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The Five Most Common Retirement Myths
By Alan Bernstein, Psychotherapist and John Trauth
Strategic and Financial Planner Authors of "Your Retirement, Your Way"
(McGraw-Hill, 2006)

What is so hard about retirement? Many people have asked us this question. Well, if it's so easy, then why do 41% of retirees five years out say retirement was the most difficult transition of their life? Now they are unhappy- and tell us their life was better when they were working!

You can avoid this fate. To learn how, you need to understand the difficulties associated with this transition, beginning with why there are so many negative associations with the whole concept of "retirement" which you may not consciously understand.

The word "retirement" comes from the old French verb, "retyrer" which means "to go off into seclusion." If you look up the word today in Webster's, some of the synonyms you will find are:

• Withdrawal
• Retreat
• Seclusion
• Departure
• Regression

Who would want to do any of that? So it is not surprising that we all probably have many unconscious negative associations with retirement. We don't want to feel old and irrelevant, and we don't want to regress, but often our parents' retirement was followed shortly by demise and death. We certainly want to deny the inevitable, and denial can become very powerful because we don't consciously realize we are doing it! And who is going to carefully plan for something we're carefully avoiding considering?

Denial of the importance of planning for retirement has led to five very common retirement myths.

Myth #1 is that retirement is not here now, so there is no reason to think about it and seriously plan for it. "I'll think about that tomorrow." We call this myth, the "Scarlet O'Hara" myth.		Myth #2 is the belief that retirement is really simple. No big deal. I'll just stop working and everything will be fine. What's so hard about that? Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. We call this myth, the "Homer Simpson" myth.
Myth #3 holds that retirement will be great because it will be one, long, happy vacation. Remember those three weeks we spent in Florida or Hawaii? The rest of my life is going to be just like that. But retirees find out very soon that leisure is only relaxing and rejuvenating when it is a counterbalance to some sort of routine. We call this myth, the "Carnival Cruise" myth.		Myth #4 is probably the most common myth, and it expresses the belief that your retirement will be wonderful if only you have enough money. This myth is perpetuated by the advertisements of many financial services companies and by the fact that, in America, we are becoming increasingly responsible for our own financial independence after work. This is not to say that finances are not important. They are. But only as a means to an end. So we call this myth, the "King Midas" myth.
Myth #5 is the most interesting of all. This myth holds that I am just going to love spending tons and tons of time with my spouse or life partner. We have been waiting practically all our lives to have all this wonderful time together! Now finally we can do it! And we call this myth, "King Henry the 8th!"

So now that you know what the five most common retirement myths are, what do you do to dispel them? In our book, "Your Retirement, Your Way," we explain the process for getting past denial and truly engaging in creating a retirement that will complement your own personality and also mesh well with those who will share your retirement journey. It is a process which begins with understanding why retirement is such a difficult transition and then taking steps to avoid or minimize these difficulties through planning intelligently to create your ideal retirement life.

For example, the cost of denying that retirement will change your relationship with your spouse or life partner (myth #5) is revealed by the statistic that people 55 and over now have the HIGHEST divorce rate in the US. For those people who assume "more is better," our book offers preparation for changing the depth of your interpersonal transactions. Decisions now go way beyond "what's for dinner" and include where and even how to live. Expert guidance takes you through raising difficult discussions, prioritizing wishes, and listening to your partner. You can try to "wing it", but are you prepared to be a statistic in the new divorce paradigm?

Written by a psychotherapist and a financial/strategic planner, "Your Retirement, Your Way" presents a new, creative and innovative approach to planning for retirement. It offers a step-by-step curriculum with three essential parts: (1) preparing psychologically for change through analyzing your own personality and what makes you happy, satisfied and fulfilled, and then (2) building on that information to create your own personalized "NewLife" retirement plan, including buy-in from those who will share your journey, and then finally (3) reorganizing your finances to support your new lifestyle. And because things don't always go according to plan, we give you some tips at the end for managing your life in retirement toward satisfaction and fulfillment.

This is the intelligent way to prepare for what could either be (a) your most difficult life transition, with a significant chance of unhappiness, or (2) the very best years of your life. Which will it be for you?

Order your copy of "Your Retirement, Your Way," and avoid these common myths. It also makes a great gift for anyone either thinking about or getting close to retirement.