There is a simple secret to making wise retirement rollover and income decisions.
Begin with the end in mind.
Follow a simple six-step process called the SWAN Circle of Wisdom. This decision-making system breaks your retirement planning decisions into manageable steps, helping you gain the clarity and confidence you need in order to make critical choices about your retirement rollover and income options.
Retirement Decisions Simplified: The SWAN Circle of Wisdom Process
Before you rollover your retirement account or make a long-term decision about retirement income planning, do yourself a favor. Experience the Circle of Wisdom process.
| Awareness | Acceptance | Accountability | Action | Achievement | Assessment |
Step One – Awareness
Quiet your mind. It’s time to get out pen and paper and dream. Realistically.
It’s time to step back from the confusion and overwhelm and get very clear about what you want. Take your time to think this through. And think long-term.
What exactly do you want to accomplish? Are you looking to create a lifetime retirement income, pass retirement assets to your beneficiaries, fund a dream, right size your life, move or start a new business?
Each choice impacts not only how you plan for retirement, but what investment solutions will best help you reach your lifestyle goals.
- Awareness is knowing what you own and why. Include everything. Investments, CDs, cash value life insurance, investment property, money in a safety deposit box, and savings bonds to name a few. Tip: Do NOT count on an inheritance or a bonus you have not yet received.
- Awareness is knowing your total net worth. Add up all your assets, then subtract your debts. It doesn’t matter if you have $1 million in retirement savings if you are $1.1 million in debt.
- Awareness is understanding how much retirement risk you are exposed to and making the conscious choice that it’s acceptable.
- Awareness is knowing whether your current investments will provide you with the retirement income you need to fulfill your goals.
Advance planning and deciding on your retirement objective provides a level of protection when you do decide to visit with an advisor. Always ask, “How does your recommendation help me accomplish my goal?”
TIP: What is most important to you about money? Most of my WOW workshop attendees tell me security, freedom and independence are their top priorities. But their actions often speak louder than words. Awareness is recognizing if there is a disconnect between your values, your goals, and your current lifestyle.
Step Two – Acceptance
Balancing the wisdom of knowing what you control and learning what you must accept will transform how you think. Acceptance is about controlling what you can and letting go of what you have no power over. This shift in thinking can bring you enormous peace of mind.
- You cannot control the stock market. But you do have control over the risk you are willing to accept in retirement.
- You cannot control laws of the land, but you can learn about your options to help you save taxes and increase retirement income.
- You cannot control the passage of time, but you do control how you spend it. And who you spend it with.
- You cannot control aging, but you can embrace who you are in your current season of life. You can prepare for the future.
Accept that what you don’t know can hurt you. Find a retirement planner and specialist you feel comfortable talking with and ask questions. Lots of questions.
TIP: If you don’t feel comfortable asking questions, or feel intimidated by your advisor, find someone else.
Step 3: Accountability
There is a genuine freedom in taking responsibility for your life. Responsibility is not a burden. It is a gift of power. You have the power to choose.
- Decide what information you need to make a wise decision about your retirement rollover or retirement income or lifestyle choices.
- Gather the facts you need to make a wise choice.
- Set a deadline for making a decision. Otherwise paralysis by analysis will set in.
- Be clear what your minimum standards are for the investment you choose. This will narrow your choices and make the decision easier to make.
- Uncover all the possibilities. Consult with an expert who specializes in retirement planning.
TIP: It’s human nature to procrastinate when a decision is difficult. A confused mind does nothing.
Step 4: Action
Are you still planning to plan?
Stop thinking. Start doing. It doesn’t matter how much you know or how great of a plan you have. Without action, nothing happens. You are on a dead end road, going nowhere.
“Vision without action is a daydream.
Action without vision is a nightmare.”
Japanese Proverb
- Evaluate your retirement rollover and income options. The Ben Franklin ledger is a simple and effective decision-making tool. Divide a piece of paper in two. On one side list the Pros of the decision. On the other side list the Cons. Then weight the items as to which is most important. EXAMPLE: If security is your number one concern, it is weighted more heavily than other criteria.
- Identify and assess the risk of each option. Decide whether or not the risk is necessary to achieve your goal. Evaluate the potential “what ifs” if this plan fails to deliver.
- Get expert guidance. Make the decision. Follow through.
TIP: We each have two lives. The life we live, and the life we dream of living. Don’t procrastinate any longer. Get organized. Get educated. Make a choice.
Step 5: Achievement
How do you measure your success? Do you know when you have saved enough? Do you ever celebrate, acknowledging that you have accomplished what you set out to do?
Or are you just saving money for the “what ifs” of life? Or because that’s all you know? Or (worst of all) because you are scared frugal?
- Imagine the freedom of knowing you have the ability to spend without affecting your future retirement lifestyle.
- Imagine having the security of knowing you have prepared for the unexpected (but often times inevitable) consequences of aging.
- Imagine retaining the feeling of independence that financial security in retirement provides.
- Imagine knowing you won’t outlive your money.
TIP: Know the goal. Celebrate when you reach your retirement goal. Keep track of your success. I know you can do this!
Step 6: Assessment
Assess and adjust your retirement roadmap on an annual basis. More often if needed. As life’s circumstances change (and I guarantee they will), your plan will most likely change as well. Be sure to have an advisor that cares about you, keeps you accountable, on track, and asks the difficult questions that must be asked.
New opportunities that you never envisioned may present themselves. A new goal. A new grandbaby. A new relationship. A new career or travel. You must be able to adjust your retirement roadmap and forge new paths to fit life’s new circumstances.
- Reassess your original goal to be sure if the dream is still what you want. Perspective changes over time.
- If you remain committed to your goal, assess action steps to see if you on the right course. If you aren’t achieving the success you are looking for, be brutally honest with yourself. Are you working the plan? Does the plan need to be changed?
TIP: Life seems to change in five-year increments when we’re younger, and much quicker as we age. It’s ok to change your mind. The decisions you made five years ago were right for that time in your life. You may need to make new choices for today’s reality.
Follow the simple SWAN Circle of Wisdom steps for making wise retirement planning decisions and you can change your life. If you’ve never experienced financial peace of mind, I guarantee you don’t know what you are missing.
Need help? Please feel free to contact me. No cost. No obligation. Let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together.
Check out The Ten Must Ask Questions about Retirement Rollovers and Distributions
