Are You Mentally Ready for "Retirement?"

A new assessment tool helps you measure your Retirement Quotient (RQ)

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

There are two basic approaches to The Alternative Reality Formerly Known as Retirement (TARFKAR), or “retirement” for short. Some people make careful plans for what they will do once they are free from the burden of work. I call these folks the Plan-Its. I’m not one myself, but I did marry one, so I have detailed second-hand knowledge of their ways. Give the Plan-Its their due: they think long and hard, they align all their ducks, and they generate plans that prove useless only about half the time.

But that’s an impressive score, compared to the approach of the other camp, whom I call the Wing-Its (and with whom I more closely identify). They don’t like to waste time thinking about the future: They just take each day as it comes, and on the day they step into retirement they are dismayed to discover it’s like nothing they’ve experienced before.

In sum, all the Wing-Its and half the Plan-Its are in for rude shocks upon entering “retirement.”  Why is this? Speaking from personal experience and dozens of interviews, I can suggest several reasons: People we love get sick. Or we get sick. Or the friends we expected to watch sunsets with leave town. Or what we thought we wanted to do looks quite different in real time, and maybe isn’t even a good match for who we are. Or we have an antiquated view of “retirement,” one that doesn’t reflect the 25 to 30 bonus years we may be looking at after we stop working.

Perhaps we could spare ourselves some rude shocks if we had some guidance. With that in mind, Robert Laura has leaped into the breach with an online, easy-to-take assessment tool that compares what you know about retirement, what you want from retirement, and your unique personality traits. The assessment provides a number representing your RQ – Retirement Quotient – but the score may be the tool’s least useful element.

According to Laura, a financial planner who also is founder and chief executive of the Retirement Coaches Association, the greater value of the assessment is understanding the “variances” - where what you want and who you are don’t line up. If, for example, you’re a workaholic by nature and you expect to be satisfied with a life of golf and pina coladas, let’s just say your tectonic plates will soon be grinding mightily.

The assessment takes about 20 minutes to complete online. I know this because I took it this week. Within a minute, I had my complete 15-page RQ Profile Report, suitable for printing. Based on my answers to the 56 questions, the report suggests the areas where my personal life, my work life, and my knowledge of retirement align well, along with those areas where there seems to be a mismatch. It noted, for instance, that my lack of a written retirement plan puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to retirement success. It pointed out (and it was not the first to do so) that my sedentary lifestyle needs immediate countermeasures, and that my social ties could use some augmentation.

Overall, I scored 990 out of a possible 1395 points. Hold your applause. According to Laura, any score below 1,000 means the assessment taker could benefit from some retirement coaching.

Let’s Talk About It

In fact, that’s really the point of the assessment. The report does not provide any answers. What you get, instead, is a great text to spark a discussion. At several points in the assessment, a message reminds you that you’ll get best results by discussing your report with a certified retirement coach who has been trained to use the assessment to help clients succeed (on their own terms, of course). Lest you be left wondering where such a person can be found, the assessment tool conveniently provides a drop-down menu listing all the qualified coaches to choose from. I think discussing the report with a coach is a terrific idea. While 15 pages of analysis and subtle suggestions are interesting, you can really benefit by having another person poke, prod, and zero in on how to make the interesting report into an action plan.

Laura thinks the ideal time to take the assessment is five to ten years before retirement (clearly he is in the Plan-Its camp). But if you have already entered “retirement” and you’re dissatisfied with the way it’s going, an assessment and a chat with a retirement coach seems like a promising place to turn for assistance.

You can take the assessment for $29 through the end of the year, after which the price goes up to $99.

Share the Story of Your Retirement

If you’ve retired and had some difficulties making the adjustment to that stage of life (even if you’ve resolved them by now), I would love to talk to you about it for a research project. If you’re willing to be interviewed, please contact me at don@donakchin.com for details.