Senior executives can find the transition to retirement more challenging than others as their status and social life is built around their work, according to Stanford Brown.
The private wealth advisory firm’s director, Vincent O’Neill, said anyone looking at retirement over the next 10 years needed to start planning for what life would look like and not to only focus on financial aspects.
“Retirement can mean very different things to different people, and we encourage our clients who are contemplating life after fulltime work to spend time envisioning and planning their future years, from all perspectives,” he said.
“Going ‘cold turkey’ into retirement is never a good idea, and we often see people struggling with the first few years of retirement because they haven’t spent enough time thinking about what they want their lifestyle to look like, well before they retire.”
O’Neill noted that senior executives could find transition into retirement more challenging as they were less connected externally with long-standing social networks.
He said one of the biggest challenges for people was learning that their job was not who they were and that it was important for people to ask themselves what they were retiring to, not just focusing on from what they were retiring.
“Anyone who defines themselves by their work, profession, or stature will find retirement to be a big challenge,” he said.
“The secret is to identify where they funnel their energy now, and what kinds of things keep them mentally active. Busy retirees tend to be the happiest when they are doing things they enjoy.
“For couples, planning the daily or weekly activities in advance of retirement is extremely important, to ensure they are both on the same page.”
Just as the finances are important to consider in planning for retirement, so too are the lifestyle issues. Having a plan regarding what you are going to do in retirement/ your next life/ second life is very important.
A lifestyle portfolio is important to ensure you include different areas of your life and it is not too concentrated in one area. For example the lifestyle portfolio may have:
* Occupations which may include part time work, mentoring, consulting work
* Hobbies, some of which may generate additional income
* Volunteering that could include service clubs, church groups, special causes
* As well as leisure pursuits.
We wrote of 101 people, we met around Australia, in Retire Bizzi – who had retired, not like it, or retired and wanted to do something different. People doing amazing things – some were profitable hobbies, some were small businesses.
And. Don’t underestimate the importance of a previous career title …for many people they tend to say, ‘I used to be’…not what they are doing now.