How Do I Get From Here to There?
This is the season when we think about change and growth, whether that’s in our personal life or at work. While change can be inviting, it is also difficult to sustain. When I go swimming, I can see that the numbers of people who turned up at the pool in early January have already dwindled as the weeks have passed.
Even positive change can be hard
Think about how much harder it is as the change gets bigger, not just a habit change but a transition to a whole new life. Even if it’s a change that we’re really looking forward to, such as a longed-for retirement, it can be difficult to contemplate and even harder to take action to achieve it.
We can be torn between the desire for something new and the wish to stay doing something familiar and comfortable. And if the change is being forced on you, an unwanted divorce for example, you will have even less motivation.
When I first started coaching, I began my new role alongside my existing project management consultancy business. After a while, though, I wanted to make a full transition into coaching.
I could easily imagine my new life – the ease of working nearer to home after years of travel, hotels and airports; doing something that truly inspired me rather than the routine that work had become; getting closer to my life purpose by helping people achieve their personal goals.
And yet I continued to take consultancy assignments, growing increasingly dissatisfied with how I spent my time, but doing nothing to change it.
Eventually I was able to make the transition and I’ve never regretted it. I’m aware, though, that it took a while and needed a great deal of thought.
I’m going to share the REDPAR model, the process I followed. (It’s even found its way into the name of the business I run in collaboration with fellow retirement coach Nigel Pacey, RED Retirement Coaching.)
A process for life transitions
REDPAR is helpful for any change, and I use it to support my clients as they move into retirement. I’ll focus on that here, but it’s also useful for any of the other MidLife changes I help with – maybe you’re starting a business, going through a divorce, becoming a carer, or discovering a new identity after the kids have left home.
REDPAR is a cycle, so once you complete the steps, come back here to the beginning – keep going until you get there!
R – Reflect
This is about making time to really take stock before you leap into any change. Taking time and space for reflection is important. You’re not going to be able to do any serious thinking while dashing between meetings or writing emails. Several short sessions of reflection can be just as helpful as one big chunk of time.
When could you set aside a short time each day or week to reflect on your future?
Dream a little … or, even better, dream a lot!
Feel free to get more creative. It’s in this phase that you can allow yourself to think big. You may want to think back to your childhood to reflect on what your dreams were back then, or forwards to consider what your legacy might be .
What is it you want from the change you’re considering?
Get very clear about what your new situation will look like, to you and others. What will you be hearing and feeling about yourself, other people, and your situation? Using all our senses makes the future much more real and removes some of the uncertainty that holds us back.
Once you’ve got clear on the future, reflect on what it is about your current situation that needs to change. What will you be moving away from and, just as importantly, what do you want to carry forward into your new life?
In my case, I wanted to stop all the travel and move away from the corporate world. But as an associate at consultancy organisations, I’d enjoyed being able to share experiences and get tips from colleagues. I needed to make sure that I could find a way of doing something similar when I was in business on my own, and that’s what led to me set up the collaboration at RED.
E – Explore
In preparing for retirement, it is important to be able to explore the possibilities that may be open to us, rather than fall into the choices that seem obvious.
What else could be out there?
We all have preconceptions about what retirement will be like and it can be difficult to look beyond the stereotypes. By giving yourself the chance to think about the vast world of opportunities, you might find something you’ve never previously considered. Maybe, like someone I know of, you’d like to ring the bells in every cathedral in the country! Or maybe sailing round the word is more your thing. Retirement doesn’t have to be what it was for our parents’ generation.
Of course, there does not have to be anything wild or whacky. There may not be a long-abandoned dream. It may be that the ‘obvious’ is exactly what you want to do, but unless you have given yourself the time and space to explore the possibilities, you will never know.
It is important not to make a change on the spur of the moment
Now you’ll need to think things through more practically and make sure that you’re not taking too big a leap all at once. I started taking on coaching clients while I was still working on my consultancy assignments. That enabled me to try things out and satisfy myself that coaching was what I really wanted to do, and that it could also pay my bills!
How could you explore your ideas in a lower-risk way before making your final decision?
D – Decide
There’s a lot to think about when you’re considering when to retire, or even whether to retire. We can sometimes get lost in the research, trying to get more and more information before we decide what to do.
When we’re deciding about the future, we can’t know whether our outcome is truly possible. Who knows what will happen economically, politically or even in our own home in the next few months or years?
The additional problem with retirement is that we can’t know how long we’ll be retired, or how long we’ll stay well enough to achieve all our plans. And most of us don’t cope well with that level of uncertainty.
Start with the outcome in mind
All we can do with any decision is to use the information we have at the time. Be very clear about the outcome you want, and you can then apply some criteria to the options you’ve come up with.
Remember to take into account your values and those aspects of your life that are most important to you. Do you value time over income? Are social relationships more important than achievement?
