Ep 123 | 5 Must-Do Steps If You Feel Behind on Retirement Planning

You’ve just started thinking about retirement. You ask yourself: Am I on track for retirement OR How do I start planning for retirement? 

I’ve got you covered! In this episode, I share 5 must-do steps to help you get ready for retirement.

These steps are simple, but they’re powerful. And they’re exactly where you begin.

What You’ll Learn:

✅ How to ditch the overwhelm from Google overload

✅ Get 5 clear starting steps for retirement planning

✅ How to find your next best move

Ready to Get Clear on Your Retirement Path?

Book your free Confidence Kickstart Call and in just 30 minutes, you’ll know what’s standing between you and retirement, and how to overcome it.

👉 Click here to book your free call now

Or, grab one of my free resources to help you take the first step:

5 Must-Do Steps for Retirement Planning — A simple guide to help you prepare with purpose

Retirement Ready Checklist — Make sure you’re not missing a single step on the road to retirement

Transcript

 So you have put your family first for all of your working career, raising them because you value family and why shouldn't you? They're what is so important to you. And yeah, you shouldn't deny it, but now you're finding the kids are growing, the house is becoming quieter, and as you're sitting in the quiet of this house.

Your thoughts start shifting to you and your future because now you have that time. Now you have that option to put yourself first. You still value family, but they're on their own doing it. This is now you and thinking about your future. The first thing you think is. How am I going to retire? And immediately you feel behind.

Honestly, those two que that question and that feeling comes because we've never spent time like we have the time now to begin thinking about our future. And as we are asking ourself that question, how am I going to retire? And now I feel behind you find yourself thinking, okay, what do I do next? And as the smart person that you are, you attempt to solve the problem.

It's what we all do. You go searching the internet. You're Googling all sorts of questions, looking for something. It's probably how you found me, but what you're finding is a lot of information just, you can see it's all relative to retirement, and it all is important, but what you're not. Finding is that clear plan.

I just want a step by step guide. I just want the clear roadmap. I just want somebody to tell me what steps to take next. 'cause as you look at that information, I. You feel overwhelmed. You're frustrated. You're not sure how to put it in the steps. So let's pause the noise and I am going to help you focus on what actually matters.

I'm going to give you the five must. Do steps to start retirement planning. Whether you're just starting or if you feel behind. These five must-dos are important in setting the foundation to be able to move forward and all of that information you've found in searches will start making more sense. All right, the five must-dos.

The first one. I, I want you to take inventory now. What do I mean by that? I want you to account for all of your bills, all of your spending, all of your savings, all of your retirement accounts,

and just like the step says, take inventory. We are just making a list. We're just itemizing all of this information. Make sure you're getting into some of the details so you know what it is you have. Of as you do this, there's no judgment. No judgment at all. I'm not, you know, I don't want you to hear, oh gosh, that's a lot.

Oh man, I should have saved more. You know, all of these thoughts will come up. I want you to just press past them. We are not handling any of that right now. We just want a clear picture. We just want to build our awareness. Honestly, step one is creating our starting point. As you think of running a race, running a marathon, this is your starting point.

All of these things are what you have done to help you complete the race successfully. Again, no judgment, just awareness, you know, list your bills, understand all of the parts of your spending savings. I'm talking about retirement savings, and outside of that savings, all of the things. Make sure you list those accounts so you know where to find those and how that adds up to your income,

those pieces are very, very important. Step two, define your dream even if it feels out of reach. As I ask you the question, what does retirement look like for you? I don't want you to be limiting yourself. I want you to create the dream and the analogy of creating this race, we're building this marathon, whatever that is.

If you've seen those, they have those ending, I dunno, arches, whatever. This is your ending. This is your arch, and I want it to be very beautiful. I want it to be very desirable for you. Be really honest and specific. Get into some of the details, if you can. If this is your first time defining it, you're gonna be really probably not understanding what it could be.

It's just a start, but ultimately, defining your dream, we'll build the desire and the motivation to get there. Be clear, be real, dial into what you truly want from retirement. And this is an easy step I know for people to just look past and not, you know, implement. But honestly, this is your ending point.

Step one is the beginning. Step two is the ending where we need to get to. Where we've started from, which leads us to step three. We've gotta find the gaps. What is it that we need to do to take us from where we're at to that dream? How much more do we need to save? How much more do we need to maybe cut back on expenses?

How much more do we need to define into this is truly what I want for retirement? All of those things. And the gap is your step by step plan as you're looking for the gaps. Again, these are the steps to get you somewhere. How much have you saved? How much do you need to have saved? How can you get there more quickly?

