Would You Take A Mid-Life Retirement?

I'll answer my own question for you.  I now have little doubt that if money was not a hurdle, most people would take a mid-life retirement smack dab in the middle of their career.  The question that is most pressing, since money is a critical obstacle, becomes; Could you dare to do it anyway for the sake of achieving a savored dream of yours?  These are theoretical questions as well as practical ones, especially if you are someone who has a dream that would be hard to accomplish while working in a full time career.  Why I choose to dare you is because I know what excitement comes to your life when you finally say yes to leaving your career for a chance to follow a dream. I realize now that it is not something that most people will accomplish pre-retirement age, waiting instead until they are in their sixties or seventies to fulfill their dream or "bucket list".  This has been proven to me over and over, every time I tell my story of traveling the world with my family for the past year and hearing multiple iterations of the same response, "I wish I could do it, but I just can't right now".   

When it was, that I set out to plan my year away from work obligations, still isn't exactly clear.  It isn't clear because it has always been wrapped up in my dreams.  It started years ago as a young married man and a plan to retire at a young, forty years of age.  I can even trace it's origin back to before that.  I remember as a teenager telling myself that one day I will see every state in the United States AND visit every continent in the world before I die.  I am not sure if any dream is so clear to come up with it's origin, but what is clear to me is that dreams are powerful tools to fuel goal achievement in life.  Why do we deny ourselves the opportunity to pursue those dreams during the middle of our life and what could be the catalyst to move end of life goals forward twenty or thirty years to become mid-life realities?

When I think about that, I keep coming back to the one thing I did in my life to propel me from a dreamer to a dream achiever, I plan.  Planning has been the method which I have prepared for this goal.  The dream always fueled the planning, not the reverse like one might think.  Every time my wife and I gave up that new purchase to put a little bit more money away, we were getting that much closer to achieving our shared dream of retiring at forty years old.

Dreams are a part of everyone's existence and for some reason we figure out the best excuses to avoid realizing our biggest ones. Fear drives us to stay in place, in between the yellow dotted lines. Yet they are always right there in our mind tempting us to take the risk and attach to them.  We night dream and we day dream. We dream big for the sake of setting lofty life goals that take years and tears of effort to achieve.  At times they seem so big that they are unattainable.  My big dreams happened to be to retire young and travel the world. Despite my planning, I kept in place at forty years old because I kept telling myself excuses. Like, I just need to reach a few more planning milestones first and then I would go for it.  A good friend recently told me a commonly told story of a person who always felt that opportunity never came to them at "the right time", to which this person's mentor replied, "opportunities are everywhere around you, flying past your eyes and ears and all you need to do is reach up and grab one!"  This story is the truth...you have to have courage to go after the opportunity that is right there in your face.  I have made a lot of excuses in my life to avoid attempting something scary and different, only to have opportunities dissapear.  When that opportunity is your big dream the risk of regret hangs far too heavy.  This past year, I have learned to trust my instincts and my willingness to do the hard work to prepare and plan, all in an effort to make that scary change easier.  I discovered new things about myself that I needed to better understand. One such learning is that I WAS prepared to do this trip despite my fear telling me otherwise.  I also discovered new things about the people I've surrounded myself with that I needed to better understand.  For me, the people who I am around have become a support system for me to achieve my dreams...my wife, my kids, my friends, family and co-workers who rooted us on all year.  Many even came out to join us on the road and all were so important to realizing the dream.  You need to tell people about your dreams so that they can help push you when you need it most.

If money were no object, the reality is that nearly 100% of people would choose to cut out of their established careers in pursuit of a dream opportunity...a dreamy mid-life retirement.  But money is the object that the majority of people with whom I have spoken acknowledge is their issue.  Either, they don't have enough saved to fulfill their income need during their time away from work. Or, they worry, as I do now, that when they return from their time away they will come back to seek a job that might not provide the same level of income they left behind. Both are hurdles that have to be jumped. Planning has bought me some more time to figure my future out. It is the critical step that can mitigate both of these fears.  But, as well planned as we were, there is no perfect plan.  I found strength from within that has hurdled me over my planning gaps and my wife and I have opened ourselves to help from others as well.  I feel strongly that everyone should take a mid-life retirement, and if it is what they dream about most, they must begin to plan...and, tell those who are close to them about this big dream of their's, so those loved ones can help get them there!

Peace and Love