Can You Afford Retirement? Debunking the Myths Holding You Back

Welcome back to the episode. So have you wondered if you'll have enough to retirement or if it will last through retirement? Again, this episode is for you. And by the end of this episode, my goal is to have you finding an action area, at least one, and also knowing what next step is available to take with me. A couple of months ago, I had a client come to me with a very similar question. Will I have enough money? Can I catch up? Is this even possible? She's really just questioning everything. She's about 10 years away from retirement. Knows she needs to start looking at it. She doesn't have a grasp on where her money is going. She's not accumulating debt. There's no negativity that way. She's able to pay off her credit card monthly. She only has a mortgage and that was due to a life event. But yet she's questioning because of what has been, you know, the, the things that had happened to prior things she had done, financial decisions she had made, and then projecting that onto her future. She tells me, she says, I haven't been great with saving. And so I'm really wondering how will I ever catch up? There's a lot of that disbelief in having enough. and trying to catch up, but she's really weighing it on her actions of previous. Now, when a client's come to me, I say, I don't care what you've done before. We can take this from here and move forward. That's what we need to be doing. Cause looking back only just really drags us down. As I help her and we start looking at her financial situation, cause it all begins with clarity. I noticed she's not even saving for retirement. In the moment that she is worried about having enough money, she is not saving for retirement. You might identify with her exactly and know, yeah, that's me. Your action step? Start saving. That right there will give you the belief that something is possible. Because you're getting the money set aside and put there. To protect you in the future. So that, and I say, it's an easy one. I was going to say, yeah, it's easy. And I understand it may not be. And you know, life has happened. Things happen. We're raising children. We're buying homes. There's inflation. And where do we go? We go to our savings, which is what you should be doing. However, we kind of need to be really clear on all of our savings. Areas and all of the amounts and a plus our spending and being able to make that shift. It's something we've done, something we do to kind of cut back on the amount there. But I want you to get something going into savings if you are like my client and not already saving. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's a traditional or a Roth IRA or even just a brokerage account. It, just gets something. Something is better than nothing and getting an amount in there. 50, 100, and you're like, well, that's not going to do it. Okay, well, 0 is not going to do it either. jump in, do something, and then let's figure out what more you can do. So, you know, she, has made it into her mind that she has to do something so out of the box to make retirement possible. And really, we just need to get focused. We're five to ten years away from retirement. We can't just keep doing what we've been doing. We have got to get focused and really make this a belief and really make it possibility. I want you to go back to the first of the episode Where I share, you know, the different questions people are asking. Everyone is asking this question. Whether you're saving now or not saving or you've saved a lot or you've saved a little, this question is very normal. We have worked for so many years. Even if we have gone through periods of unemployment or, you know, whatever it may be, but we know if we put in work, the paycheck comes. Stepping into retirement is different. And that right there almost instantly is like, how is this going to work? But we are asking ourselves. Is it going to be enough? There's a lot of other things added to that, but honestly, it boils down to we haven't known it that way. I even asked that question. I remember asking my nephew. I said, I'm looking to retire in about, I think at that time I was about 9, 12 months away. And I'm like, what if it doesn't work? He goes, go back to work. You know, and just the simplicity of his answer, you know, Instantly increased my belief I could do it. Okay, I got to try. So if you're like, ah, is this going to work? You've got to try. I want you to go and think about your question. What is your specific question you're asking about money and retirement? Whatever form it is, I want you to get clear on that. If you're somewhere where you can write it down and if you're not, hopefully you can come back later or remember it. There's your question. But now I want you to look at that question and I want you to ask yourself. Why do I believe I won't have enough? Now this, if you are driving unable to write this down, I want you to come back to this. Why do I believe I won't have enough money? I want you to write every thought, idea, feeling, whatever it is. Why as a list underneath that question. That right there, you might have five things, you might have 15 things, it doesn't matter. I want you to get it all out onto paper. That right there gives you some action, some areas of improvement. Areas that you don't believe you can retire., so if you're unsure how to maybe dive into some of those thoughts and feelings and take action, or you're not sure how to define your question or go deeper, be sure to grab the free, my free retirement readiness checklist. Then start exploring the eight areas where you can make improvements. It's just a checklist with the different areas with