If you’re trying to choose a holiday, for example, how would you define what is the ‘best’ holiday for you? Do you want the cheapest holiday, the one with greatest availability, or the one that gives you a 5* experience? When you know what your definition of ‘best’ is, you’ll find it easier to decide.
What are your criteria for a ‘good retirement’?
And then … let go of the outcome. You’ve made up your mind as best as you can and now the other factors might not be in your control. If you’ve chosen the holiday because it was the only one available on your dates, it’s not helpful to later regret the decision because it wasn’t the cheapest you could have bought.
What can you foresee about the outcome and what is unknown?
What’s the easiest and lowest risk option you could pursue right now?
P – Plan
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
(Antoine de Saint-Expuéry)
Retirement is full of uncertainties – fluctuations in the stock market might affect your income or a family member could unexpectedly need help. But you can still develop a plan that’s good enough to at least get started.
Now that you’re clear on the result you want, everything you now put in your plan should contribute directly to that goal.
You’re not in this alone
The next step is to make sure that you include all the people that will help make the plan work. Your list should include everyone who might need to agree to the scheme. It should also include those who will be doing some of the work, as well as anyone else who might be affected by the change, such as your current employer, neighbours, or wider family.
Are they going to be supportive or not? How involved are they going to be and how much will they be affected? How will you keep in touch with them?
In my case, I needed to make sure my husband was on board with my plans as our joint income would be affected. I wanted my existing clients to know that I was moving on. My wider network needed to be aware of what I was doing so they could help, and I started looking for new contacts.
Now think about the jobs you or others will need to do to move you towards the goal. If you’ve got the space, get creative with sticky notes on the wall.
After you’ve got a reasonable idea of what tasks need doing, you’ll then want to think about the order you (or others) will do them in. Having an idea of the sequence means that you won’t waste time later having to backtrack. You may want to plan the tasks for the first few months in detail, while leaving later parts of the plan in outline.
A quick way to come up with a sequence is simply to re-order your sticky notes.
Remember that your plan is just a guide, based on your guesses.
Make a list of all the things that you’re not sure about and where you might make key decisions or change direction later.
List the assumptions you’re making – and check that others agree!
A – Act
I think we all know people who are great at making decisions. They have their life planned out and can clearly explain what they’ve decided to do and how wonderful their life will be after that. And they still do nothing!
The problem here is that there is often a large gap between deciding and acting. That might be a time gap, but more often it’s a gap between our imagining something and doing it. Without that action, the decision is still only a wish.
Taking the first step turns that wish into concrete action, moving us towards achieving what we want. As Lao Tzu put it:
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”
And after that first step, you need to take the second – you may be shocked to realise that joining the gym is a great first step, but the second is to actually go for the first workout! And then take the third step, and so on, until you have a new habit ingrained.
How many of your decisions are still wishes? What is the first step into turning just one of them into action?
Finally – make sure to build in some celebrations! It will help you make progress if you are focused on the next ‘win’.
How will you mark your various successes along the road?
R – Review
Planning is just guessing at the future. We try to predict what the outcome of our actions will be. But even with the best planning, life has a habit of throwing in some changes.
You will always vary from the plan. As you work your way through the different steps, real life will tell you whether your plan is still feasible or not. Build in time to review what’s happening. How have things actually gone compared to how you imagined?
Maybe the goal was not achievable, or at least not in the way you want. Maybe the plan for how to get there isn’t workable. Maybe it would all have been fine at another time, but the current circumstances show it’s not realistic. If you’ve already thought through some of the bigger unknowns, it will be relatively easy to move to a Plan B and get back on track.
Progress Needs More Than Just Action
If you’re the kind of person that likes taking action, it can be hard to stop and look back. But think of the review as an energy-saving exercise – it’s the equivalent of checking the map before you climb the next hill. Maybe there’s an easier route to take?
How often you carry out such a review will depend on the type of change you want to make and where you are on the route. Initially, you might review quarterly. In the final few months counting down to retirement, you may want to review every couple of weeks. The important thing is that you treat the review as a key task in the plan.
It will be useful to have other people to do the review with, especially those most affected by your plans. You don’t need to make it a formal meeting; sometimes it will be enough to have a chat over a coffee, to compare notes on what you think about your progress.
Coaching is All About Creating Change
As well as those directly involved, it’s a good idea to involve someone with a more objective view. It’s one of the key reasons you may want to use a coach. A good coach will be a great sounding board and supporter, and they can be much more objective and challenging than a friend might be. There will be no judgement, simply the space in which to ask and answer your questions, reflect on how things are going and think through your decisions.
Contact details
Jane Parslow
Book a free one-hour Clarity Call at: www.calendly.com/janeparslow/60min
To discuss a workshop in your organisation, contact Coach@REDRetirement.co.uk