In this article I’ll explain 5 proven strategies for achieving your dream retirement lifestyle and why these are better than those "overnight wealth" systems so popular today.

Unless, you have been living in a cave with no phone, newspaper, TV, email, radio, Internet connection and neighbors you have been literally inundated with information about the decline of the U.S. Social Security system and Medicare.

Depending on which government study you read, 86% to 95% of working Americans today are concerned about whether they will EVER be able to afford to retire. One survey floating around the Internet says that 95% of working Americans today will retire into poverty or have to keep working after retirement age just to keep a roof over their head, food on the table and pay for immediate medical expenses.

In recent months, this fear has been compounded by the mortgage industry melt-down and the associated impact to the stock market.

No one wants to use the "R" word, but many believe we are already in a recession.

News Flash!

Yet, with all this going on around us, it really is easier today to use these 5 proven strategies to define and achieve your dream retirement lifestyle than at any time in our history.

So you say…"Well, if it really is that easy, why aren’t more people doing it?"

I’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s cover the 5 strategies and why they are important.

They are:

1. Improve your credit to reduce interest costs to save you money.
2. Reduce un-productive debt to reduce your monthly expenses to save you money.
3. Increase your value to your employer resulting in a higher salary and lower. chance of being impacted by a lay-off or "re-structuring".
4. Buy a home if you don’t already own one (…and now is the PERFECT time). Yes, yes, I know it is un-productive debt, but appreciation over time is just too good to pass up.
5. Create and grow your own online information marketing business to fund your personal retirement income stream.

1. Fear of failure paralyzes most people from making change.
2. Many people are set in their ways and perceive they do not have the time to make these strategies work.
3. Many people believe they don’t have the money it will take to make these work
4. Concern for how others will perceive them trying to get ahead
5. Everyday, mundane momentum works against them to prevent action
6. They are not sufficiently dissatisfied with their lives to take action
7. Lack of vision about where they want to be when they retire
8. Lack of focus and concentration due to information overload
9. Lack of trust because there is so much hype and BS in the market place.

1. You don’t need to succeed all the time. Failure is good because you learn form that and as Michael Masterson, a famous author on this subject, has said, the faster you fail and find out what doesn’t work means the faster you will get to what does. Life is a process, a journey. It is okay to mess up now and then.
2. You can make the time necessary to make these 5 strategies work. A little shift here and there is all you need. Use your lunch and breaks to work on these. Get up a half hour early. But, find the time.
3. It doesn’t take a lot of money so bits and pieces will work. I know a guy who started his own business on just the pocket change he had accumulated over an 18 month time span.
4. If you are concerned about ridicule, then don’t tell people (except your family). Human behavior will seek to pull you down to their level. You are the one trying to get ahead, not them.
5. Living day to day can take away from concentrating on your goal.
6. You need to have a goal and visualize that every morning and every evening to overcome the inertia that is your life.
7. You can’t go anywhere you want unless you have a vision about what that looks like.
8. Learn to screen out all the news, TV, radio, newspaper and conversations when you are trying to achieve these 5 strategies.
9. Carefully work to determine who and what you can trust. For products and information, email me and I’ll give you a list – and no, I don’t get a referral fee.