and in some cases - scary possibilities.

You hear so many financial planning and investment terms from the "professionals," that after the first couple options your eyes are pointed at each other and you're ready to quit before you begin. 

You know the drill. How much risk can you work with? What retirement investment plan do you want to use? Where do you want to be for retirement income when you take the plunge? And on an on.

It's not that these things are bad in and of themselves, as they're necessary from the practical point of view. But that's the secondary part of a successful retirement. The primary part is enjoying the time you do retire.

People get scared to death of retirement, probably men more than women, as they think there's nothing they'll be able to do and they'll wither up and die. And those that think that way, in reality, many times do. 

To me the best part of a retirement plan is to imagine the great and interesting things you'll be able to do, with all the time in the world to do it on a daily basis.

There are so many things I'm thinking about. For example, I really enjoy gardening, writing, working on the computer, learning to make quality videos, etc.

Just those few things in themselves could keep someone busy the rest of their lives.

Many of you reading this probably have a dozen or so yourself you're thinking of doing.

Once you imagine your retirement, it's not a burden, drag, or something scary to face, but something you can't wait for to come about.

In that light, then working on things like how to achieve your retirement income goals aren't a negative thing to do, but a positive and uplifting one.

I've been a financial advisor in the past, and have found that many people think of savings and investing as a form of negatively robbing themselves of present desires and wants.

But that's far from the truth. Those with a mindset of instantaneous gratification always come to deep troubles in their lives, as they do everything only for the day while telling themselves to not worry about tomorrow.

In reality what's really happening is they're not wanting to face their eventual tomorrow, and so when tomorrow comes, they're not prepared. Consequently, many of their hopes and dreams fade out of existence because they couldn't, or really wouldn't, sacrifice some of their present wants for future desires.

To me those that do this simply don't have a strong imagination and dream of where they want to be 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years from now.

The secret is to have a strong dream. It doesn't necessarily have to be a huge one, but one that would be satisfying and fulfilling when you reach there. That's what will keep you going when you get discouraged.

When we believe that, it's not a perceived hardship to save and invest for our retirements, as we'll consider it a down-payment on a fantastic future.

We just need to keep our focus on the end of the race and not what we may be missing if we enter into retirement savings and investing in order to provide for our great dreams and ideas.

It's not that we're locking ourselves into a specific thing, as we can adapt and adjust as things as change as we grow older.

We are not trapping ourselves, we're setting ourselves up for success. For as we keep our future dreams before us, we will automatically begin to take the needed steps to get there.

From there we can learn the practicals and the best plans to make within our comfort zones.

If we start with the plans first, we'll usually ultimately fail, as it's just not enough to save money for something that is dark and murky and has no identifiable future to it. Start with a dream or dreams, and plan from there.

So live in the present while looking in anticipation to the future. Those that do will find a way and do the needed homework to have a truly successful and great retirement.