How to Move From Retirement Fear to Retirement Ready

0:00Let's talk about the retirement you fear. You're worried about running out of money in retirement or not being able to live the lifestyle you want. You're worried that your financial decisions could derail your retirement plans, so you're not even enjoying life right now. This is what retirement you want versus the one you fear are a constant battle in your head and the fear is winning. Stay tuned for the episode where I will share three steps to move you ahead and start start creating the retirement you may.

0:38Hey there and welcome to Wealthy After 40. I'm Dalene Higgins, your podcast host and financial coach. If you're a Gen X woman or couple who's worried about retirement, maybe you feel like you're starting late or don't have enough saved, you're in the right place. This show is all about ditching the financial stress and creating a retirement plan that works for your life now and later. So grab your favorite drink, settle in, and let's figure this out together.

1:16Welcome to the episode. So there is a retirement that you truly want. You are looking forward to no longer having to jump up with the alarm clock, having to go in, punch the time clock, whatever it is, task lists, coworkers, meetings, I don't know. You insert what you're ready to get away from and the retirement you want where you're going to enjoy X, Y, and Z. And then you're like, but what if it doesn't work out? What if I run out of money? What if I can't do the things that I want to do. Now, what if, what if, what if? It's a constant worry and fear, and you're not sure what to do. What it is, is it's a battle of the retirement you fear, overriding any thoughts about the retirement you truly want.

2:19Because last episode, you listened to me, and you're trying to think about the retirement you really want, that you desire. And then you're instantly headed into this, oh, but what if I don't know how much I need and I'm not sure how to calculate it. And then you're like, oh, but when I look at my bank account, we can't even make it right now. And I'm not even talking to my spouse about this, this, and this with finances. All of that adds to your fear. All of those fears are distracting from that retirement that you truly are trying to want, to desire, and to create. Does that make sense? Does that sit well?

3:03Does that make you go, yep, that's exactly what is happening in my head. How did you know? It's easy for our brains to start doubting, to start, you know, because we want to stay doing what we know works. I've seen it happen in so many situations that when something major happens, we want to go back to what was working, even though that may not be the best decision anymore. And so what we need to do is we've got to start removing these fears. So what can you do now? What can you do now for some quick results to start helping ease those fears, ease those worries, maybe actually start talking to your spouse about a few things?

3:51So what I want you to do, I want you to identify one fear about retirement. Now, if you have a list, I want you to write down everything. It's best to just get it out. So whether you're doing this now or later, I want you to either make the list or just focus on one. And I want it to be the one that stands out the most, probably is the first one you think of. Or maybe the third one. I don't know why I said the third, but there is one of them that is your biggest fear. And I want you to ask yourself these questions. Why is it keeping you stuck? What is it having you avoid? And why is this your biggest fear?

4:45Again, why is this fear keeping you stuck? What is it having you avoid that you're not doing? And why is this your biggest fear? so say your fear is you won't have enough money to retire and it's too late now to do anything about it the fear that you won't have enough money is keeping you stuck because you believe it's too late to do anything about it so what do you do you avoid looking at your numbers looking at your savings balance, looking at your spending, you avoid the numbers. And this is your biggest fear because you feel as if you've made too many mistakes. Your fear you won't have enough money and it's too late to make up the difference.

5:50And the, and the fear is the biggest because you feel like you've made mistakes. So what do we need to do to dismiss this fear? Is we need to find the truth and we need to start digging into these fears and removing them. You don't know if you don't have enough money. You already told me earlier in the episode that you didn't know how to calculate that. So instead of just spiraling through all of the things, go find truth. How much do I need? how can I sway that number that I need? You know, those are the, you're going to start asking questions about how can I make this number be a number that is achievable, that I can do, and what actions is that going to be?

6:37And then I start taking action. So what if you knew the exact steps you could take now that would move you closer to retirement and move you closer to the retirement you want. What would your week or your day be like if bills and savings were automatic, not automated, it's a different word, leaving you stress-free and with a clear head to make amazing decisions, thought process through, I'm going to buy a second home in retirement. we're going to travel for six months after retirement, whatever it is, how would it feel if this is where your brain was instead of in the fear? What if you were thinking about all of the possibilities, not just the little retirement I wanted?

7:35Oh, I could make it even better. Because once you move that fear, possibilities start booming endlessly. So how do you move from fear to possibility? There's three steps. Now before I dive into the steps here, these are the same three steps that I'm going to be walking you through in my Retirement Ready Planning Workshop January 24th. Head over to elevatefinances.us backslash workshop to read all the details. We will be spending three different hours on that day with a spreadsheet, a one-page financial snapshot. I'm going to walk you through it, give you time to input it, come back to interpret, and then to come back to make a plan.

