Home > Articles > Business & Management > Finance & Investing

Taking the First Steps Toward Goal Oriented Retirement Planning

Planning for your retirement may be the last thing on your mind, but you should start now if you want to live your retirement on your own terms. This chapter introduces the basic concepts of retirement planning and helps you to get mentally prepared for the challenge ahead.
This chapter is from the book

Thomas Edison was quoted as saying that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration—prepare to be inspired and to sweat. Congratulations on taking this step toward empowering your retirement. You've gotten your hands on this book, and you're ready to partner with me as your guide to climb this retirement mountain.

You will find this book very conversational. Imagine me as the little guardian angel on your shoulder whispering into your ear (and occasionally shouting benevolent words of encouragement). My goal in writing this book is simple and straightforward: I want to educate and empower people who are struggling with their own retirement issues.

There's an old Chinese proverb that basically goes like this: "Tell me something and I'll forget it, show me something and I may recall it, but involve me in something and I'll understand it." I want you to understand the consequences of your action or inaction, and I want to provide you with a path to achieve your goals. This first chapter is all about overcoming inertia and establishing the proper mindset as we prepare to learn about retirement issues and build a framework that will ultimately provide you with the retirement of your choice. This won't happen without a lot of hard work; the hardest fought victories always feel the best.

Carrying forward our Far East references, 2,500 years ago, there lived a military expert by the name of Sun Tzu. He and his father before him were renowned across the land as being not just great warriors, but great military strategists. Those who have studied Sun Tzu understand that one of his core principles was avoiding conflict, not forcing conflict. He was also well prepared for achieving any goal, and I've always been able to apply his principles during my career. Imagine that achieving your retirement goals is a war and listen to Sun Tzu's thought: "Conquerors estimate in their temple before war begins. They consider everything. The defeated also estimate before the war, but they do not contemplate everything. Estimating completely creates victory; estimating incompletely causes failure".

The Retirement Countdown Plan

For you to be able to retire on your terms will require a concerted effort. Only a small percentage of Americans have the luxury of not worrying about how they will meet their post-retirement income needs. The rest of us must either be lucky or take action to establish, monitor, and achieve a plan that will result in meeting our goals. The process we will go through to establish your retirement framework is called Goal Oriented Retirement Planning, or GORP for short. GORP is the energy for your retirement plan.

GORP breaks down the process of planning for retirement into small digestible steps that create a feeling of hope and empowerment, not fear and procrastination. But hope and empowerment can only create the proper mindset for doing the work that needs to be done. Once you recognize you have to work to achieve these goals, you need to develop a plan to implement change. On a step-by-step basis over the course of this book, you will learn what is required to establish and meet your retirement goals. The following is a brief discussion of the framework from which we will work. Much greater detail can be found on GORP and applying its principles in Chapters 5, 12, and 13.

Step One: Commit to the Process

Retirement planning is a process, not an event. To achieve your goals will require a commitment of time on a regular basis. You will have to decide if this is a task you want to tackle on your own or one that requires you to enlist the help of a professional. If you choose to go it on your own, you must remember the key limitation is time, and 100 percent of the workload rests on your shoulders. If you work with a professional, you can choose the extent to which you want to seed control of certain elements of the process and take a management role. In Chapter 13, you will find a grid that will help you decide when and how to use a professional.

Step Two: Collect Information

The second step involves pulling together all kinds of data you will need as you begin to conceive and develop your plan. Included here would be information on the following:

  • Income and assets

  • Expenses and liabilities

  • Insurance

  • Legal documents

  • Tax documents

Step Three: Develop a Plan (Strategic)

Once you have collected all of the necessary information, you can start to lay out a strategic plan. It's important at this stage to keep the tactical aspects of the plan at bay until you have completed the strategic aspect. In other words, this is not the stage to start looking at mutual funds or any other investment vehicle, regardless of whether you have listed them as assets or feel compelled to buy them. This is the stage of the process at which you articulate your retirement goals and determine the cost of the individual goals.

Step Four: Implement the Plan (Tactical)

In this fourth step, you are ready to implement the plan. This is the tactical element of GORP where you match assets to goals and look at repositioning assets that have no place in your plan. One of the benefits of GORP is that there is no place for an asset that is not assigned to meeting a goal. This is also the step at which you'll take action on implementing an estate plan and you'll develop a plan for managing the various elements of risk that can impact your goals.

Step Five: Monitor and Update the Plan

The final step is to monitor and update your plan. This involves periodically reviewing your goals and the assets assigned to meeting those goals. It also involves looking at how your life may have changed and how changes affect both your goals and other elements of the plan such as tax, estate, and insurance planning. As you change jobs or are promoted within an organization, your life can change and your goals may be affected by those changes. What if your original plan assumed both you and your spouse or partner would be full-time wage earners and you chose to modify the plan to allow for one of you to stop working for 10 years to raise a family? Or, what if your lifestyle were altered in such a way that your estimate for retirement income was either too high or too low? By continuing to review and modify your plan, you increase your odds of achieving success.

Timely Tidbits

Professional and recreational climbers use GORP too. Whereas GORP in Retirement Countdown is the fuel you use to sustain your retirement, GORP to a mountain climber is a trail mix for energy. Originally, GORP was granola, oats, raisins, and peanuts, but today the term refers to any energy boost mixture.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020