How can I live life to the full when I retire?

How can I live life to the full when I retire?

In the run-up to retirement, people often say they want to try new things and make the most of life, yet many never quite manage it. One reason is something psychologists call continuity theory: our instinctive preference to stay just as we are. Overcoming that inertia is one of the keys to a truly fulfilling retirement.

In this video, retirement expert Barry LaValley explains how to match your words with action, and why a good financial planner can help you do it. His advice is to do as much as you can, as early as you can, and hope you can keep doing it for thirty years, because life is meant to be lived. That doesn't mean squandering your resources; one of the biggest and most justifiable fears in retirement is outliving your money. But nor should you become a prisoner to your finances. As his grandmother put it, you cut your coat according to your cloth: work out how much you have, then go and live life to the fullest, so you never reach a point where you're forced to say, "I wish I had."

You'll also learn the five conditions that, according to positive psychology, contribute most to a happy retirement. The first is positive engagement, keeping as optimistic an outlook as you can. The second is engagement in life itself, a sense of purpose and a reason to get out of bed. The third is relationships, which do more for healthy ageing than almost anything else. The fourth is meaningful activities, doing things that make you feel relevant and valued. And the fifth is achievement, the need to accomplish something, however small, each and every day.

The takeaway: a fulfilling retirement has surprisingly little to do with money itself. It's built on purpose, optimism, relationships, meaningful activity and a daily sense of achievement. Yet these are all things a good financial planner can help you think through and plan for, so that when the time comes, you're ready to live your retirement to the full rather than looking back with regret.

Chapters / Key points

• Why people struggle to try new things in retirement
• What continuity theory is and how it holds us back
• Why a financial planner can help you match words with action
• Barry LaValley's advice: do as much as you can, as early as you can
• Balancing living fully against the fear of outliving your money
• "Cutting your coat according to your cloth"
• The five conditions for a happy retirement
• Positive engagement, purpose, relationships, meaningful activity and achievement
• Why a fulfilling retirement is about far more than money

Transcript

How can I live life to the full when I retire?

Robin Powell: In the run-up to retirement, people often say they want to try new things and get the most out of life. But there's something that psychologists call continuity theory, which often stops that happening. To put it simply, we instinctively prefer to stay as we are.

Retirement expert Barry LaValley says a good financial planner can help you to match words with action.

Barry LaValley: My view on it is, you do as much as you can as quickly as you can, and hope you can do it for thirty years. I believe life is meant to be lived. Now, that doesn't mean that, in the first years of you being in control of this life, that you take all your financial resources and squander them. Because one of the big fears, and justifiably so, is you might outlive your money. At the same time, you don't want to be a prisoner to anything, particularly your financial resources.

So, figure out what you've got, my grandmother used to call it cutting your coat by your cloth, you've got to figure out how much cloth you have, and then just go and live life to its fullest. Because, you see, life will change and there will come a point, may come a point, when you can't live the life that you want. And in the meantime, I don't want you to enter that period of life going, "Darn, I wish I had."

Robin Powell: What, then, are the main contributors to a fulfilled retirement? Barry suggests there are five important ones.

Barry LaValley: I think we should focus on what positive psychology actually tells us that happiness is, based on our responses internally to the world that we live in. And there's five conditions that people should be aware of, each one of these contributes to happiness, and they are: one, that you should have positive engagement in life, you should really feel like your outlook and everything is going to be as optimistic as you can make it. So, positive energy. The second is going to be your engagement in life itself: feeling that life has purpose, feeling that there's a reason for you to get out of bed.

The third one is your relationships: we get more from our relationships than anything else that we do, as it relates to healthy ageing. The fourth one is meaningful activities: doing things that are important, things that make us feel relevant, make us feel like we have value. And then the fifth one is achievement: we need achievement, we need it each and every day.

Robin Powell: So, when planning your retirement, those are the five key things you should focus on. No, none of them has very much at all to do with money. But they are all issues that a good financial planner can help you with.