It’s time we understand what the reality of retirement will be for most people.
A lot of people are scared about retirement because of the traditional notion that it means you stop working. There was a time people had long careers, accumulated reasonable pensions and the plan was to use that to live out the rest of their sunset years.
A lot of the time when people speak about retirement they still visualize that golden period where they just stop working and can afford to completely do so. That would definitely be great but I think retirement is more than just having money to sustain your lifestyle. People tend to retire into something and a huge portion of ‘retirees’ are actively involved in doing something. The fact is, your pension will not be enough to retire on. This is why. A lifestyle of Kshs 100, 000 per month today will in ten years cost approximately Kshs 400, 000. Let’s put it another way, you will need that Kshs 400, 000 to buy the exact same things Kshs 100, 000 does today because of inflation. If you are retiring in ten years and intend to completely cease all economic activity, you will need an investment that is giving you that amount of money per month. Whilst this is possible with time, proper financial planning and investment many people have found themselves facing ‘retirement’ without that financial cushion, at least not completely. So retirement, in this case, is no longer that you will stop working completely. It is figuring out what you will retire into.
If you have had a long career doing something specific, you have also had a lot of experience defining yourself a certain way. Lawyer, accountant, marketing professional, banker etc. As we train people on retirement we have realized many professionals have difficulty looking at themselves in different ways. The profession has become the identity and they fear the end. For many, there has also been a lot of influence or social status aligned to this position that may not be there post-retirement. It is important to start understanding what you can do instead of just what title you held. Your abilities versus your qualifications.
For example, you may have defined yourself as a lawyer. If we remove that label your abilities may include communication, working with teams, negotiation, attention to detail etc. These are transferable and while you may not want to go and get another intensive role there are things you can still do like consultancy, teaching, helping people with proposals or use these same skills to start a business. I did a course last year and one of my lecturers was a retired CFO who now works with a multitude of SME’s. These SME’s cannot afford someone like him full time but on a consultancy basis, he is now able to share his years of experience. So, in this case, he has transferred his skills into something similar to his training. But the skill set of a CFO can still go into other areas. Analytical skills are also needed in real estate development and farming.
Look at retirement, not as something to dread but a new season where you can package yourself differently and be a problem solver in a different way. Your journey counts and there are some things you can only get better with experience. Look for that! This is not the season to fight for the same jobs that suit the twenty-year-olds. Maybe you can bring your experience or networks on board to the company that those twenty-year-olds are starting. Start preparing yourself to be relevant differently. Many professionals openly admit that for a long time they have wanted to make a change. If not now, when? Let’s also not hang on to roles, whose season has passed. You don’t have to wait to be 60. It just may be your time to exit. Yes, the finances are important and I have written an article on that area before. However, we must also start understanding the transferable skills we have acquired and match them to a new opportunity. No one has the exact same experience as you and it is needed somewhere. Change is scary but part of the process of life.
For more information on the Centonomy Retirement Planning program, get in touch with her on waceken@centonomy.com|Facebook/WacekeNduati| Twitter@cekenduati