Sept. 22: BEST FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE

September 22, 2025

Can visualization help you save for retirement?

The golf pro visualizes the flight of his ball, imagines it landing on the green near the cup. Then, the pro steps up and executes the visualized shot.

Certainly visualization is a proven approach. But could it also work for retirement savings? A recent article in Forbes magazine by Wes Moss suggests that it could.

The Harvard Business school, the article begins, recently wrapped up “a decade-long longitudinal study on retirement behavior—tracking 14 individuals closely over ten years and surveying 106 more—revealing comparative insights into different retirement transition approaches.”

The study, Forbes reports, had a notable key takeaway – that “retirees often struggle when their vision of (retirement) happiness is unclear or lacks purpose.”

“Charting a course for retirement is difficult without a clear destination. The study illustrates this by contrasting two knowledge workers’ post-career lives—one who proactively envisioned a fulfilling retirement found happiness quickly, while the other became isolated and unhappy. Think of two people embarking on separate open-road adventures; the one with a map will likely enjoy a more efficient trajectory.”

We are reminded of the old George Harrison lyric – “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” So OK, having a positive vision of retirement is beneficial to your overall happiness. Where does saving come into it? Let’s read on.

Research carried out by Indiana University asked “whether feeling a stronger connection to one’s future self would encourage more retirement saving. After 20 experiments, the answer was a clear yes,” Forbes reports.

The Indiana University research, led by Professor Katherine Christensen, asked participants “where they wanted to end up instead of where they were or how they would get there,” Forbes reports. This question got respondents thinking more positively about helping, via savings, their future selves, the article explains.

“In one experiment analyzing over 6,700 customers of a Swedish fintech company, individuals with low-balance savings accounts were 14 per cent more likely to invest in a long-term savings product when prompted to think about their future selves first,” the article adds.

“Retirement isn’t just about growing a bank account. It’s about buying the opportunity for peace of mind. The sooner a current or future retiree envisions their ideal life, the easier it becomes to take the first step toward building it. When practiced with consistency and intention, this exercise may help convert today’s modest savings into tomorrow’s purpose-filled retirement,” the article concludes.

If you haven’t started saving for retirement, it’s never too late – and your future self will thank you, gratefully, for any work you put in today.

The Saskatchewan Pension Plan is a great choice for those of us saving on our own for retirement. SPP will do the heavy lifting, professionally investing your hard-saved dollars in a low-cost, pooled fund. The fund is heavily diversified, and includes Canadian and international bonds and equities, mortgages, real estate, and other categories. You won’t be putting your precious savings eggs in one basket.

Check out SPP today!

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Forbes

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