How To Identify Your Retirement Goals

Planning for your retirement requires a level of financial literacy your financial planner can help you navigate.  By identifying your retirement lifestyle goals and bucket list you want to achieve in your retired years, you set yourself up for greater confidence to comfortably move along with your future.

Important things to first consider when setting goals are things such as lifestyle and living expenses, protecting your assets, health and aged care, estate planning and preserving your capital.

When creating goals, you may notice the term “SMART Goals” may keep appearing.  Just as they are relevant in business planning, they can also help you identify your retirement goals.

SPECIFIC

Saying you want to travel can mean different things for different people. Whether it be purchasing a caravan and travelling around Australia for a year, a weekend at the coast or a first class trip to Europe, the cost of these goals will vary dramatically.  It is important to be specific with your retirement goals so give you a better understanding of its attainability.

MEASURABLE

This one could become more complicated t navigate, and one an independent financial planner could help you with.  Financial Planners can project your retirement income to make sure you are setting achievable goals. How will you know when it is accomplished?  You can usually answer this by asking, how much? When? What? And how many?

ACHIEVABLE

Make sure you can actually attain your retirement goals.  Obviously, there are financial limits on what you can do. Remember to be open to moving your goal posts if your goals are slightly out of your reach.

REALISTIC

Choose goals that matter.  When you’re using your money, you might need to compromise on other things in life, so be wise with your choices.

TIMELY

By giving yourself a deadline, it gives you the ambition to achieve your goal and something to look forward to.  Set a date you want to retire by, and work towards that.  If you know how much your retirement is going to cost, you will be able to invest your finances effectively in the lead-up to achieve these goals, and start ticking off the things on your bucket list!

Your goals will be unique to you, however, common ones to consider are living a comfortable lifestyle, owning your own home and ticking off a bucket list.  Make sure you prioritise your goals.  In the event something out of your control happens, you know what goal to compromise on first. By identifying your retirement goals, you will have a more measurable way to know how much you will need to retire which your financial planner can then help you achieve.