Are You Ready - Or Just 'Almost Ready'?
🟢 There’s a difference between being financially ready for retirement and being ready for retirement.
I’ve been thinking about a colleague of mine lately. She has a clear vision for her next chapter, a plan that draws on everything she knows and everything she cares about. She’s excited. Her husband, on the other hand, isn’t quite there yet. After decades of building something together, he’s asked for two more years. And she’s lovingly giving them to him.
🧭 Retirement is rarely a mutual moment.
Most couples don’t arrive at readiness at the same time. And even individually, financial readiness and emotional readiness are two very different things. The financial advisor says the numbers work. But numbers don’t answer the harder questions. Who am I without this work? What will my days look like? What will give me a reason to get up in the morning?
Those are life design questions and most of us never get around to asking them until we’re standing right at the edge.
🌱 The go-go years don’t wait.
Financial planner Michael Stein identified three phases of retirement in his book The Prosperous Retirement: the go-go years, the slow-go years, and the no-go years. The go-go years (roughly ages 60 to 75) are when energy is high, health is good, and the freedom to travel, explore, and engage is at its peak. The slow-go years follow (somewhere around 75) when preferences naturally shift closer to home. The no-go years come after that.
I’m not sharing this to create anxiety. I’m sharing it because I think about my colleague and her husband, and I want good things for them.
Every year spent ‘almost ready’ is a year that quietly shortens the window for the life they’ve been working toward.
💡 The antidote isn’t urgency. It’s imagination.
In my experience, the people who struggle most with the transition aren’t the ones who lack courage… they’re the ones who haven’t yet imagined what they’re stepping into. When retirement feels like an ending, of course we hesitate. But when it becomes something we’ve actually pictured — a Tuesday morning, a meaningful routine, a relationship we’ve invested in, a contribution that doesn’t require a paycheque — it starts to feel like something worth moving toward.
That shift from dreading an ending to anticipating a beginning is exactly what intentional life design makes possible. It’s the heart of the work I do, and the heart of my book Designing Your Second Act.
✍️ A question for you:
If someone asked you today whether you’re ready for retirement, which kind of ready would you be… financially, emotionally, or both?
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