In this episode, Rachael Van Pelt breaks down the three types of drift that quietly sabotage your retirement: health drift, house drift, and wealth drift. You’ll learn why “I’ll deal with it later” is so costly in this season of life—and how small, intentional moves right now can dramatically change your 70s and 80s.
If you’re between 55 and 70, this episode is a wake-up call. These years are your Go-Strong decade—the last window where your body is still responsive, your brain is sharp, and your wealth is often at its peak. It’s also the most dangerous decade to drift.
In this episode, Rachael Van Pelt breaks down the three types of drift that quietly sabotage your retirement: health drift, house drift, and wealth drift. You’ll learn why “I’ll deal with it later” is so costly in this season of life—and how small, intentional moves right now can dramatically change your 70s and 80s.
We talk about protecting strength and mobility, deciding whether your current home truly fits the next 20+ years, and turning retirement accounts and home equity into a clear, livable plan instead of a black box. You’ll also walk through four simple check-ins: Body, Brain, Bank, and Base.
If you’re ready to stop drifting and start designing your Next Act on purpose, be sure to book your free strategy session with Rachael. It's a chance to assess your healthspan, your home fit, and how best to rightsize your retirement.
👉 Rightsized Home & Health Review https://bit.ly/3Ajb46K
Chapters
00:00 Why Ages 55–70 Are Your Most Dangerous Years to Drift
03:25 Understanding Drift: Health, House, and Wealth
04:53 Health Drift: When “I’m Fine” Slowly Becomes “This Is Hard”
07:22 House Drift: When Your “Forever Home” Quietly Becomes a Trap
09:53 Wealth Drift: Working Longer vs. Designing Sustainable Income
12:08 Connecting the Dots: How Home, Health, and Wealth Interact
13:26 Four Quick Check-Ins: Body, Brain, Bank, Base
14:42 Comfort as a Cage: Balancing Ease with Challenge in Your 60s
16:13 Stop Drifting: Design Your Go-Strong Decade (Rightsized Home & Health Review)
Hey, hey, welcome back to Next Act Ninjas, the go-to podcast for mastering your health and wealth longevity. I'm your host, Rachael Van Pelt. Today, I want to zoom in on a very specific window of life that I call your Go-Strong Decade, which falls roughly between the ages of 55 to 70. And I'm going to make a bold claim right out of the gate. This is the most dangerous decade for you to drift. Not because you fall apart in your 50s or early 60s, just the opposite.
It's dangerous because, for many of you, this is the last decade where you can still get away with drifting and feel fine, at least on the surface. You can still push through work. You can still muscle your way through travel. You can ignore the nagging knee pain, the creeping blood pressure, the house that doesn't quite fit anymore, the financial plan you keep "meaning" to update. Nothing is broken yet, is it? And yet that's exactly why people sleepwalk through it.
Back in episode 80, I talked about the different phases of retirement and how your energy and physiology change over time. We move from our Go-Strong decade to our Go-Slower decade to our Go-Less decade. But today, I don't want to rehash any of that. Instead, I want to put the Go-Strong decade itself under the microscope and ask a different question. Are you using your Go-Strong years? Or are you quietly drifting through them? Because the decisions that you make today or you avoid making are going to echo through the last years of your life.
But I want to ground this in what's actually happening during these years. Biologically, this is your last decade or so at near-full capacity. If you've kept up even a modest amount of resistance training and aerobic exercise, then your muscles, your heart, your lungs are still highly trainable. Your strength, fitness, and mobility, they may be declining, but they're still modifiable during this window. You still have enough reserve to push, recover, adapt.
Cognitively, processing speed may not be what it was at 30, but you're still sharp. You can learn new skills, pivot careers, start a business, complex decisions. You've logged decades of pattern recognition. Your life experience plus solid brain power is a powerful combination.
Now financially for many people, this is also when wealth peaks. you've probably reached the top of your earning curve. Your house has been quietly increasing in market value. Your retirement accounts have been compounding for decades. You may not feel rich, but this is likely the most capital, both human and financial, that you're ever going to have.
And then there's the relational layer. Maybe you have adult kids, emerging grandkids, aging parents, longstanding friendships, professional networks. You're just in the thick of it, aren't you?
So your Go-Strong years are this one-of-a-kind convergence where you still have enough body to do things, enough brain to decide wisely, enough bank to maneuver and enough base or home environment to either support or sabotage everything. It's an incredible opportunity. But here's the catch. It's also a decade where drift masquerades as, "it's fine".
Now when I say drift, I'm not talking about obvious self-destruction. I'm not talking about someone who's clearly in crisis. I'm talking about the slow, incremental decisions that seem harmless in the moment. Things like, "I'll start strength training after this busy season at work". "I'll think about moving once the market settles down". "I'll run the numbers on downsizing or a reverse mortgage later". "I'll deal with this knee after the holidays". "I'll look at our withdrawal strategy once I actually retire".
