How Can You Start Living Your Retirement Dream Now?

Published By Mallard Financial Partners

As financial professionals, we strive to offer more than just money advice to our clients. We realize that your life goes far beyond finances. While we aim to provide exceptional planning and proactive investment management, we also make it a priority to enhance our clients’ daily lives. The way we see it, if we didn’t help improve your quality of life, our well-crafted financial strategies and money management wouldn’t matter much.

So how exactly do you enhance your daily life, and how can it be accomplished? At our firm, we believe in the importance of striking a balance between working toward a long-term goal like retirement, and making sure you appreciate your everyday experiences. And because the future is unpredictable, we want to help you make the most of the present moment before it slips away.

Our Mallard Financial Partners team members pride themselves on going above and beyond traditional financial planning by helping clients find a harmonious balance between working toward their dream retirement and enjoying their retirement dreams now. To get you started, here are four tips that can help.

What Do You Want Your Life to Look Like?

Financial conversations can often be left-brain dominant. But since money impacts every area of your life, it’s critical that financial discussions also include your hopes and dreams for life. That means we need to dig into the emotional side of our thinking.

One simple way we can do this is by asking our clients specific questions about what their retirement goals look like, this includes:

• Tangible goals: What would you like to have?

• Conceptual goals: What would you like your life to be like?

• Freedom goals: What would you like to be able to do?

Principle in Action

Many people don’t even know where to begin when faced with the above questions and will sometimes provide a surface-level answer, such as “I’d like to travel” or “I’d like to spend more time with my family.” These are great starts, but it may take some time to truly uncover what’s most important to you. That’s okay. Even if you don’t know exactly what you want, there are ways to take practical steps toward leading a happier, more fulfilled life now.

Expect Less

It’s no secret that money can buy peace of mind and less stress. But can money buy you happiness? The answer is: to an extent. Researchers have found that increased income is associated with increased levels of happiness and life satisfaction up to a point—$105,000 to be exact. Beyond that threshold, happiness levels plateau and additional increases in income result in negligible changes in happiness.

Instead of focusing on a single major retirement dream (e.g., a certain amount of money in the bank, or a specific car or household item), try focusing on what you already have and live in the moment as much as possible. Practicing meditation or mindfulness can have significant impacts on your overall sense of happiness and well-being, and letting go of expectations of what your life should look like can be a great first step in living your retirement dream now.

Set Sub-Goals

If your dreams are more on the tangible side, that’s great too. To help with these goals, try setting smaller sub-goals that can be achieved more quickly than the ultimate retirement dream. For instance, if your retirement dream consists of retiring in a condo on a beach in South Florida, maybe set a sub-goal of vacationing in South Florida a few times. Taking those trips could inspire you even more to make your ultimate dream a reality, while also allowing you to live your dream in the moment. Setting relevant sub-goals allows you to sort of test-drive that dream—which for this example can have the added benefit of making certain that South Florida still meets your needs before you make the large commitment to move. In these ways, setting sub-goals can help keep you on track or help you decide if another dream is more important for you.

Find Purpose

Studies show that individuals who live a purpose-driven life are happier and healthier on average than those who don’t. Not only that, they also live longer! A purposeful life is commonly associated with fulfillment and motivation, and can be found in many ways. Volunteering for a local nonprofit or church, spending time with your children, or pursuing a newfound hobby are great ways to find purpose in your day-to-day life.

Prioritize Family & Friends

This one sounds obvious, but it’s often one of the hardest things to do. Life gets in the way and before you know it, you’ve spent a whole month getting stuff done but not really spending any true quality time with the people who matter most. Living your retirement dream now often comes in the form of just slowing down for a moment. Realizing that the laundry list of stuff to buy, deadlines to meet, and things to do is important, but so is connecting with and learning from those around you.

The great news is, you don’t have to wait until retirement to do that. You can start setting aside time every week to check in with your loved ones and find meaningful ways to connect. You might just find that in doing so, your to-do list becomes a little lighter and maybe even easier to accomplish.

The Time Is Now

What steps can you take to begin chasing your dreams now rather than later? You may be surprised to learn that many of your aspirations can be accomplished sooner than you think.

At Mallard Financial Partners, we’re committed to acknowledging your success while assisting you with a customized and holistic financial plan to live your dream retirement lifestyle now. If you don’t know where to start, reach out to us today to schedule a no-obligation Discovery Meeting. Contact us at hello@mallardfinancial.com or call 302-737-4546.

About Joseph

Joseph Daigle is the Chief Executive Officer at Mallard Financial Partners Inc., a financial planning firm based in Newark, Delaware, that serves individuals, families, small businesses, trusts, and nonprofits across the U.S. Joseph serves the firm as a member of the Investment Committee and Chief Executive Officer. In his role as CEO, Joseph assists clients in understanding their financial goals and talking through their stressors. Approachable and reassuring, he helps clients feel confident in their financial strategy.

Joseph holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance with a minor in Management Information Systems from the University of Delaware and is an alumnus of programs at Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Oxford. Outside of the office, Joseph is very active in his community of North Wilmington and has served on several local and national nonprofit boards. In addition to serving his community, Joseph enjoys cooking, gardening, reading, and connecting with family, friends, and neighbors. To learn more about Joseph, connect with him on LinkedIn.