Step 12: Let’s Talk About It! Communication Is Key To A Successful Grand Plan By Susanna P. Barton

By Susanna P.Barton

If there is one step by which all other components of a workable Grand Plan are intrinsically linked, it’s #12 — communicating with your people early, honestly, and often. Without good communication, any thoughtful preparation you may have designed for your golden years turns to rubbish, plain and simple. Sharing your second-half plans and expectations with loved ones is the most important provision you can make for this most important life vision.  

So let’s talk about it, shall we?

First of all, communicating is the key to success in almost every stage of life. That’s why learning to talk is such an important milestone when we’re babies, why keeping our parents informed helps us navigate our teen years, and why connection to key people is paramount to building strong partnerships, business relationships, or leadership roles. So, it stands to reason that as we age, communication will be just as critical to the success we seek during the second half. Trouble is, our mortality becomes part of the conversation and that’s a topic not everyone likes to entertain.

Despite the subject matter and no matter the season, good communication with others is fundamentally important. According to a 2019 Pew Research study, good communication is THE most important life skill. And if this is an area in which you are lacking or is a skill with which you are uncomfortable – the time is now to let go of your limitations and sharpen new skills. A report from Harvard University says there are eight ways we can all improve communication strategies, including being clear and concise, preparing ahead of time, and being mindful of nonverbal communication. Being a good communicator is essential to executing a Grand Plan for life.

In Grand Plans: How to Mitigate Geri-Drama in 20 Easy Steps, communication plays a starring role in every single chapter. I thought I’d go through the first nine steps – what I call the concrete or “musts” steps – and explain briefly how real talk and sharing information with others can make or break the efficiency of your good planning. You’ll see what I mean.

Step 1: Make lists of everything essential and create a ‘death binder’

It’s extremely helpful to your loved ones to collect all medical, financial, household, legal, and personal information and important documents and put them in a safe storage location. But all that work is bunk if no one knows where to find it because you never told anyone where you put it. Communication is critical to this work. Tell your people exactly what’s in your “death binder” or “important paperwork” file and where it lives, and tell them often.

Step 2: Pen your obituary and plan your funeral objectives

Communication is at the heart of this generous act as well. If you don’t write down and share your important dates, milestones, personal story, and history, and forget to tell someone what kind of funeral or memorial service you want – or don’t! – your loved ones will be in a real jam and face unnecessary research and expenses. Communication goes a long way with obituary-writing and end-of-life objectives!

Step 3: Hire an attorney and get legit about your affairs

Same song and dance. Though you don’t need an attorney to draft every type of advance directive, it is smart to find an attorney who can draw up legal documents like a last will and testament, durable power of attorney, medical power of attorney, and any trust creation. But failure to communicate your plans to loved ones can create misunderstandings, hurt feelings, a marred legacy, and confusion about your wishes. Get some order in your court and talk about it ahead of time!

Step 4: Get your financial house and plan in order

Putting pen to paper on your finances and determining how you will afford the second-half lifestyle you envision is foundational – and working with an expert financial planner seals the deal. But if you haven’t talked to your people about your financial plans, even in broad strokes without mention of specific dollar figures, you could be costing yourself relationships. Communicating a message of “I’m going to be ok” or “I’ve got a plan together and you don’t have to worry” can go a long way. Keeping quiet about your plans or refusing to talk to professionals about a strategy is a mathematical error.

Step 5: Write your prescription for health, hope, and hospital issues and consider your medical thresholds

Deciding how you wish to be medically treated and having a living will or end-of-life directives in place is an important place to start. But end this critical work by having conversations honestly and often with the people you love. Tell them about your vision of medical care and what you will or won’t tolerate when it comes to end-of-life choices, especially when you are incapacitated. Some of the medical documents are legally binding, but others are left to opinion or have ample gray areas – issues that will confound your loved ones if you’ve not spoken up ahead of time and made your intentions very, very clear.

Step 6: Educate yourself on the cost, scope, and reality of the geri-life you envision – particularly your residence

You may have ideas about how and where you will live out your Golden Years. However, a refusal to engage in healthy conversation about this topic with loved ones is detrimental to good planning. Besides being a good sounding board, the people in your closest circles have good ideas and know you! They can be very helpful when it comes to determining what kind of living arrangement may work for you. In another example, you may plan to live or be supported by family members when you can no longer reside in your home. But if you forget to tell them your plan, they will be surprised, resentful, and perhaps reluctant to agree to your unspoken terms. Address it!