Of course, none of these statements is irrational. Taken one at a time, they're perfectly understandable. But when you stack them across a decade, they create what I call compounding drift. You just wake up one day and realize the house still doesn't fit, the body is no longer responsive, the equity decisions are more constrained, the caregiving demands have intensified. And by then you've lost the very years when change would have been easiest. That's why I call age 55 to 70 the most dangerous time to drift. You have just enough buffer to believe you can always do it later. But that illusion is expensive.
I'm going to talk about the three types of drift that I see all the time during this decade. Health drift, house drift, and wealth drift. And we'll talk about how they intersect.
Health drift is the quiet slide from "I'm doing okay" to "when did this get so hard"? It rarely shows up as a dramatic event. It shows up as a little more stiffness in the morning, slightly slower recovery after a walk or a hike, a few extra pounds over the holidays that are "no big deal", one more medication at your annual visit. And we tend to think, "I'm going to work hard now and then really take care of my health later when I retire".
But unfortunately, from a physiologic standpoint, that's backwards. If you want your 60s and 70s to be active, then your biggest return on investment comes from what you do in your late 50s and early 60s, before the more aggressive age-related declines happen. Muscle, bone density, VO2 max, balance, they're all much easier to maintain during your Go-Strong decade than to try to rebuild in your Go-Slower years. In fact, for many aspects of our physiology, the declines become irreversible after 70.
So the question I want you to ask is this, "If I keep treating my health the way I am right now, what's most likely going to be off the table five years from now? What about 10 years from now? Maybe it's long distance flights. Maybe it's skiing with the grandkids. Maybe it's living in that multi-level home without worrying about stairs. Maybe it's simply the confidence to live alone.
Health drift in this decade is dangerous because it's subtle. Sure, you can still do the trip, but you're going to need an extra day to recover. You can still push through another work week, but your sleep is going to take a hit. None of these things triggers urgency, and yet your baseline is slowly ratcheting down.
So then what's the alternative? What does anti-drift look like? It's not training for an Ironman, is it? It's just making things non-negotiable during your go-strong decade. Decisions like, "I'm going to protect and build my strength for the next two to three years, as if my independence and freedom depends on it". Because it does, doesn't it? "I'm going to treat sleep, protein intake, resistance training as part of my retirement plan, not as an optional hobby". "I'm going to reduce my sugar and alcohol intake to reduce inflammation and improve my gut microbiome so that I can slow cognitive decline". Those are the kinds of decisions I'm talking about.
But let's talk about your house because that's where your Go-Strong decisions get incredibly leveraged. House drift is what happens when a home that used to be a great fit quietly becomes misaligned with the next 20+ years and nobody wants to touch it because the status quo just feels familiar, doesn't it? The script sounds something like this, "We raised our kids here, so we'll retire here". "We'll age-in-place and just bring in help if we need it". "Sure, it's a lot of house, but it's paid off and the neighborhood is nice". "Moving sounds exhausting. I'm too busy right now. I'll think about it later".
Of course, none of those thoughts is outrageous, is it? But a few things are happening under the surface. The first is that risk starts increasing. Home layout, stairs, maintenance demands, all those things might have been manageable in your early 60s, but then they start to pose a problem in your mid- to late- 70s. The second is isolation. It starts to become an issue, doesn't it? A home that's car-dependent or socially isolated can shrink your world just when you need community the most. Third, home equity becomes trapped. A big chunk of your net worth may be locked in your walls and can't actually support the life that you want. Lastly, it starts to sap your mental bandwidth. Every year that you delay a move, the logistical and emotional burden of sorting, selling, relocating just gets heavier, doesn't it? Not lighter.
Your Go-Strong decade is when you still have the physical and cognitive bandwidth to orchestrate a move, to explore new locations, to experiment with a different home configuration, or just intentionally design a lifestyle that's going to keep working for you well into your 70s and 80s. I recommend that you ask yourself this question. What if I moved because I'm still strong and independent rather than just wait until I had to? What options would open up?
When you ask that question, you are flipping the traditional script. Instead of clinging to your "forever home" and waiting for crisis to force your hand, you are proactively using your Go-Strong decade to rightsize your lifestyle on purpose. And that might look like simplifying your home, relocating to a more walkable neighborhood, choosing a location closer to family, or finding a community to connect with socially. Regardless, you are intentionally designing rather than drifting.
House drift is dangerous with a capital D because the longer that you postpone the decision, the more likely it is that that decision is going to get made for you, either because of a fall, a health emergency, mental decline, or maybe even death of a spouse.
Now, money drift, this one is sneaky because on paper, you might be doing everything right, maxing out your retirement accounts, delaying social security, paying down or paying off your mortgage. The drift isn't in your savings rate, it's in your strategy. It looks a little bit like this. "I have no idea how these accounts turn into income, but I'll sort it out later". "I'm scared to touch my principal, so I'll just keep working". "I'm sitting on a ton of equity, but the idea of using it feels risky, so I'm just going to ignore it". "Our spending is just whatever it is, we don't have a clear enough financial independence number". Meanwhile, market cycles, interest rates, housing prices, health uncertainties, all of those things keep going up and down in the background, don't they?
