Turn Reflection into Action for a Retirement Ready Year

Small Adjustments Today for a Stronger Retirement Tomorrow

As the new year begins, it’s the perfect time to reflect on your progress and set yourself up for success. In this episode, we’ll help you take a closer look at your retirement journey, what’s fueling your momentum, what’s holding you back, and where you can make meaningful adjustments. You’ll learn how to review your financial wins from the past year, identify the small leaks that may be slowing your progress, and clarify your vision for retirement.

We’ll walk through practical, actionable steps to help you create a retirement-ready plan, aligned with your values and financial priorities. Whether it’s adjusting your contributions, refining your budget system, or gaining retirement clarity, this episode is designed to help you take control of your money and move forward with confidence.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

✅ How to reflect on your past year and acknowledge your financial wins
✅ Simple ways to identify “leaks” that drain your retirement momentum
✅ How to define a clear vision for your retirement and what matters most

✅ How awareness and small changes can fuel a retirement-ready plan
✅ Quick actions to increase contributions and gain retirement clarity

Reflection is powerful, but action is what creates change. Use what you uncovered to take one simple step forward and continue building a retirement-ready plan that truly supports your life.

The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of the Wealthy After 40 podcast follows

Click HERE for Unedited Transcript of Episode

Welcome to the episode. I'm excited to take you through a reflection. I know sometimes people are like, oh, but I really hope this will help you see how far you've come. And an area that you could actually get some momentum in as we move into the new year. So really thinking about your retirement and what's fueling it and what's not meaning, what is actually helping you find momentum? What's working for you, and really what's not. Honestly, the very first thing that I want anybody to do, so I'm just gonna start off with it, is you need to have a clear vision, okay? Or mostly a clear vision. If you're somebody who's more than 10 years away, you can still be a little foggy in some areas. But I really want you to define your vis Revis revision. Define your vision for retirement. Knowing what you are headed to, knowing what you're going to do when it, when you're punching the time clock or whatever it is you're doing is done. Maybe it's another venture. Maybe it's something completely different, or maybe it's just laid back low key. It doesn't matter, it's yours, and I want you to lean into that. So starting there. That gives us our destination. So when I talk about what's fueling your retirement there's a, so my husband loves to buy older vehicles. Fix them up, sell them flipping. It's not that huge magical that you see like the real old classics and really bringing them up to a tee. But he loves to tinker. Make them run again, paint them up, do different things. We've had trucks and bugs and rangers and jeeps, and. We've got some s tens right now. I don't know, but my daughter when she came along has also joined in the fun and her recent fixer upper, as she always loves to have that extra vehicle, that one that's going to make it from point A to point B. Most of the time it's been throwing a code. And so she's ah, it's throwing this code. They thought it was the gas cap. 'cause there's air in the system, giving them this code. And she's still able to drive it, but get that check engine light and you don't wanna ignore it. So you've addressing it. And it stopped it for a little bit. It's come back again and so through, I guess Reddit, YouTube, I don't know where they go for their information. They've determined that really there's this really small gap in the neck of the tank from like a weld part going bad. So you're probably wondering why I'm sharing this with you, but talking about that is where her fuel is, This air is causing this problem and it's nothing big. And that is what I want you to take away from this story is that little crack is might be relative to what you are experiencing as we go through this review to what is not fueling your retirement, it might just be this little crack and waiting for that perfect time to fix. It may not be what you wanna do. So let's dive in. And get you through thinking about your retirement progress. So I want you to think about yourself January one. I'm gonna have you do a complete vision in just a minute, but I want you to think about the past year, back to January one. What has been working, and I'm gonna give you a couple of ideas and then I'm going to read some questions. So maybe you've been consistently saving an amount. Nothing big, nothing grand, but consistent. Maybe you've paid off high interest debt. Or half of it, or a quarter of it, maybe. You have tried tracking spending and while it's been imperfect, it's been better than it has in the past. You've addressed your contributions this year, making them automatic, leaning into that, or you are making more thoughtful financial choices based on values. Because dalene keeps talking about value-based budgeting and spending, I dunno. But those are a couple of things that you might find are working, but I want you to think about yourself, your year, going back to January one, what did I do this year that actually moved me forward that actually had you go, man, I've done quite a bit. I don't care the size. I want you to acknowledge these things. Where did you show up for yourself financially? Meaning maybe there was a hard decision to make, maybe you learned a new skill, whatever it was. Where did you show up for yourself? Financially and last, what decision are you most proud of? Now it's important to acknowledge these things. It's important to make a list of the wins. So if you're driving, you can come back and do this. But really, I want you to think about what was it that I did this year? That was great. That was good. That was amazing. Any of those things. How are you different today than you were January one. When my clients get struggling, I always say, okay, yeah, we haven't jumped leaps and bounds, but what have you done since this time period and this time period? Because I remember them sharing that with me on the free call or earlier in a session and reminding them, and it's important for you to learn to remind yourself. All right, so now we're gonna move into the next section, and I don't want you to beat yourself up. This is just for awareness. We talked about that in the last episode, learning this