The lure of retirement can be strong, especially for people who are approaching retirement age. Some of the strongest retirement lures include:
- Traveling;
- Spending time with family;
- Taking up new hobbies;
- Enjoying existing hobbies.
But is retirement really the paradise that many people think it is?
There are plenty of reasons why you should reconsider selling a business and going into retirement. When you give it some thought, you may realize that retirement does not stack up to your own expectations of your golden years.
You Will Miss The Income
If you sell a business that was successful, then you may not miss any income at first. But for years, you became accustomed to your income going up because of the growing success of your business. After selling a business, you will no longer have the ability to grow your income, and your bank account will remain stagnant.
After a few years of being retired, it will become evident that your desire to sell a business and travel the world is not as easy to make a reality as you thought. At some point in your retirement, you may find yourself looking for work to enhance your shrinking retirement income.
You Will Get Bored
There are many stories of entrepreneurs who sell their businesses, retire and then start looking for a business for sale a few years later because they are bored.
It is important that the transition from working to being retired includes:
- Losing that structure that you had to your weekdays;
- Losing the sense of accomplishment that work offered you;
- Losing your identity as a person who helped others through your company.
If you start to look for a business for sale only a few months into your retirement, then you will have to admit that retirement was not the oasis you thought it would be. Instead of retiring, you should consider reducing your role in your business and giving yourself a little extra free time every week. With this plan, you can maintain your business identity, while enjoying the perks of having extra time to yourself.
The Changes To Your Life May Be Too Dramatic
What many people fail to realize when they retire is that their lives will change in many different ways. The way they pay their taxes, the way they handle their health insurance and the way they schedule their time will all change. For many people, the changes that occur after retirement can be too drastic and they are not able to cope.
The best way to maintain the life that you are comfortable with is to not retire. While it may seem like your company is a personal burden, you never realize how integral it is in helping you to keep your personal affairs in line until you retire. If you are the kind of person who does not adapt well to change, then retirement may not be a good idea.
Global Economics Are Not Stable
As 1999 turned into 2000, people all over the world lost their retirement funds as the global stock markets collapsed. Since that time, the world’s economic atmosphere has been unstable and unpredictable. The money that you have been saving for your retirement may not be there when the time comes, and the value of your business could plummet and leave you financially short.
Instead of taking any chances, the best approach is not retire at all. You can hire other people to allow you to take a reduced role in your company, but the instability of the global economic markets makes retirement a very unpredictable situation for many years to come.
People spend their whole lives under the impression that retirement is the reward for hard work. But when retirement finally comes around, the reality of the situation leaves many people wondering if they should have just stayed working. Instead of jumping into a retirement situation that you will regret, you need to put some thought into how you want to spend your golden years.
After thinking about it for a while, you may come to the conclusion that retirement is not the best choice for you and your family.