Planning for retirement should be pretty straight forward, but the twists and turns that coming years bring can throw you off track and make the retirement process stressful when all is said and done. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to make planning for your retirement less stressful and more successful overall:

Don't Overlook Short-Term Goals

It can be easy to overlook the opportunity to create and reach short-term goals when you're focusing on the long-term goals, but skipping the short-term goals can be a mistake. Setting short-term saving and investment goals that can be met within just a few months to a year will help keep you on track in a variety of ways as time goes on.

First and foremost, meeting short-term goals can help you stay motivated to commit to the big picture. After successfully meeting a savings goal within a year, you'll be more likely to use the money you save to reinvest in your retirement, rather than spending it on home upgrades, vacations, or shopping sprees that just eat up money and don't offer any real long-term financial security.

Meeting short-term financial goals can also help fund your longer-term investment goals. If you exceed your short-term goals, you can use the extra funds raised to reinvest in multi-year business contracts or extra stock options.

Thoroughly Understand Your Pension Plan

If you are enrolled in a pension plan at work, it's important to make sure that you completely understand how your plan works and how your actions can effect your eligibility in the coming years. You should know when you'll be fully vested, if you aren't already, because until then you likely aren't eligible to receive 100 percent of the benefits that will be available to you as a vested employee.

And you need to understand what will happen to your pension plan if you decide to leave the company and work for another, or if you retire early altogether. By thoroughly understanding how your retirement pension plan works, you can better plan in the years leading up to your retirement. You'll know how much supplementation your expected benefits will require and how long you will have to keep working in order to receive the benefits you expect.

Work With a Retirement Planning Specialist

To optimize convenience and keep your stress levels low in the coming years, it's a good idea to work with a professional retirement planning specialist. An experienced retirement planner can help you put goals into place that will help get you where you want to be financially by the time you retire. They'll make sure that your pension plan is fully understood and provide guidance that will help ensure all policies are complied with so you receive your full benefits when you decide to retire.

Your retirement planner can also help you decide which investments to take part in based on the risk factor and possible outcomes. They'll also help you keep track of your progress so you know where you're doing well and where you can improve.