Pre-retirees Are Confused, Not Committed

David Buck

Expert in Time Optimization | Sales Leadership | Bringing Structure, Clarity & Purpose to Life | Author of “The Time-Optimized Life”

Published Sep 15, 2025

Clients who gain clarity about their desired retirement lifestyle are more likely to commit to financial strategies to support it.

The article first appeared in Rethinking65 .

Florence, or Flo to her friends, avoided the discussion of retirement. Divorced and in her early sixties, she knew she should have been thinking about post-career life, yet she kept putting it off. It wasn’t the idea of no longer being employed that scared her; the steps required to make a more flexible lifestyle sustainable caused her hesitation.

Therefore, Flo was often withdrawn and quiet during her meetings with her wealth management team. Her primary advisor, Nancy, asked surface questions and received general answers. Flo’s portfolio was doing well, some nebulous date was put out there to calculate the models, but the heart of the matter was not addressed. How would Flo make the transition to retirement?

As financial advisors engage with clients who are five to 10 years away from retirement, a common theme emerges: confusion. Despite having accumulated savings and assets, many pre-retirees feel a sense of uncertainty about what their post-career life will look like. This vagueness can cause them to delay making concrete plans or taking the necessary steps to secure a fulfilling and financially stable retirement. The missing link? Clarity.

A Retirement Clarity Session

Do you have clients like this? Ones who are insecure about the future?

Introduce them to a retirement clarity session — a targeted discussion designed to help pre-retirees visualize their ideal future lifestyle. Unlike traditional financial planning meetings that focus solely on asset allocation and income distribution, the clarity session homes in on time-use analysis and lifestyle design. By shifting the conversation from financial figures to life purpose, it allows clients to anchor their financial decisions in a compelling vision of their retirement years.

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David Buck is the author of the book The Time-Optimized Life, coauthor of The Retirement Collective, and owner of Kairos (Time) Management Solutions, LLC. Learn how to apply the concepts of proactively planning and using your time. Take the Time Management Analysis (TMA), the Retirement Time Analysis (RTA), or all the other free resources offered to help bring more quality time into your life.