Scaling New Heights — Reaching the peak of financial freedom in your retirement won’t happen overnight. But with persistence, the view from the top can be everything you dreamed.

By Donna Mulder | Illustrations by Olivier Latyk

This is the year you’re going to lose weight. Kick the smoking habit. Exercise regularly. Get the budget in line. Intentions are never better than on Jan. 1. You’re motivated and ready to take on the world.

Then, almost without missing a beat, other “priorities” begin to sneak in, conflicts arise and the excuses begin to take center stage. “I just don’t have time right now.” “I’ll start as soon as I get a treadmill in the basement.” “I need a better computer to run the budget software that will get me back on track.” Before you know it, you find yourself wondering why you ever resolved to make a change in the first place. What started as a lofty but achievable goal now seems like a grueling mountain trek with no peak in sight.

A lot of people view preparing for retirement this way.

“It’s easy to be scared by the work it takes to get to the peak of the mountain,” says Cathy Bramlett, a Thrivent Financial for Lutherans representative in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. “But it really takes just a few steps to be on your way. And while it may not always be easy, every step will get you closer to where you want to be.”

Even mountain climbers don’t attack the mountain peak at the beginning. They prepare themselves physically, mentally and emotionally. They find a guide or a partner. They start in the foothills, and through it all, picture themselves succeeding.

A recent survey of 2,500 adults, ages 45 to 64, conducted by Thrivent Financial* revealed that while baby boomers are optimistic about their retirement, they regret they didn’t start saving sooner. While 56 percent expect to enjoy a standard of living equal to or better than their parents, 59 percent of boomers surveyed have not done any formal retirement preparation—either with a financial professional or on their own. And 71 percent feel a lack of money in retirement may prevent them from accomplishing their goals.

When it comes to developing your retirement strategy, where are you? Has your retirement program stalled? Have you even taken the first steps? Or have you been climbing the mountain faithfully step by step, but you need some extra motivation to keep up the pace?

Following are five potential road blocks—those “motivation stoppers” that may prevent or slow down your progress in saving for retirement—and some tips to help overcome these barriers and continue the climb.

Lack of Vision
Close your eyes and imagine the view from the peak of a mountain. Picture the beauty of the surrounding slopes, the flow of the valleys below. Now, imagine your retirement. What will you be doing every day? Where will you live? With whom will you spend time?

Hmm...you can’t quite see it, you say?

“The first barrier people experience when preparing for retirement is they have no clear vision of what they want in retirement,” says Tim Schmidt, managing partner for the Twin Cities Region of Thrivent Financial serving the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. “It’s hard to save for something when you don’t know what it looks like.”

If you have difficulty visualizing your retirement, help is available. A new Web-based self-assessment tool, ThriveQ™ (see Toolbox), can help you start preparing for your retirement dream by asking the right questions.

“It can be hard to envision the future, because too often we handle things as we come to them,” Bramlett says. “But this questionnaire lists several ideas that you may want to think about as you dream of your retirement.”

Schmidt tells the story of a member who can describe the summer house he wants, as well as the lake it will be on and the Cessna airplane (with floats) tied up to his dock. That’s the type of specificity that drives behavior today! He doesn’t own these things yet, but he is working on it. “Having that kind of vision helps you overcome the stumbling blocks,” Schmidt says. “Instead of buying that new car, you may drive your current car three more years and save the money.”

Some not only lack retirement vision but also misunderstand what their retirement income may actually be, Bramlett adds. “They may be depending on dollars that in the end could be significantly less than they expect,” she says.

A financial professional can help you understand what your retirement can look like. If you can visualize how you want to live in retirement, Schmidt says, your spending and saving behavior now will fall in line behind that vision. “It will make you a better spender, a better saver and help create better discipline. And you’ll have a better life.”

Multiple Priorities
Dreaming about a trek up a mountain and getting down to the business of preparing for it are two very different things. One of the greatest stumbling blocks for any endeavor can be actually setting a goal and making it a priority. The same holds true for how you prepare for retirement.

On a daily basis, we face multiple priorities, and many of them compete for the limited dollars we have. In just a few years, the children will be in college. Then there will be weddings.

But it’s not just the kids. We want to buy a new house, remodel our current house, or we “need” a new vehicle. The list is endless—and it doesn’t leave much room for retirement saving. Or does it? While in some cases, these truly are priorities, Bramlett points out that “sometimes ‘priority’ isn’t the right word—there may be too many toys on that list.”

