As people face retirement, they typically focus on their financial resources. This is important, but retirement is not just about how much money we have. Of equal importance is one’s attitude toward retirement.

Times have changed. The good news is that people are living longer and healthier lives. They want to find fulfillment in their retirement years, whether that involves working for money or working for their community, pursuing a hobby or spending more time with family relationships. Coaching sessions and workshops at our Center are designed to help you map out your future with better-informed decisions.

The RetireRight Center was created in 2003 as a women-owned, non-profit support center. The founders had decades of experience in coaching others in career transitions and felt that retirement was another transition in one’s life journey that could use some assistance. The founders were also facing their own post-career transition and entering into their retirement years. They were very aware of the uneasiness and confusion that this period presented. In wanting to help others who were dealing with their own retirement dilemmas, they created methodologies for planing a fulfilling future.

In these tight economic times, planning a successful retirement is even more challenging. Thankfully, the RetireRight Center is aware of these factors and can be very helpful in working around the financial potholes. After working with pre-retirees and retirees, the RetireRight Center has found that the central issues troubling people fall into the following categories:

• Who am I in retirement? In other words, do I need a new identity and how do I build one?
• What will be changing? My relationships; my home; my job? And, how do I cope with so much change?
• How will I find fulfillment? In helping others? In project work? In raising grandchildren

Our consultants also found that people tend to avoid planning and feel that matters will simply fall into place as the time draws closer to retirement. This does not typically prove to be the case. It is natural to procrastinate when one has so many other items on the agenda, such as child rearing, career, aging parents and so forth. We feel that we can be useful in helping people move forward in their planning and beat down the procrastination giant.

The result of procrastination is that many individuals have only sketchy plans for their future. These plans often are limited to taking a few trips, perhaps doing a little volunteer work, perhaps working part-time, or trying some activities they hadn’t gotten to participate in over the years. And then, there may be the “honey do” list or the hope to get in many rounds of golf. Bottom line, individuals initially have come to the Center with more questions than answers, but this is soon changed because they have the answers within themselves. It only takes our skilled consultants a short period of time to get clients to envision their way to a more fulfilling, happier future.

Probably the biggest obstacle to getting started with planning for retirement is having a method to investigate problems and create solutions. Clarifying “wants” and “needs” related to financial obstacles, the quality of relationships, housing and health choices, future identity concerns and/or plans to work and gain fulfillment all can be dealt with in a systematic way. Visit the RetireRight Center’s website to learn more about how we can help give structure to your future plans. You can do it at the RetireRight Center. Learn more at www.retirerightcenter.org.

WHY WE ARE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER RETIREMENT PLANNING SITES

Unlike other retirement planning sites, our site does not try to sell you psychological testing, or provide for the assessment or management of your finances. Our focus is on the non-financial aspects one needs to deal with…relationships with spouse/partner/adult children; maximizing health and housing; finding fulfillment, etc. As a non-profit organization, our charges for webinars, telephone seminars, workshops, or weekend retreats are only intended to defray the cost of a coach and overhead costs, nothing more. We are in business simply to help you and our clients find their way forward toward making their plans become reality. We do this simply by drawing out answers from you in a non-invasive manner through asking questions that you probably have not framed out for yourself.

Our company also conducts surveys, does research, presents information to conferences and on radio and TV, writes articles for magazines and newspapers, such as the AARP Bulletin, develops training materials including self-assessment games used in workshops, and so forth. Our focus is to get individuals to develop a mindset that they can create a meaningful, happy and fulfilling lifestyle for themselves in retirement.