Your Go-Strong decade, it's when you have the most discretionary control. You have options. You can retire early, you can semi-retire, you can take consulting jobs, maybe even start an encore career. You have the most flexibility to use home equity intelligently without being forced into an emergency decision.
Conversely, if you drift financially through those decades, you often end up in one of two camps. The first, you overshoot, working far longer than necessary because you assume that more is safer. And as a result, you burn through irreplaceable high-energy years. Second camp, you under plan. You retire long after you've burned out and have put unnecessary stress on your aging body. When you do finally retire, there's no clear strategy. You wind up feeling anxious, constrained. Neither of those options is great, is it?
Now the point is not to retire as early as possible. It's to not drift through your Go-Strong years, to not have regrets later. It's important that you fully understand what's possible with a little intentional design. To understand how much money you actually need to protect your lifestyle, rather than just maximizing accounts for the sake of it. To understand how rightsizing your home and/or creating a small income stream can impact your short game and your long game.
But, I want to step back for a minute and connect the dots. Between the ages of 55 and 70, you are standing at a crossroads where your biology is still responsive. Your wealth is peaking. Your choices about home and work and lifestyle, they're still mostly voluntary. You're not reacting to an emergency. Once you move into your 70s, those variables start getting locked in, don't they? Sure, you can still change things, but it's going to take more effort, more recovery time, more adaptation. And in some cases, the options simply aren't on the table anymore.
So your Go-Strong years, they're not just a "nice time of life", they're a critical design window. It is dangerous to keep thinking, "Nothing's urgent, I'll deal with it later when I have to". It's dangerous to keep kicking that can down the road. The smarter way to approach your Go-Strong years is to think, "This is exactly when small, intentional moves are going to create the most outsized return. Now that could mean taking strength and mobility seriously for the first time. It could mean rightsizing your home while you're still strong enough to do it on your own terms. It could be rethinking your work so it supports, rather than cannibalizes, your health and relationships.
To make this a little more concrete, I want you to do a quick mental check-in with me. First, with your body. If nothing changed from what you're currently doing with regard to exercise, sleep, or nutrition, how confident are you that your body will still let you live the way you want to 10 years from now? Would you bet on that? Or are you just hoping that you're going to find time to get in shape later? And what about your brain? Are you stretching your brain with new skills, new environments, new challenges, or are you increasingly defaulting to what's easy, familiar, or comfortable?
And what about bank? Do you and your partner, if you have one, do you have a simple written understanding of how your retirement savings, your social security, your home equity are going to translate into actual income during retirement? You don't have to have a 200 page binder, just a clear picture. Or does it still feel like a black box?
Lastly, base. Will your current home support your next 20 years in terms of your finances, community, mobility, and mental health? Or is it just a relic of the past that you're hanging onto because change feels hard? Of course, you don't have to solve all of this in one week, but you do need to stop assuming that later will magically be a better time to think about it.
And I want to add one more layer to this. I want to address comfort. Comfort during this decade is tricky because it feels earned, doesn't it? You've worked hard for 30, 40, maybe even more years. You've raised kids, paid mortgages, survived recessions, handled curveballs. Wanting a little predictability and ease is completely understandable. The problem is when comfort hardens into a cage, isn't it? You think, "I know this job, I'm just going to stay here a few more years, even if it is draining me". "I know this house, I can't imagine starting over somewhere else". "I know this routine, I don't want to disrupt it. Meanwhile, your window for making big life-giving changes is quietly shrinking.
Now, I'm not suggesting that you blow up your life for the sake of novelty. What I'm suggesting is that in the Go-Strong decade that you balance comfort with challenge selectively. Enjoy the comfort of solid core values and strong relationships, but sprinkle in a bit of discomfort in your decisions and your growth. That might mean choosing the discomfort of strength training over the comfort of the couch, the discomfort of decluttering and rightsizing over the comfort of "we'll deal with it someday", the discomfort of running the numbers honestly over the comfort of "oh, I'm sure it'll work out". Those are the micro-rebellions against drift.
Bottom line, if you're between 55 and 70 right now, here's what I want you to take away from this podcast. Your Go-Strong decade is not just another 10-year block on the calendar. It is the pivot point where your home, your health, and your wealth either start working together or slowly drift out of alignment. The risk is not that you're going to make a catastrophic mistake. The risk is that you'll make no clear decision at all.
And if you're listening to this and thinking, "Okay, Rachael, I get it, I'm in my Go-Strong decade, but I have no idea where to start". Well, that's exactly why I offer a Rightsized Home and Health Review. It's a free strategy session where we first take a personalized look at your health and your home fit, second, run some preliminary numbers to evaluate options, and third, sketch out your next few steps, whether that means moving, staying put with a smarter plan, or just shoring up your health so you can keep your options open. Regardless of the path you choose, my goal is just to help you design your Go-Strong Decade intentionally instead of drifting through it. You'll find the link to book that Rightsized Home and Health Review in the show notes.
All right, ninjas, that's all for today. Remember that your Go-Strong decade is precious. Use it well. Until next time, Live Well, Love More, Age Less.