“We have to truly prioritize our goals and take into consideration the timeline we face along with our budget,” says Bramlett. “I go by the premise of pay God first, then yourself. We need to be good stewards, and we need to take care of ourselves.”

Bramlett uses college funding as an example of prioritizing. “You need to understand what part financial aid may play in your child’s education strategy and that it’s OK for the kids to pay part of their way through college,” she says. “Helping your children minimize the debt they’ll graduate with is a great goal, but be careful not to compromise your retirement during this process.”

It’s a matter of keeping focused on the big picture and talking with someone who can help you see it, she adds. While a term insurance contract may be the affordable answer right now, the permanent contract may be more beneficial later as part of a retirement program. “I want people to see they really do have choices,” she says.

Lack of Discipline
Still, simply setting a goal to climb a mountain is not enough. You must prepare. Basic fitness training, including running and weight-training, is essential. Mental preparation, too, is a must. To lack discipline in either of these areas will compromise your success on the mountain.

The same is true when looking ahead to retirement. Lack of discipline in spending, as well as in saving, as you make your trek toward retirement may well leave you with a retirement not nearly as beautiful as you imagined.

“I can’t tell you the number of people out there who are living within months of bankruptcy,” says Mark Stanko, a Thrivent Financial representative in Shelby Township, Michigan. “In most cases, they are living for today. They want the biggest, the best, the latest and the greatest.” Whether it’s a new big-screen TV, a better car or a bigger house, people often lack the discipline to say no. Put simply, we’re confusing our wants with our needs, Stanko says.

On the flip side, people lack the discipline to save. Americans’ personal savings rate has dipped into the negative for a second year in a row, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. People are living paycheck to paycheck and on credit.

To counter a lack of discipline in your spending, establish a budget, says Schmidt, and stick to it. “Stop using your credit cards. Only spend cash,” he suggests. “You build wealth by living under your means. That is the absolute key.”

On the savings side, set up automatic withdrawals from your paycheck into a 401(k) or other retirement savings vehicle and into a savings account for an emergency fund. “You don’t even see the money, and you won’t miss it,” says Schmidt.

Like the mountain climber who starts in the foothills, it’s OK to start with a small amount. “If you get a raise, save the raise instead of living off it,” says Stanko. “If you do a little now, it will have a huge impact on your life later.”

Playing Catch Up
In this journey, it’s also good to remember that everyone is at different stages of preparation and accomplishment, regardless of age. And just like the mountain climber who doesn’t give up because he’s not as far up the mountain as some others, neither should you give up because you haven’t saved as much as you should have or would have liked to.

Nearly 25 percent of the baby boomers surveyed by Thrivent Financial said they hadn’t started saving for retirement. And another nearly 20 percent didn’t start until after their mid-40s. The good news: it’s never too late to begin.

Bramlett tells of a member in his 50s who hadn’t saved anything for retirement. She advised him that if he wanted more than Social Security, they could work together to get him closer to where he wanted and needed to be. “I had no idea what he would say,” she says. “But he did start to put something away on a monthly basis.”

Part of the problem is that people don’t believe they can save what they need. “But really, no matter how old you are, there’s no time like the present to begin saving,” says Stanko. “If you don’t start now, it won’t be any easier in five years, and you’ll have to save even more.” Don’t fret about what you haven’t done; instead take the initiative and start now.

Need Direction
If you’re planning to climb a mountain, you probably wouldn’t ask your neighbor to serve as your guide. You want someone who is experienced on the climb, has the tools you need and can motivate you to take the first step.

The same is true when you are looking ahead to retirement. “You need to have a relationship with someone who can help you through and hold you accountable for the decisions you made,” says Schmidt. Your Thrivent Financial representative can fill that role and provide the insight you need as you map out your retirement strategy.

The mountain peak may look far away, but just like the mountain climber who knows the journey will take days, if not weeks, you have time. You’re not going to scale the mountain in one day. Take baby steps and with vision, discipline, prioritization, perseverance and a solid guide, you’ll find your way to the retirement you envisioned.

Donna Mulder is the editor of Thrivent magazine.

Take Action
You’re just five easy steps from starting your trek:

*Data for this survey were collected by the Harris Interactive Service Bureau (HISB) on behalf of Action Marketing Research. HISB collected data Sept. 26 to Oct. 7, 2006, among a nationwide cross-section of 2,500 U.S. adults ages 45 to 64, of whom 1,213 were men and 1,287 were women.

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