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A recent article talks about when should a Boomer retire? It provides views from experts in the field. The background to this discussion is that many Baby Boomers do not have enough saved to substitute for their main source of income. This means they either keep working longer OR reduce their standard of living. If you have enough saved to support you for the next 3-4 decades in retirement, then you can retire when you want to. For those that do not have enough saved, Alicia Munnell, Director of the Center for Retirement Research at the Boston College recommends people to work until they are 66 years. Others think this is very conservative. For example, Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of think tank, Civic Ventures suggests that people work until they are 70 years of age to make sure they can finance their lifestyles for the rest of their lives.

When the talk about retirement age comes up, invariably I think about the definition of retirement. You know, in the traditional sense, retirement is where you give up working, just stick around the house, may be volunteer a bit or travel and just spend the remaining years in solitude. There is debate whether this was ever the case, but never the less, this is the common perception of debate.

 Considering the health and active lifestyles people in their 60’s and even 70’s in many cases lead, there is a new saying these days that 60 is the new 40. For example read this article about an Australian Rider, Laurie Lever, who at age 60 is taking part in the Beijing Olympics. Although Laurie Lever began riding when he was 10 and has been a showjumper by profession, he says it took him this long to find a real ‘winner’ horse. Though he hasn’t won yet, Laurie you are a real champion. 

Coming back to our discussion, a retirement now means more like I might still work, but it will be on my terms, when I want to and how I want to. As opposed to working for someone or working long hours day in and day out. I can afford to take this approach only when I have the financial wherewithal to support myself and my family to live, enjoy and give. The more disciplined we are in our financial matters, the sooner this time will be.

So take that next step to your own financial freedom and build on and grow your discipline.

It sure is great watching the athletes compete to win the gold medals. Especially watching Michael Phelps on his gold medal spree, he makes it look so easy, like a child’s play to swim and win those races. But we all know that these athletes spend many years preparing, training and practising for this moment, to win the Gold Medals. If you can pause for a moment and visualize their lives, they spend many hours per day training and practising, foregoing other pleasures and activities that we all enjoy. All with an aim to win that gold medal. A single-minded focus on being the best, winning the race and taking home that coveted prize. Their every action, every thought is to take them closer towards their goal.

Well, just as these athletes have a clear target and how it motivates them and inspire them to strive and prepare, each one of us can transform ourselves into achievers only if we also had a clear target like them. Be it a healthy and happy retirement, be it living on the beach in retirement or whatever your target gold medal may be.

Do you know what gold medal you are striving to attain?

If not, take some time to think and clearly define what it is that you want to achieve in your life? If you already know your gold medal target, work on visualizing it as vividly as possible, put together a plan for what you can accomplish this year to get there and focusing your thoughts and actions on achieving it.

Enjoy your journey to the gold medal as much as you’d enjoy the achivement of that goal.

As we get older and get busier in life, sometimes life becomes so mechanical and in the process we lose sight of our priorities; priorities such as our health, our families, etc – the aspects of our lives that are so crucial. Considering that as we age, we are at increased risk for developing health related issues, it seems that we should be more disciplined to work out regularly to maintain our health. Yet, it has been reported regularly that many people don’t exercise or if they do then they cannot maintain the discipline over long periods of time. If you do not share in this experience, congratulations and wish you all the best to keep up the discipline and thereby your health. If you have difficulty motivating yourself to either begin or maintain your workout plans, don’t lose hope. You can probably help yourself by trying the imagination technique. If this interests you, read below…

(Caution: If you are so scared of bad health that if thinking about it makes you sick or if you are a heart patient, this technique may not be appropriate for you. You should probably skip the next paragraph)

The imagination technique to motivating yourself: Take a piece of paper, draw a horizontal line about half way and list out the illnesses or health complications (across the page) that you are at risk to developing. For each health issue you listed, imagine if you did get it how it would affect your health, your abilities and your lifestyle. You can be creative here and imagine having a bad case of these illnesses. The more vividly you can visualize these situations, the better. Think how it would limit your activities, affect your independence and the people you love and care about.  Now below the line (or the bottom half of the page), list out what you could do, starting from now, in terms of exercising, playing sports, etc.  Again get creative and imagine the best now, list out what benefits or gains you can produce for yourself by regularly following your plan for workout.  If you listed any activities that involve a group of people, be sure to list out the social benefits of the activity such as networking, or hanging out with people you like, etc. Again the more creative you are and the more vividly you can imagine yourself living healthy and well, the better this technique will work for you. Hope this fun, little exercise motivated you to take that next step.

Here is another story to help you get motivated to hopefully take those crucial steps toward maintaining your health. The New England Boomers covered in this story have come up with a unique way to commit themselves and keep them motivated to work out regularly by way of playing their favorite sport, soccer. By forming over-the-hill soccer leagues and having fun playing their favorite game and at the same time working out physically, may be they are heralding the beginning of a new trend. Do you have a soccer league in your place or may be you love another sport and can gather around a few friends to regularly play and have fun.
This story shows us that we can come up with creative solutions to our problems if we are really serious about it and are open to opportunities. So let’s get creative and resourceful. What are you doing to keep yourself fit and healthy into your old age? What do you do to keep yourself motivated? What works and what doesn’t work for you? Please share your thoughts/comments.