One Simple Step To Help You Plan For Your Retirement

0:00When you think about retirement, does it ever feel like everything is urgent? Pay off debt, save more, catch up for retirement, cover today's bills? No wonder it feels overwhelming. The truth is, trying to tackle everything keeps you stuck. What if you only needed to focus on one priority to start building your momentum? In today's episode, I'm going to show you how to determine your best next step so you can stop spinning your wheels and start moving forward to retirement. Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, the show for Gen X women and couples who are ready to ditch financial stress and feel confident about retirement.

0:43I'm your host, Daylene Higgins, financial and retirement coach, helping Gen Xers master their money and create a personalized retirement plan so they can stop spinning their wheels and step boldly into their dream retirement. If you're feeling behind, don't worry. Continue listening to this podcast, as well as be sure to grab your free guide, Five Must Do Steps to Start Retirement Planning Now at elevatefinances.us backslash must do. And remember, let's make retirement possible together. When you think about retirement, and maybe you're, you know, researching, searching, Googling, whatever, like, what should I do?

1:28What are the steps I need to take? What are the things I need to check off. And before I continue on, hopefully you've grabbed my retirement ready checklist. If not, you can find that at elevatefinances.u backslash checklist, and it'll give you those steps. But hopefully you'll stay listening to this or come back after you've done that. But as you're doing that, you find that you're not sure what the best step is for you to take. And you feel overwhelmed. And honestly, you feel like everything on that list is important and needs to be done today. It's like so urgent, everything on there, because you might be thinking you're starting late, that you're behind, whatever those feelings are.

2:14And honestly, trying to tackle more than one thing is not going to be supportive. You're not going to find that you're making any progress. So what should you do? That's what I'm going to help you solve today in this episode. Specifically, how do you know your best next step in retirement planning? And honestly, this will help you determine the first step, the second step, and so on and so forth. So last episode, I shared about choosing your priorities with money. If you missed that episode, be sure to listen to that. It will also support you in defining your direction. A little bit different than this, but hopefully kind of, it's going to cover what I will later talk about as rules and things like that.

3:05So that will make sense. So be sure to don't, you know, go back and listen to that if you have not. So you feel looking at your list, whether it's the list I gave you, or the list you found somewhere else, or just the things you know you need to do, And you fill the poll of several priorities. I need to pay off debt. I need to build my savings. I need to catch up on retirement savings. Do you remember those years where money was tight and we weren't contributing at all? Everybody's been there. Everybody's done it. And right now, you may be shuffling your money to savings. You're like, okay, I've got to save.

3:45But then you look at your debt and you think, well, I've got to get this paid down. You kind of pull back and go to doing that. And then you experience a tight month and you're like, oh, that was a lot of expenses. Am I doing things in the right order? How can I make progress in any of these areas? Ultimately, you do know that you want to retire. But how do these, quote, priorities fit together, come together, support you in achieving that? First off, there is no right order. Somebody can dispute me all they want, but I will tell you there is no right order. Being stuck in that, that there is, or that there's a magic wand that's going to fix it will only keep you, you know, spending more time looking for that, spiraling, all of those things.

4:38What do you need to do? Well, I'm going to tell you what, and then I'm going to tell you why. you need to name your one priority. And why is this important? It helps you to get focused on the one thing. Any of those things on the list that you are not doing is going to move the needle. That's why there's really not an order, correct? Just need to look at those things and explore it more from feelings and thoughts. You know, oh, I could do that with a lot of ease or I have a lot of stress about that. For example, if your biggest stressor is debt, then that becomes the first thing to solve. If you feel behind in savings, then you're going to choose that one thing and you're going to build a consistent savings rhythm.

5:39Now, what if both of those kind of are our priority? This is why I mentioned, if you have not listened to episode 155, the one right before this, in there, I talk about a rule. And if you're feeling like I need to pay off debt, but I don't wanna eliminate savings, going and listening to that, where I talk about that rule and that percentage, age, right? 75-25 is going to prioritize one of those things, but you're not neglecting both. And I know at this stage, this age, this is what a lot of the individuals who are looking to work with me are like, what do I do first? That's the question. That's their need.