different things to consider and action steps to take. Really, if you can go off of how to increase your belief on specifics, but if you're like floundering, action is what you need. You can always come back to that after you grab that checklist. When clients come to me, With this question, or a form of this question, I really, the first thing I love to do is help them get clear on their retirement vision. I did this with my client that I've already talked about in this episode. And she was listing, you know, the things that she wanted to do, the activities she would do instead of work. And, you know, it very loosely created a vision. That right there is the first step. Because you can't build a plan. Without knowing what you want. It's like saying you're going to go on vacation. Great. That's not a plan. That's an idea. If you're like, well I want to retire. It's an idea. We need to get a plan into place. Start getting clear on your vision. Who's going to be there with you? You know, what are you wanting to do? What are you wanting it to feel like? I want you to take 15 minutes and write down what it is that you want your retirement to look like. Just like when you say you go on vacation, okay, I'm going to go on vacation. Then you pick a place. Okay. That's still very ambiguous. Then you're saying, okay, we're going to go to this specific place so that we can see, you know, ABC, and now we're getting a little more defined. That is exactly what I want you to do with your retirement vision. Okay. Retirement is an idea. Then you can say, well, I would really love to do, and just start spending time with what that's going to look like and feel like. You're wanting to spend more time with family. Are you going to travel? Are you downsizing? Are you buying a second home? Once you have that vision, you can start taking the next step. And the next step is to really start mastering your finances, getting clearer on who you are with money today. Because then you direct that to the vision that you've defined. You have point A where you are, point B. Z, where you want to go, who knows, maybe you don't have that many steps in between, but that's ideally how you go from an idea to action. Once you have spent some time on your vision, you can start connecting it to the finances. But you've got to explore the finances. You can't just jump in and say, well, look how much this is going to cost me so much money and I can't retire. You don't even know that. You don't even know what bills you've got going on today. I'm just assuming there's some form of uncertainty with your bills, your expenses, your spending, but when you can get clear on those, you can believe in yourself again. Just like my client, when she started working with me, she was really unsure about her money and how it was serving her. She was not accumulating debt. She only has her mortgage. She was able to pay off her credit card every single, you know, month. But she was just that belief that retirement was possible and really it was, I believe the initial stance was that it was in her non action of saving. When we are so unsure about how money is serving us, we carry those feelings towards retirement just like my client. When she started working with me, she was unsure about her purchases serving her and her belief that retirement wasn't possible. This was showing in her non action of saving. But through my Financial Freedom Accelerator, she was able to start shifting her beliefs. She began connecting with her finances. She began to increase her financial clarity. In one session, she said, I now see an email about clothing and quickly think, I don't need that. That money needs to go to savings. Very simply, just by spending time with your money. If this situation with my client resonates with you, I would love to chat. Jump on my free retirement vision session. We'll chat about where you are, where you want to go, and how you can get there. What it would look like to work with me. And if this is not the right time to be working together, you'll at least walk away from the call with one action step that will benefit you. the link to book is down in the show notes. Go and schedule that 30 minutes, we'll spend time just exploring, exploring where you are and what it would look like to begin working together. If you're ready to stop feeling uncertain and start making real progress, progress towards your dream retirement, I encourage you to book that free call. Let's make retirement possible for you. But if you're not quite ready for that, remember I do have the retirement readiness checklist you can download and get started today. But remember, go back to that question. Why do you believe you won't be able to retire? Those thoughts, those feelings, those ideas, your circumstances, all of those things as you begin to write them down, will explore one piece of the puzzle. And as you spend time with that one piece of the puzzle, you can start seeing actions that you can change, or do differently, or add. Sometimes it's not about taking away. Sometimes it is about adding. To help you, you know, get rid of that disbelief. Get out of that scarcity mode. That you want to make retirement possible. Thank you for spending time with me today. I know it is an exciting idea, but it also can be a scary idea as well. We need to, in a sense, I'm thinking like fill up your pool with water. Do all the things that you need to do. The more water you have, the safer you can jump in. I'm assuming you can swim, but we don't want to jump into an empty pool. Go back to that question, go back to that list, grab the free retirement checklist, and start taking action today. Start doing something to make retirement possible.