We live in worried times. I don't have to tell you how uncertain the economy is today, how we have all seen our hard- earned retirement savings whither. It is clear that the only thing our country’s best economic thinkers can do is sit in the front couple of seats this roller coaster we’re riding and yell, “keep your head down!” This was not the financial security we had planned on as we looked towards retirement.

People are looking for help with our growing worry over our once-secure retirement finances. If you are not worried then you are either very rich or you have just not been listening. Worry is natural—it warns us of impending danger. This is a good thing. However, too much worry, such as worrying about worrying, can paralyze us. It can lead to a flight toward any sense of safety, which might serve as a quick fix that may briefly reduce the worry, but won't improve your situation. Worried decisions are almost always bad decisions.

Worry as a growth industry
Worry has created a minor growth industry for retirement seminars. Unfortunately, these seminars only address a small fraction of what it takes to retire successfully. They tackle some of the financial issues at stake, but ignore the other aspects needed to craft a successful retirement.

In my research for my new book, Beyond Work: How Accomplished People Retire Successfully (Wiley, 2008) I found that while financial well being is a major challenge faced by people considering retirement or recently retired, it is only one of the four major challenges to master to create a successful retirement. The other three are your Physical, Social, and Personal well being.

Your finances and your physical health set the stage for a successful retirement but your social and personal well being create the satisfaction and the success. The Financial and Physical domains support your Social and Personal well being.

Financial uncertainty rocks our world. The blunt truth is that there is little you can do to improve your finances other than plan for various alternatives. This can leave you to worry that you have little control over your own future. So what can you do?

Sound financial advice can always help, but as our financial foundation weakens, we need to look to the Physical, Social, and Personal aspects of our lives to increase our security and support our satisfaction and happiness. A retirement seminar needs to address all four of these domains to be truly helpful.

The Retirement Confidence Profile (RCP) is a tool I provide to participants of my Beyond Work: How to Retire Successfully seminar. We use the profile to gauge participants’ confidence in their ability to retire well. It also indicates the specific areas of high and low confidence, whether they are Financial, Physical, Social or Personal, which allows each person to design a plan that will build their retirement confidence. (You can complete the 25-item version of the RCP at www.beyondwork.net. It takes about 15 minutes to complete and you immediately receive your confidential report.) Not surprisingly, during the past quarter there has been an 18% drop compared to the previous quarter in people’s confidence in their financial well being. However there have been increases in the people’s confidence in the physical, social and personal well being which moderated the total confidence score’s loss to just 2%.•