6:19That's where they feel stuck. What do I do first? Pay off debt or save? And like I said in last episode, It can be an impact thing, but what you're going to do if you're not working with a coach or taking in anything else into account and have support, you're doing this on your own, you're going to choose either the one that is the biggest stress, maybe put that percentage up higher. Because once you get rid of that stress, your mind is going to be freed up. You're going to be able to make better financial decisions because you have the brain capacity to sit there with it longer. If you look at the list or if you're looking at debt and savings and you're like, well, this is the easiest one for me, do that one.

7:05If something looks easy and it's for you, you're like, I got this and I can do it, then go do it. Like I said, anything on that list is going to move the needle. But you need to remember, you don't need to solve everything at once. Just one thing. One thing that's going to reduce your stress or one thing that's going to be easy for you to implement. Priorities are the building blocks of a retirement-ready plan. One solved priority creates momentum for the next. That's why you want to name your one thing. Give it your focus. Now, don't ignore, like if you're going to save and then you're just going to keep paying on the debt, we don't want to forget the debt.

7:56We still have a commitment. We still have that. But if we're not going to be tackling above and beyond the debt, we'd rather save, then you've got to remember that. You've got to be like, I'm all about savings. I'm all in. That is where my focus is. You know, hopefully you've got a certain milestone that you want to reach. Okay, while I'm all of a sudden saving either this percent or this much, then I can lean into paying off debt more. Again, this falls so well with the last episode about balance, you know, the now and the later and being sure that you can, you know, choose one thing, get it done, put it into motion, have it be doing and working and then choosing another.

8:40So if you can get it implemented in 30, 60, 90 days, great. Then choose your next one thing. I'm not saying that you just stick with paying off debt until it's completely paid off to save. Get the rhythm in there. Get that system going. Get that momentum. Get that flowing and moving through. I want you to answer this question. What's the one thing that if solved for you would make retirement feel possible? I'm going to ask it again. What is the one thing? You've got something that's heavy, it's weighing, it pops up in your mind when I say this. What's the one thing that if solved would make retirement feel possible?

9:27Whatever popped into your head is the first thing you need to tackle. If you're like everything popped up into my head, I want to let you know that solving the one thing, laying out the next thing is the exact work we do together inside the retirement roadmap session. This is your personalized coaching session where we do a financial reality checkup. Within that, we'll uncover your priorities, show you exactly where your money is going, and give you a plan to move forward with confidence. working with a client. It was a couple. They're about five years away from retirement, but they did not know, number one, how much they were spending every month.

10:13And number two, they were lacking on their sinking funds to be able to be stable within retirement. That priority came up in that first session. Helping them solve that one thing first just helped them continue to move forward and gain that confidence that they could retire when they want. If that session sounds like something that would benefit you, I want you to go visit the website elevatefinances.us backslash roadmap covers everything we do, how long, how much, all of those things there. You can schedule a free call from there as well. And if you have any questions, I would love to chat with you about that.

10:57To wrap up the episode, I just want to remind you, there is a list. There are things that need to be done, but you don't have to have everything figured out today. So I want you to choose one thing, choose one priority, give it your focus for the next 30, 60, 90 days. See how far you can get. See what momentum you create. And then once you feel good, like, yes, that is working, it's in motion, the process, I've got it down. Choose your next one thing. Everything on that list will move the needle. You don't need to have all of those answered today. I encourage you to go choose your one thing today.

11:41And again, what's that one thing that if solved, like your biggest hurdle would make retirement feel possible? Thank you for listening. I hope this encouraged you that it's just really about one thing. And if you need help with that one thing, I hope you'll reach out. And if not, we'll see you next episode.

12:05Thank 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 Gen Xers. 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.