We all have an idea of what retirement will be – the perfect mixture of spontaneous travel, a healthy amount of laziness, and plenty of cash to enjoy the finer things in life.
But that’s not the case more often than not. Even the retirement experts are surprised when their careers are over and they enter into the golden years.
I want you to be prepared, so here are the 4 main things that surprise virtually everyone as they enter into retirement…
Surprise #1 – Social Life
This is often one of the very first shocks that hit new retirees. Most people enter retirement expecting their social lives to remain fully intact without change.
But a simple fact that pertains to the majority of people is that significant part of a person’s social life is in some way connected to his or her professional life. That’s a simple truth of life.
So when people enter into retirement, they’re shocked about the loss of many social connections. So do two things when it comes to your social life in retirement…
1. Make plans to continue social relationships into retirement, and
2. Find new clubs, groups, etc. to build new social relationships after retirement.
Surprise #2 – If you don’t use it, you lose it…FAST!
Get active and stay active…
That’s a piece of advice that a lot of experienced retirees want to give those just exiting the workforce, all because it was a huge surprise to them.
Now, this topic is a bit unusual because you likely already know that you need to stay active in retirement. The kicker here is that staying active is more important because any elongated period otherwise will leave you more susceptible to all the negative physical consequences of a deteriorating body, as well as make it harder to get started again!
Surprise #3 – Your Attitude
Another surprise many retirees face is a simple change in their respective minds about what they want. Sounds simple, right? But it’s a shock to many.
Expect to have a different attitude as you progress into retirement.
Something many people have a change of heart about is “working”. When retirement finally comes, most people are focused solely on quitting the rat race and enjoying nothing but “me time”. But those same people often find themselves trying to get involved in anything and everything once they become bored or purposeless, even to the point of “un-retiring”!
Surprise #4 – Most things won’t go as planned
You have your entire life to plan for retirement, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you have everything figured out. Yet most retirees find that the majority of their plans didn’t go as they expected.
Whether it’s a change in the economy, a new passion they stumble onto, a need to go back to work part-time, a lesser amount of travel than expected, or even higher medical bills than anticipated.
So a bit of rather vague advice is to expect the unexpected.
Don’t marry yourself to a single idea of what retirement should be and become disappointed with anything else. Go with the flow, and prepare as best you can.
