I met Judy, at a local shopping centre. I retired a few weeks ago.
She was a client of mine, many years ago, but we had not maintained the close ‘client’ relationship as her needs did not fit into the normal profile of a financial planning client. After all, she was single, no debt, plenty of leave (including long service leave), lots of sick leave entitlements and was a member of a very generous government retirement plan which provided excellent cash benefits together with a very generous inflation linked pension.
As is often the case, Judy had a strong belief that Retirement is all about ‘money’.
Her work, as a senior diplomat in the Department of Foreign Affairs, required her commitment to long hours of intense work. When I last saw her in the work environment, it was literally work, work, work.
After the usual pleasant greetings, I asked her what she was doing with her life. She explained that she had recently retired from the Department and that she was enjoying doing nothing for the first time in many years.
I asked her what she was actually doing and she repeated that she was basically doing nothing and trying to work out what to do in Retirement. After all, she had given little thought as to how to make her Retirement enjoyable and worthwhile as she had been too busy. Little time had been spent in the preparation phase of her retirement.
As Retirement Coach, I decided to continue with the conversation, and asked her what she was actually doing with her life. Again, she repeated that she was doing nothing, but thinking about what to do in retirement. I encouraged the conversation a little more, and explained to her that you can’t do nothing….you must be doing something during the day and evening. Frankly, she said, I have no plans and very little direction, but I am enjoying it.
Well, I said, was the one thing that you do every day?
I always take my dog for a walk. That’s great, I said, plenty of time for enjoyable thoughts, appreciating the beauty of Canberra and getting exercise. How far do you walk, each day? I walk a minimum of 4 kms per day, seven days a week and never miss a day.
I decided to move away from the challenging questions and asked how her parents were enjoying their Retirement. I had met them, many years ago. Well, Judy said, they are in very rude health, in their 90s and still live near here.
Do you think you will live as long as they have lived? Yes, given a reasonable amount of luck, I will probably live that long. They don’t suffer from any dementia and I hope I will not!
So, I asked, ‘How do you feel about walking your dog(s) 44,000 kms?’
What you talking about? Judy asked.
Well, if you live as long as Mum and Dad, you would have lived another 11,000 days and having taken your dog(s) for a walk every day, you would have walked 44,000 kms?
You are joking! Judy said.
No, 365 days x 30 years x 4 kms = about 44,000 km. There has to be more to Retirement, than walking your dog(s) 44,000 km!
And there we have the problem with most people who are entering Retirement. Little planning, no real understanding of the overall issues and the naive belief that they will just ‘is work it out’ is.
My experience shows me that very few people have an exceptional Retirement without the preparation phase. Are they happy? Yes, may be. But they have not thought through the real options which can help create an exciting retirement?
Planning to do nothing….is not one of the options.
After all, Retirement is about doing nothing…..until you realise it’s not.