skill, getting this awareness, I want you to think about what is not fueling your retirement. What leaks do you have? Do you have that little gap on the fuel tank as it comes into it, like my daughter does? And you're waiting for that perfect time. Or maybe you don't know what's there yet, remember she did the gas cap first, then still had the problem. So what are your leaks? I'm gonna give you again, some ideas. And then some prompts and questions. So are you not really using a budget system and you feel like money just disappears? Are you sporadic with your saving? Maybe you got a raise this year and it didn't go into savings, or you are avoiding money decisions. Maybe there's things you're just like, I don't wanna deal with it. I don't wanna know the reality. I get that. Or you're letting fear or confusion make decisions for you. So those are some ideas. Again, this isn't for shame and guilt, this is for awareness. Because as long as we are aware we can make changes. So as I ask you these questions, where did you fall into old patterns? Meaning you tried to change something but you reverted back. Our brains have us do that. Did you know your brain wants you to keep doing the same thing, even if it's not the best thing because it feels safe, it's normal, it's what you're used to. So where did you fall into old patterns or where did you avoid something? Because you felt overwhelmed, you approached it and you're like, yep, I, it's too much. I can't do it. And you didn't go back. And the last one. What has drained your progress emotionally? And or financially, it's important to think about these things so that you really start understanding what you've done and what challenges and hurdles are standing in your way, knowing what you're facing. Then you can come to a solution, but until you get that awareness, doesn't matter what you do, you're probably not gonna solve the problem. All right, so then we've gotta move into that hidden fuel thieves meaning, you tried the one thing, but it's still not working. So here are some ideas that might be not as clear. You don't have a clear retirement vision, setting that clarity about your vision and where you wanna go is really. Gonna steal away from your wanting to get better and doing things, believing that you're behind and not actually addressing anything to find out if you are or not. You're assuming retirement planning is complicated. You're not knowing what number you're working toward, meaning how much do I need to have saved, or even what year I'm gonna retire. It can be that simple. Or you're acting from fear and not clarity. So these hidden things, we are covering a lot of this in my ready retirement ready planning workshop, January 24th. We're gonna cover what your number is, if you're behind what number you're working towards, getting you more and more clarity and knowing where you can actually take the next steps. So we're doing away with that retirement planning as complicated. If that sounds like something you need head over to Elevate Finances us slash workshop, and it's $35 until January 5th. It'll jump up to $55. Or until there's 20 spots filled. I do plan on hosting this workshop again. So if you're hearing this late please jump to that same website, see when the next date is. I'm excited to support you in this way, but I'm limiting it to 20 because it's an interactive workshop. You're getting things done that day. You're going to be clear. You're going to get rid of these hidden fuel thieves. We don't want them anymore. But today I'm gonna help you do a 10 minute new year reset. So here are some things you can do today. You can review last year's spending categories. Now I don't want you to do all of them, that's too overwhelming, especially if you're not a numbers person. But I want you to think which category or which. Retailer, which, whatever do I think I spend too much at, or that I've really gotta understand that better. Go review that, go make sure there's any solid reasoning that's true. That's what I want you to do. Just explore those one category, choose one and start there. Okay, this next one, I want everybody doing this January one, or as soon as you can. I want you to increase retirement contributions by 1%. It's a new year. It's time to do this, and your budget is not gonna fill 1%, I promise. I promise. So go do that everyone. There's one quick win for everybody. Put that on your list. The next idea is I want you to list your top three values that are going to guide your spending this year. Not only your spending, but your financial decisions. Three values. Just type into Google, a list of value ideas so you can see what's going on. It's gonna be like family, experiences, environment, and nature. There's a whole bunch just. Choose the top three that reflect who you wanna be in 2026, and then use that as your guide. Use that as your beacon. Use that as your lighthouse, and the other thing you can do is choose one thing to stop doing. Although sometimes being restrictive is hard, and I don't really like to suggest that. But if you're like, yeah, there's one thing I need to, and it's clear, you can choose to do that. Or on the better side, choose one thing to start doing right. Get going with something. All right. That's the end of this episode. I hope you were able to reflect to understand how far you have come. If anything from this episode, just realizing that you are somebody different than you were on January one, and that you can then find that progress this year as well. So you are doing amazing things. You have a lot into play. You know a lot of things in place, a lot of things are working, but you're like, I'm not sure where I need to put the next best effort. And maybe the workshop isn't calling your name. But I really would love to invite you and why not for the first of the year? Book yourself a free retirement ready q and a call, it's same place. Elevate Finances us slash ready Free 30 minute call. I'll help you identify your biggest leak. Your biggest challenge, your biggest hurdle, whatever you're calling it, and let's find the simplest next step for you to fix it. Sometimes we're stuck looking at our problems. We get very myopic. Then we need to have somebody break through that to look at it better and understand that. So head over and book that call. Why not get your this year started off great. And I would love to be part of that. Thank you for being here for this episode. I'm excited to see what 2026 holds and I'm wishing you a happy New year.

Reflection is powerful, but action is what creates change. If you’re ready to take that next step with support, schedule a free Retirement Ready Q&A Call to gain clarity and turn insight into confident action.