8:30So those are the three steps. I'm going to walk you through exactly what those three steps are here so that you know better what that workshop is going to look like, feel like, and I hope you'll join me, there is a price to reserve your spot,$35 before January 5th. A great investment of your money and of your time. If it can help you move these fears and be giving you an endless list of possibilities. All right. So three steps to move you from fear to possibility. The first one is clarity. Yep, just like I said last episode, clarity and clarity happens within many different elements of money. Clarity is an essential, it's an essential skill to learn how to start looking at things to understand how they measure up.

9:30So with this step, we're going to figure out your financial situation. It's important that you know how you measure up in reality, not that thought of, I'm probably behind. Yeah, I'm not going to make it. Or I'll just, you know, really screech and bye. Nope, you're going to want to get clear on what your financial situation is. I've helped clients see a better result, you know, see an actuality, a reality than what they thought. I've had them come and say, I don't have enough money each month to I'm behind on retirement savings. And as we explore these numbers, we together find the opposite. And then my client gets to focus on where the gap truly is.

10:30It's not that you don't have enough money. It's not that you're behind on retirement savings. There is a gap somewhere else that made you feel like that was what the reality was. So right there, we are removing that fear. And now we know where our gap is. Everybody will have gaps. Gaps only mean that we now have an area to quote work on. So the second step is measure. We want to measure with our finances to find the gaps, which I talked about. And the gaps are more than likely going to be with your savings, your debt, or both. It could be in spending, but more than likely it's going to be in savings and or debt.

11:22But what you're going to do here as you measure is you want to find an area for greater opportunity. You can just keep throwing money at savings, but if that is not the gap that needs to be closed for greater opportunity, then that's not where your money needs to be going. Maybe there's a balance between the savings and the debt. Maybe you just need to focus on debt because you already have enough going at savings. So it's very, very important to measure. And I know this is where clients that have come to me, they're like, yeah, I track my numbers, but I don't know what I'm supposed to learn from them.

12:04And not everybody has an analytical mind. And everybody, you know, functions differently in understanding what do my numbers mean? And how can I make them, you know, tell me what I need to know in the way that I actually see numbers? So measure, but you've got to measure in the way that you know how and that is effective for you. Step number three, action. You need to know which steps you're going to take First for some quick wins. We've got to get things moving. We've got to see progress. We've got to see those quick wins or we're not going to stay in the game. This is the way it is in anything.

12:51Give a few little quick wins, which we'll find. And then we're going to find the area of greater opportunity where you're going to take some time in implementing. You're going to have to look and plan and then implement the next steps that are going to move you along. I'm not saying it's not going to close the gap, but it's not a quick win. We've already done those. You know you can do it. So being able to step in and do this other. For example, if you're like, yep, I've got to pay off debt, you've got to explore what debt, how, when, you know, all of those things. It takes a little bit longer to put that into place as opposed to, well, if I just increase it by 5%, I'm going to go raise my contribution for my retirement savings by 5%.

13:41That's a quick win. That's a quick win. Those are just examples. Those aren't things that we, you know, in that amount, but those are some ideas of what's going to come out of that workshop. So if you're interested in how these three steps can pertain to you by looking at your numbers, getting guidance, you're only going to look at your numbers. We're not showing them to everybody in attendance. I'm going to tell you how to walk through them, how you're going to understand them, how you're going to measure them, knowing where your gaps are, not taking the gaps are bad, just these are your areas for opportunity.

14:18If you're working in an area that doesn't have a gap, you're not going to make progress. And then again, identifying those action steps, hopefully some quick ones for some quick wins, and then putting together that bigger plan to move you ahead. So if you're intrigued, again, how those three steps will actually work for you, go reserve your spot$35 until January 5th, elevatefinances.us backslash workshop, Read all the details there, the format of the day, what you're going to get out of it. It's all pretty well laid out there. Reach out to me if you have any questions. Again, there's speak pipe down below.

15:00Come visit me on Instagram. Send me a DM over there. Whatever questions you have about this workshop, I'd be glad to answer and support you in. But if that's not the right step for you at this moment, if you're like, I've just started thinking about retirement, and that is scary. I get that. I really want to encourage you to go take that retirement ready quiz. Again, you can find that elevatefinances.us backslash quiz. Get your score from that. Get your action steps. That does something very similar to what we just talked about, but not exactly. All right. So what we've covered in this episode is how to move from fear to action, to clarity, clarity to action.

15:48So moving through those fears, getting rid of those fears and opening up the doors to more possibilities so that you are no longer letting that retirement you fear take away from that retirement you want. Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope it was helpful. Again, SpeakPipe, DM me over on Instagram. I'd love to know what your takeaways were from this episode. And we'll see you at the next episode.

16:20Thank you for spending this time with me. If you're not already following the show, be sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And I'd love to stay connected with you between episodes. So come join me inside my Facebook community, Retirement Ready Hub for GenXers. It's where we're having real conversations about money, sharing wins, working through challenges, and building a clear path toward retirement. And remember, retirement isn't just a dream, it's a plan, and you get to make it possible.