The My Next Phase Newsletter - Volume 5 | |||
The Planner Personality | |||
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Last time in this space, we advocated for how enhancing your self awareness can deliver rich dividends in retirement planning and satisfaction. We talked about how getting a tighter handle on your personality - the set of ingrained traits that shape behavior - can provide rich insights into where, and how, you find fulfillment. Personality is at the core of our My Next Phase process, and our curiosity about it knows no bounds. Recently, it led us to a study, jointly conducted with AllianceBernstein Investments, on how precisely personality impacts planning, in both financial and non-financial aspects. We surveyed some 2,000 retirees and pre-retirees, and dived deep into the relationships among personality, planning and retirement satisfaction. We learned a great deal, some of it affirming, some of it surprising. Our big takeaway: there may well be a Planner Personality. The Planner Personality is actually an amalgam of personality traits that we found common among people who said they'd created a formal retirement plan - attributes like organized, optimistic and analytical. These same people tended to say they were either confident about their retirement plan (pre-retirees), or satisfied in retirement (those already retired). |
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For example, 62 percent of retirees who described themselves as organized said they had plans for retirement. No big surprise. However, a person self-described as optimistic would, initially, seem not attuned to formal planning. You might think an optimist would be more apt to "wing it," and expect the best to sort of, well, happen. Our results found the opposite. Optimists tend to plan. And their very act of planning, in turn, may further fuel their optimism. At the other end of the spectrum, those who described themselves as worriers plan at a shockingly low level: a mere 14 percent said they have a formal retirement plan. We found this also somewhat against the grain. You might think a worrier would be more driven to plan, to perhaps minimize the likelihood of things going awry, and try to control whatever they can. Clearly, not so. Worriers may see certain hills as too steep to climb, and simply give up before even trying. It's one thing to learn and to label. The real question is, are "planner types" simply wired for a great retirement, and are "non planner" types, like worriers, fated to retirement failure? No, and no. Emphatically, indelibly: no, and no. But with a big caveat. It all goes back to self awareness. If you invest the right kind of time examining your personality (either through a process like our first step, Understanding Yourself, or another way that works for you), you'll learn where you fall along the spectrum - planner, non-planner, or, like many, somewhere in between. Armed with these insights, and with the right guidance, you can then adjust your natural planning behavior. For non-planners, it's a wake up call: hey, I know I'm not a planner...but I need to plan! With the right guidance, you'll readily find ways to accommodate your ingrained tendencies. For planners, better self-knowledge can lead to more introspection about an already developed plan, and ensure they've checked all the boxes, including non-financial. We know this to be so through our research and My Next Phase member experiences, where people with even the most rock-solid financial plans come to us surprised, and disillusioned, that retirement isn't what at all they'd expected. As we often say, when it comes to non-financial retirement planning, it's never too late to start. Start by gaining fresh insight into your most important customer - you - and you'll be well on your way. To forward to a friend, please click here. To send a message or question to the My Next Phase team, please click here. To learn more about membership, please click here. Copyright ©2008 My Next Phase. All Rights Reserved | |||
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