Step 7: Minimize the hell out of yourself and your stuff

Organizing, decluttering, minimizing, gifting, and donating your stuff is one of the biggest projects of our second-half time. Do everyone a favor and talk about who wants and gets what, the significance of special objects, and what you’d like your people to do with your stuff when you’re gone now, before you’re actually gone. Communicate the value, history, and vision of your possessions to the people who will have to deal with it all later.

Step 8: Consider pet acquisitions carefully

Pets are beneficial to our second-half lives for many reasons. But the pets we have later in life may not always be ours, especially when we can no longer care for them. The absolute best thing you can do before getting a pet is to talk to your loved ones about how pet responsibilities may play out down the road. Talk about a contingency care plan. With whom will a pet live when life takes a different course? And how much will it all cost? And who will pay for it? You’re never barking up the wrong tree when it comes to talking about a pet plan. 

Step 9: Relinquish the keys and be ready to be a passenger

Being prepared to hand over the keys is a gift to you, your family, and your community. And talking about it ahead of time is the only route that makes it easier. Make decisions and know what some of the red flags are and talk to your people about what those are and why you will stop driving under those circumstances. Conversation will help steer you in the right direction on this issue.

I don’t know why non-communication occurs regularly during the second half of our human experience. Generally, we are a pretty prepared people. As soon as we think about getting pregnant, we buy books on what to expect when we’re expecting. When babies come, parents study articles and guides on how to raise them and what resources are necessary to sustain them. Later, we might involve therapists, counselors, and caregivers to manage a plan for our children’s best outcomes.

Then, there’s this weird void. As we become older adults, the conversation about life comes to a strange, screeching halt. Gone are the shelves full of self-help books, the healthy dinner table discussions about the next steps, and the peer knowledge about professional resources, tools, and providers. It’s like everyone shuts up about it all. And I’m here to tell you, this is a terrible, no good, very bad thing.

Instead, we should aim to be an open book, to overshare, to be the devil in our own details, and to talk until we see ears bleeding. No topic should be off-limits and all conversations should happen openly, honestly, and regularly. 

In Michael Hebb’s bestselling book Let’s Talk About Death (Over Dinner), he puts the importance of good communication and conversation in perspective.

“We’re a little messed up about death, to put it bluntly,” Hebb says in his book’s first few pages. “On the one hand, it’s all around us. We flock to dark cable dramas and slow down our cars out of morbid fascination with traffic accidents. But to talk about it with one another? Honestly and openly? Forget it. When we live within this contradiction, we lose the chance for connection, communication, healing, and the richness and value that can come from facing our mortality head-on.”

Another helpful resource is Five Wishes, an extremely helpful booklet that helps adults communicate their wants and needs as death approaches. The Five Wishes booklet is available at a low cost online for individuals and groups at agingwithdignity.org or fivewishes.org. Good conversations are behind this process in a big way.

In the manual How to Care for Aging Parents, author Virginia Morris describes the conversation piece of the care puzzle as “critical.” She says there is always time to talk to parents and siblings about the future.

“Don’t put this off. Talk with your parents and, depending on the situation, hold a family meeting to discuss your parents’ current care and future needs,” Morris said. “Assign jobs, sort out finances, and plan for what care he will need as he grows more frail. For your parent, planning ensures that he has a say in his future, it affords him more choices, and it gives him time to prepare for change…Do it now because it is much, much easier to have these discussions when there is no dire problem at hand when you are talking about some distant possibility when it’s a matter of “What if…”…Talk now; you’ll be glad you did.”

Our mortality and that of our loved ones should not shock us. We should expect it, plan for it, and celebrate it — and most of all, we should begin honest conversations about it to ensure our Grand Plan is indeed, grand.

Susanna Barton, a member of Jacksonville Mayor Donna Degan’s subcommittee on elder care, has worked as a professional writer in Jacksonville for nearly 30 years and is the founder of the Grand Plans online community, podcast, newsletter, and blog.  Her book Grand Plans: How to Mitigate Geri-Drama in 20 Easy Steps and its accompanying workbook, the Grand Planner, are available in local stores and on Amazon. For more information, http://www.mygrandplans.com.