Goal Setting in Retirement

That day when you look at your spouse and realize that you’ve accomplished everything you set out to accomplish after you retired?  Yeah, that’s happened. 

For those of you whose goal is to retire, be advised:  retirement is a doorway, not a destination.  When we retired we knew we would buy a trailer and work as campground hosts for five years.  During this time we would continue to become totally debt-free by reinvesting most of our rental income back into the properties.

Fast forward four years, five months, and three days, and here we are.  We decided to give up camp hosting after the summer of 2015 and learned that we quite enjoy camping without cleaning toilets.  All our rental properties are paid for.  Our hard work helping our son and daughter-in-law plan and execute their wedding culminated in a beautiful October 1 celebration.   And we have set no additional goals.

So now what do we want to do?  Travel?  Downsize?  Buy a summer home (or in our case, a winter home)?  Just for fun, I looked through an attempt at a “Bucket List” written in 2004 (eight years before we retired, and three years before we started calling them Bucket Lists).  There are 33 items on the list. 

#1 is to write and publish a novel. I’m working on it.  I’ve been working on it since 2012.  I’m on Chapter 31. 

#2 is to own two condos – one in SLC and one someplace warm.

Of the remaining 31 items, 13 are places I want to travel to (2 accomplished), 6 are things I’d like to do with my time (2 accomplished), 2 are things I’d like to learn, 3 are places I’d like to sing (2 accomplished), 2 are places I’d like to volunteer (1 accomplished), 2 are items I’ve since decided I never want to do, and the rest are pretty random .  Things like owning another pug, giving the kids nice weddings, and running a 5K.  Yes, I did write 5K.  How was I to know what an avid runner I would become?   So far I’ve accomplished 11 ½ of the 33 items on my list.

Just for fun, I shared the list with my husband.  He agreed with me that traveling more and trading in the big house for two smaller houses were ideas worth considering.  Maybe it’s time to transform these from the bucket list to actual goals that we can work on together.

Setting Goals

I had the opportunity to hear a presentation on goal setting last week – not once but twice.  And while the speaker’s audience was young girls who were either pregnant or already had babies, I felt like her comments were addressed directly at me.  Sure, it was the same stuff I had heard throughout my career, by different inspirational speakers projecting different PowerPoint templates.  But this time it meant something.

This time I don’t have a supervisor, a performance review, or a pending deadline driving my need to set and accomplish goals.  It’s just me now.  Just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I don’t have goals.  And since I do have goals, why wouldn’t I use these time honored techniques to work toward achieving them? 

Here are some of my key takeaways on goal setting:

1.  Don’t settle for less than what you want.

2.  Make your goals specific and measurable.  Know the difference between a good idea and a goal.

3.  Break your goals down into “baby steps.”  What will you do in one week toward your goal?  One month?  One year?  Five years?

4.  Write it down.  Keep a journal of your successes toward your goal. 

5.  Reward yourself for steps toward your goal – even if it’s as simple as checking it off the list. 

6.  There will be fear – if you’re not a little bit afraid you’re probably not reaching far enough. 

7.  There will be negative thoughts – control them.

8.  Use affirmations.  An affirmation is a positive statement that describes a goal in its already completed state. 

I wrote my affirmation in my journal:  “I am a published author, signing copies of my book in a bookstore in Minneapolis, in the summer of 2017.”  Here we go!