The theme for this week is: A strategic plan for retirement. Most well-run businesses have a strategic plan that outlines the company’s mission, vision, values & goals. It’s the roadmap for how a business will get from where it is today to where it wants to go.

When it comes to planning for retirement, many of us just start with our goals, without ever considering how those goals align with our mission, vision, and values.

Today, I want to lay the framework for what a strategic plan for your retirement should look like. Don’t worry, this is actually simpler than it sounds. I’m not going to ask you to do a SWOT analysis...your strategic plan for retirement is a scaled down version of the typical strategic plan, yet it still has all of the essential elements to help you define how you want to live in retirement.

There are 5 elements of a really good strategic plan for your retirement. I’ll briefly cover these 5 elements today, then we’ll spend some time over the next few days unpacking each of these elements, so you can build your strategic plan for retirement.

Here are the 5 elements:

1. Mission or Purpose - Who are you, what are you here on earth for, what’s your primary goal in life, why do you exist? Oh my gosh, you’re like Ashley, this is a trick question, right? We spend our whole lives trying to figure this one out, don’t we?! I’ll explain this one more tomorrow.
2. Vision - My favorite term to describe how to articulate your vision is the BHAG - your big, hairy, audacious goal. Or putting it another way: “Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star”. Your vision should be connected to your mission and it should be articulated in just 1-2 sentences.
3. Core Values - You’ll need to identify 3-5 values that are most important to you. My core values include integrity, discipline, faith, fun, and continuous improvement. Your core values might include love, respect, reputation, creativity or adventure. The point is that you pick just 3 to 5 and write them down.
4. Goals - Once you’ve outlined your mission, vision, and values, then we can move on to the goals. I’ll explain how to set 3 to 5 meaningful goals for your retirement on Friday.
5. Key short-term initiatives - Your goals will probably take some time to realize, so your key short-term initiatives are the smaller actions you’ll take this year to make progress on reaching your goals. If you have a goal to run a marathon and you’re a beginner runner, the key term initiative to that big goal might be to start running 3 days/week or that you’ll participate in 5 10ks this year.

That’s the overview of the 5 key elements of a strategic plan for retirement - mission, vision, core values, goals, and key short-term initiatives. Tomorrow, I’m going to dive deeper into crafting your mission and vision.

Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.

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