The Real Reason Most People Struggle in Retirement (It’s Not Money)

But here's the truth that no one actually talks about . The number one reason people struggle in retirement actually has nothing to do with money , and while money can be a supporting factor here , the number one reason people struggle is they don't actually know what they want their life to look like .

And if you don't actually know what you want your life to look like , then no amount of money doesn't matter what your financial strategy is . Nothing can replace that in terms of giving you the type of retirement that you're looking to live . In one of his blog posts , morgan Housel had this to say .

He said if you have no strong views on what kind of life you want to live , who you are , what you desire , what makes you happy and what doesn't , you're likely to want to mimic the most visually appealing person you come across , which is often the person with the biggest house , fastest car or nicest clothes . That may work , it may not .

We see this all the time . We have goals for retirement . We know that by a certain age we should retire . We know we should max out our 401k , we know what to do to optimize social security . And then we get there and we freeze . And we freeze because we think what am I actually going to do ?

The past 30 years , the past 40 years , all I've been doing is working and grinding and raising a family and doing all these things that matter , but I've lost the sense of who I am and what I want to do . So when I set goals for my retirement , it's not actually my goals . I don't even know what my goals are .

I'm just going to mimic what I see other people doing . They must be happy , right . They have the nice cars , they take the nice trips , they do the things that seem to make them happy . Maybe that's what I want for my retirement . But if that's the way that you're approaching it , you're going to be let down . You're going to retire .

You might enjoy it for a short , brief period of time , but then you're going to feel this sense of loss . Why ? Because your job was your identity . Your job was your structure . Your job was your social connection .

Your job was this thing that , even if you didn't absolutely love it , provided these things that all of us need , provided this purpose that gave you this sense of identity . And then one day , just like that , all that changes . You now have the money , you know how , the time you've retired from that , but what have you retired into ?

And that's what I want to address today . How do you avoid that scenario where , even if you have the best financial strategy in the world , you may have a very tough retirement if you don't address these questions first ?

So what do you do ? Well , if it's not about looking at other people's homes , other people's golf trips , other people's idea of what a good retirement looks like for them , what should you be doing ? What you do is you start with clarity , not money . So here's a relatively simple framework for that . Instead of thinking , what do I want to do with my retirement ?

That's an enormous question that's going to cause a lot of anxiety just thinking about that . Think about what do you want each of these components or each section of your life to look like ? What would you want your relationships to look like ? Who are you spending time with ? Who's most important to you . Think about that . What about your health ?

What does that look like ? What about hobbies ? What about faith ? What about travel ? What about giving back ? What about all these things Doesn't have to be super complicated , but if you can identify these are the things that actually matter most to me . Not what my neighbor's doing , not what my old coworker's doing , but these things bring me joy .

These things bring me a sense of purpose . Write down one or two , maybe three things for each of those and then simply say how can I prioritize that ? Imagine you're retired today and it's a Tuesday morning , not a weekend , not an extravagant trip , it's a Tuesday morning . What are you doing with each of those things ?

You don't have to do all of them in one day , but what can you do to prioritize your relationships , purpose , hobbies , adventure , whatever that might be ? Sit with that and think about it . For as much time as we spend on the financial side of things , can you spend just a little bit of time with this ? Who are you and what do you want to do ?

If you want a fun thought

exercise that goes along with this , let's explore this . You get $25,000 in your bank account today under one condition you have to have spent it within the next seven days . Anything you spend , it gets taken back . And spending does not mean saving it or investing or even paying down debt .

Spending it means what are the things you would actually spend that money on . What comes to mind . It's a good exercise to go through to help you understand what do you actually care about Not just indefinitely saving something for the future , but what would you spend money on today if you were forced to spend it because it would be taken back if you didn't .

Then once you have some of those things in place , then you can plan backwards .

If your idea of a wonderful retirement is four luxury vacations a year all across the world , that's gonna be a very different financial strategy than someone who also wants to take a lot of trips , but their idea of a fun trip is driving to the mountains for a long weekend and spending that hiking and backpacking . So what matters to you ?

Don't just say travel what type of travel ? Don't just say relationships what would you be doing ? What types of relationships ? Don't just say hobbies what specific hobbies ? Because once you have that clarity , once you know what your life is going to look like , then you can design the financial strategies to support that .

A financial plan without a corresponding life plan is somewhat meaningless .

At the end of the day , it's not going to matter how much you have in your 401k when you collect social security , how much you save in taxes to the right withdrawal strategy , if you don't have a bigger purpose that it's connected to , you're not going to have the impactful type of retirement that you should have .

So if you're struggling with this , reach out to us . This is exactly what we do here at Root Financial Not just a financial piece , but helping to connect that financial piece , helping to be a thought partner , a thought leader with you to say what can life look like ?

What does this look like if I get out of the rut that I've been in for the past 30 , 40 years which , by the way , it's not a bad thing . That's just life . Life sometimes takes us on this journey of over the course of our careers , we do less and less of what we think we want to do and we look back one day and say I'm 55 , I'm 60 , I'm 65 .

And those things I used to enjoy I don't do any of it anymore . I've been so focused on career and responsibilities and preparing that I've lost sight of that . How can you get to this point where you start to have a vision for what retirement can look like and then take the necessary steps financially to move in that direction

? But here's the bottom line Retirement should not be the end of your story . Retirement should be the very beginning . Retirement can be scary , it can be overwhelming , because you have to think of those bigger questions . What will you actually do when you have the time , the resources , the freedom to be whatever you want to be ?

But if you can go through these exercises , if you can start to think about what actually matters most , think about what that practically looks like on a Tuesday morning in retirement , on a Thursday afternoon in retirement , and then work backwards to say what financial moves should I make today to move in that direction , that is going to make all the difference .