This guest blog was written by Chris Budd, who wrote the original Financial Wellbeing Book as well as The Four Cornerstones of Financial Wellbeing. He founded the Institute for Financial Wellbeing and has written more than 100 episodes of the Financial Wellbeing Podcast.

For most people, retiring is a goal. Pick an age, create a financial plan to make sure that age is achievable, and then start dreaming of the day that you don’t have to work.

The trouble with this approach is that it focuses on achieving the goal of not working. As a consequence, many people move into retirement without having given sufficient thought to what they will actually do with all this free time.

Retirement planning isn’t about having enough money so that you don’t have to work. Retirement planning is about designing a life that will bring you wellbeing.

What Kevin Keegan tells us about retirement planning

Kevin Keegan was the greatest footballer of his generation. He retired rich and successful. He went to live in Spain to play golf, the dream of many people in retirement.

After a few years, a realisation dawned on Kevin. He was bored.

He had gone from training all week and scoring goals in front of thousands of adoring fans to hitting a ball around the golf course. He had lost his purpose.

He moved back to the UK and became the football manager for Newcastle United.

Kevin hadn’t planned his retirement. He just did what everybody else did and assumed it would make him happy.

The 3 things you lose when you retire

A person who is old enough to have retirement in their sights is likely to have three things from work:

1. They are probably pretty good at what they do by now. They have competence.
2. They probably have a good understanding of why they do what they do and how it impacts others. They have purpose.
3. And they probably work with a team of people with whom they get on and who respect them. They have a community.

When you leave the world of work, all of these are going to disappear. A happy retirement, therefore, is one which has been planned well in advance for how to replace each of these three things.

Beware the travel trap

If I were to ask every person reading this article, “What do you plan to do in retirement?”, virtually every answer would include the word “travel”.

The world is a huge place, and there is so much variety of culture which most people would like to experience.

Including a budget for travel in your financial plan is a great idea. However, many people don’t go any further in their planning. This can be a mistake. There are two potential drawbacks to having travel as the main, or only, part of your retirement plan.

Firstly, you come back. Once you have ticked one destination off the list, it’s time to come home until it is time for the next trip. This means the majority of your time is spent not travelling.

Secondly, whilst travelling is a very enjoyable experience, it does not give any of those three things that you have just lost from work: competence, purpose and community.

Kindness

If there was one word which sums up the secret to happiness, it is: kindness.

When they reach retirement, many people spend at least some of their time helping others, like working in a charity, being a trustee, mentoring, or helping to run community organisations.

In the words of the late great Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “Joy is your reward for the giving of joy.”

A wellbeing retirement

The trick, then, to a retirement of joy and wellbeing is to look past the finish line.

When you reach the financial position which means you are working because you want to, not because you have to, how will you spend your time?

A week spent with a blend of: doing things you’ve always wanted to do; helping others; doing so in a way that uses your skills; and which gets you involved in a community; is likely to add up to a happy retirement.

It is a good idea to discuss these issues with your financial adviser. They should dare you to dream, to go beyond a list of things to do or places to go, and create a retirement of purpose and wellbeing.

Please note: This blog is for general information only and does not constitute financial advice, which should be based on your individual circumstances. The information is aimed at retail clients only.