What is it going to look like in the future? Finding the gap can be technical, and if this is not an area where you want to dial into it yourself or you're ready to just turn away and not do this. This is where you need to schedule your retirement roadmap session. We do all of these steps. Even the next two I'm gonna cover and more, we dive deeper.

I help you understand. We implement all of the steps for the gap, help you identify how much you've saved, how much more you need to save, how you can do that. You know, really define your dream, how those expenses can fit into a budget and create the entire road. Oh, roadmap, step-by-step guide. If you're not wanting to do this on your own, make sure you schedule that session to get you through this more quickly.

Okay, step four, create a value-based budget. Hopefully you, hopefully you already have a budget. That's basically what step one was about, in a sense, helping us understand what our bills spending and savings looks like. But step four, when I say creating a value-based budget, this is to align your budget for who you are and making your money go where it matters most.

If you really have to find your dream and you know you wanna get there, I. Leaning into the value-based budget. 'cause we don't wanna deny right now, but we want to honor that future dream. The value-based budget is your solution. Everything in there should have a purpose driving you to your goals, and you might have other goals in addition to retirement because we're living life and it is important.

The other thing to remember is budgeting isn't punishment. Budgeting with this value-based or adding a purpose can be so powerful. And as you understand how to dial into the purposes for each of those categories and how it reflects in the different values of your life, it becomes free. It becomes.

Really helpful in knowing that these are the things I'm gonna do. This is what I am enjoying today and this is what I'm going to enjoy in the future. Learning how to create a value-based budget is very, very huge. And step five, this is the easy one. I want you to commit to one action today. Even the smallest step, but listening to this and not doing something, that's not what I want you to do.

I want you to be able to do something. Whether it is creating a budget or you know, taking inventory like we talked about in step one, or I have it very simply put, I have a free resource with all five of these steps defined. What you need to do gives you instructions. There's additional resources for learning and implementation of each of these steps, be sure to grab that resource that will walk you through these five steps.

You can find that@elevatefinances.us slash must do. They're all right there. But again, like I said earlier. If you are ready to have that step-by-step guide all of the steps, not just the five must dos to get you started, you're wanting to better understand how all of these things we talked about today can benefit your personal situation.

Then I want you to book your retirement roadmap session. This is a two hour one-on-one coaching session where we will create your personalized roadmap. Together we're using my signature framework, clarity, confidence, and control. In addition to these five steps, five steps and more, we will dive into them and make them for your life, for your situation.

We'll customize them for you. Each step is not just given to you. I make sure you understand how to implement what the steps are within that, of what you need to do to make sure those happen. If you've been searching for a step-by-step, a roadmap, a clear plan, I want you to book your session today at Elevate Finances US slash roadmap.

Now, both of those links are also down in the show notes, but. I want you to not feel behind. And being able to do these five must-dos will help you understand where you are, how much you have done, what else you need to do, and that pinpointed direction you need to go. Remember, searching has left you wondering, well, what's the next step?

Let's quickly recap. I want you to take inventory with no judgment. I just want you to understand. What have you got going? What do you, what can you use? What are your assets and resources to put into reaching your dream? Which we, in step two, are going to define. We're gonna define it without limits, without barriers.

We're going to get into the nitty gritty because hopefully we can start reaching, you know, costs and adding those into a retirement budget. Number three, finding the gap. How are we going from our beginning post to our end post? Defining how much we've saved, how much more we need to save, how we can kind of close that gap with expense controlled and maybe more focused on the way we spend money or how money serves us.

And we can find that in step four with creating a value-based budget. So really understanding that budgets. That are built with purpose and value can have great power in guiding us to where we wanna go, what we wanna do, and how we can actually enjoy our money. Step five, you're going to commit to one action today.

I've talked about two that you could try and decide. I want you to grab your free guide. Again, it's links down in the show notes. Five must do steps if you feel behind with retirement planning. Got those laid out with addit. All links for additional learning and calculations. Go grab that. Or if you're ready to just get that in and know all of the steps you need to do, book your retirement roadmap session with me today, two hours.

We'll get it all laid out. You'll know exactly what you need to do to move forward and be able to reach that retirement dream. I just want to say one last thing. You are not behind in retirement because you're bad with money. Nobody is that bad with money you are behind because no one gave you a clear path, and I'm here to help you change that.

Whether you download that personal resource, excuse me, that free resource or you book your personalized retirement roadmap session, let's get you moving and headed toward retirement. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next episode.