3 Reasons Not to Delay Retirement -- Even When Your Brain Keeps Telling You to Wait

There are some people who exit the labor force the moment they can, and others who push themselves to work until they're physically unable to continue. If you're in the latter camp, you're not alone.

Even if the logical part of you says you're ready to retire, every time you think about tendering your resignation, a warning might go off in your brain along the lines of "don't do it -- you're making a mistake."

Image source: Getty Images.

But at some point, it pays to stop delaying retirement, despite the perks of doing so. Here are three reasons to retire as soon as possible rather than keep waiting.

1. Your health is starting to decline

Delaying retirement has its benefits. It could make it possible to boost your savings and stretch your existing balance further. Plus, working longer could make it easier to delay your Social Security claim for boosted monthly checks.

But if your health is starting to decline, consider it a wakeup call to get serious about retirement and stop stalling. Good health is never guaranteed. And if you're already struggling with mobility or other issues, you don't know when things will go from "not so great" to "pretty darn bad."

To put it another way, if you've worked hard all your life and can afford to retire, don't wait until you're in truly bad shape physically to let yourself off the hook. That could mean not being able to take the trips you always dreamed of and not being able to enjoy the money you so diligently socked away.

2. Your job is harming your health

Some people push themselves to keep working because they don't mind their jobs or, better yet, actually like them. But if your job is contributing to poor health, that's a good reason to expedite your workforce exit.

You may reach a point where your job is so physically demanding that it causes you pain. Or, the stress of your job could exacerbate a heart condition or other issues that put your life at risk. If you can definitively say that continuing to work is making your health worse, that's a reason to stop. Now.

3. You don't need more savings to cover your long-term costs

The old saying "you can never have too much money" is probably true for most people. You might have a $3 million IRA. But if working a few more years makes it a $3.3 million IRA, why not keep going, right?

The problem with that logic is that once you've saved a certain amount, the extra money may not be so meaningful to you. Pursuing it, though, could cause you to miss out on experiences you deserve to have.

Rather than fixate on how much money you can potentially accumulate for retirement, ask yourself if you've saved enough. Calculate your annual spending needs, build in a buffer for unplanned costs, and compare that to your guaranteed income sources, like Social Security and, if applicable, a pension.

From there, apply a super-safe withdrawal rate to your savings -- say, 2.5%, which falls well below the famous 4% rule. If you realize you have more than enough to cover your costs, then you may be able to get on board with the idea of wrapping up your career.

Here's how this exercise might play out in practice. Imagine your annual spending needs are $90,000, and you're building in a $20,000 annual buffer for things like surprise home repairs or medical expenses, bringing your total annual income needs to $110,000.

Now, let's say you don't have a pension but expect $36,000 a year in Social Security. Let's also say you've saved $3 million.

A 2.5% withdrawal rate gives you an annual income of $75,000. Add in your $36,000 from Social Security benefits, and you're at $111,000 -- slightly over your $110,000 budget, which already includes a massive buffer for unplanned costs.

This, of course, is just an illustration, and your personal numbers might look very different. The point, however, is that if the math strongly supports the fact that you've saved enough, you might realize that chasing extra money just doesn't pay.

It's not an easy thing to take the leap into retirement. But if you're already seeing a decline in your health, your job is clearly bad for your health, and you've build yourself a solid nest egg, then it really doesn't make sense to keep working longer.

The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.