Journal Your Way Into A Successful Retirement
JOURNAL YOUR WAY INTO A SUCCESSFUL RETIREMENT
Do you journal? Do you take time during the day to write down your thoughts… your dreams… your ideas or plans? Journaling is a terrific way to express yourself, plan for some future activity, and to plan for a major activity like retirement. It is also a great way to do a brain dump.
A brain dump is a process of writing down things in your head to clear your mind. There is no pattern to a dump, you just write and ‘dump’ your thoughts. You can review and organize it later.
So, have you begun to think about your retirement? Your golden years? Please note that from the author’s experience, there is no gold in the golden years unless you have planned and prepared for it to be there. Meaning, that without preparing for your retirement, your retirement years will probably not be as fulfilling as you hope. Hope is a good word, but without planning you can hope for a good outcome, but it will most likely not happen the way you envision – or even at all – without planning. That’s where journaling can help.
A good retirement journey is made up of many steps. Many steps are considered in advance of retirement and prepared and planned for. This does not mean that everything you plan on will turn out exactly as you plan, but your success rate will be greater when you plan. And good planning can come out of good journaling. So let me tell you how a retirement journal with prompts can be a hu-u-uge help in your planning process.
Just like in life, planning for retirement involves many steps, many options, and many considerations. Some of these considerations are: Money and finances; Why and When to retire; Where to retire; What to do in retirement; To work; To volunteer; Your spouse’s plan; and your Health. These are just a few of the things to consider and without prompts to lead you in the right direction, you can wander around and around without accomplishing much.
So, a journal with prompts is a good place to start. The journal will provide you with prompts to help guide you with your retirement planning. Along with those prompts will be blank pages, or pages with lines, for you to write down your thoughts and ideas. Your thoughts and ideas may be very different from your spouse or partner, and your thoughts and ideas may – and probably will – change as you continue to work on your plan and edge closer to retirement time.
One aspect of retirement planning is self-evaluation, primarily health and mental wellness. If you plan to play a lot of golf, tennis, or other sports, or travel extensively during retirement, you need to be in good physical shape. If you are not in good shape or have bad habits that will affect your health as you age, you need to have a plan to change or eliminate those bad habits. Journaling can help as you write down things to change, give yourself goals, and record successes.
Your mental health is also very important. How do you look at the world and what are your expectations for yourself, your spouse, and your retirement years? How do your expectations and your realities match up? Are you in sync with yourself and your spouse, and are the two of you in sync for each other’s retirement plans? Journaling your state of mind and sharing this information is the first step to making sure you are in sync with each other and the future. If you are not, then you can begin to work on a plan to get there.
As we pointed out earlier in this blog post, there are many things to consider for a successful retirement. Getting organized and starting to plan is a great way to start. Using retirement tools like journals, workbooks and checklists will also aid you along the way. However, you choose to make your plan, just be sure to plan. A good plan, no matter how many times it changes, will lead to a great retirement!
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Written by Diana Fuller
Written by Diana Fuller
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