The 3 Stages Of Retirement You'll Want To Avoid If You're A Retiree

The retirement game is one built off of decades of hard work and careful planning. Any worker's last day on the job can come with a bag of mixed feelings, but the transition is one that people have worked too hard to achieve to not then savor. Leaving the workforce gives you more time to spend with loved ones as well as plenty of extra hours in the day to amplify your hobbies. Whether you're a golfer or a hobby blacksmith, the daylight hours not spent at the office can really deliver when chasing your interests. However, your retirement lifestyle is ultimately built on the back of your own careful planning and execution.

Once you hang up your career, you'll need to carefully budget and manage your investments to ensure long term health for your financial support system. Retirement is all about income replacement, so failing to meet your savings goals or drawing down on your retirement income source too quickly can spell disaster for the capital's long term solvency. Challenges can make their way into the picture with greater ease than you might think, and for many retirees, there's a five-stage cycle of retirement that can continue to play out in a loop — and wreak havoc on your lifestyle. Those on their way to retirement today will want to find balance in the first and second phases: Pre-retirement, when the final plans and savings tasks take place, and full retirement, where a fulfilling lifestyle awaits.

The third stage of retirement, disenchantment, is where things begin to sour. Most workers envision a happy and healthy time of leisure and fun with loved ones after they leave work. While retirement savings, and the addition of Social Security checks, can deliver on the financial side of things, it's foolish to expect that things will simply add up without careful planning. Estimates suggest that most people will need roughly 80% of their pre-retirement income level to maintain their lifestyle. Even with this spelled out explicitly, more than half of all Americans feel behind on their retirement savings goals, according to a 2024 Bankrate survey. This doesn't just pertain to younger workers either, as the survey found that 48% of baby boomers felt significantly behind where they should be when it came to retirement savings.

In truth, there's a lot more to retirement than just hitting your income needs. Retirees frequently look to connect more deeply with loved ones or take back daylight hours for hobbies. These elements of retirement feed the soul, but they can't deliver on their full impact if a lack of financing causes added stress. Even with your finances in good order, it's important to realize that the transition into retirement can be a hard one, with many people suffering from depression and other mental and physical ailments as they come to grips with the immense change of pace that retirement can bring.

Whether your retirement isn't going according to plan as a result of financial woes or due to less clearly defined anxieties about the change — which can and do lead to wellness setbacks — it's important to take time to refocus. While the first phase of retirement, pre-retirement, involves heavy planning activities specifically to avoid falling into these kinds of traps, even the best laid plans can run astray. A health scare or even bad purchase decisions can complicate things.

While no retiree wants to find themselves struggling in the disenchantment stage of these golden years, there's still hope for a brighter future. The fourth and fifth stages of retirement are reorientation and reconciliation. Here, retirees can reset their expectations about retirement. This might include a refocused retirement budget or even the tough decision to go back to work for a short time. Frequently, these stages involve money management decisions, but other elements can come into play as well. If the mental toll is too great, for instance, committing to daily walks or even taking a part time job to keep yourself busy —rather than to support yourself financially — can be valuable additions. 

Reconciliation is the final stage, and the point at which you can expect to find your groove again. For a retiree who has refocused their goals, assets, and retirement strategy, there's no reason why this phase can't lead into a fulfilling and lasting lifestyle that presents all the hallmarks of a fantastic retirement.