The latest Merrill Lynch Affluent Insights survey of the values, financial priorities and concerns of affluent Americans and the challenges and opportunities they face focuses largely on issues related to retirement.

Many affluent Americans are rethinking their vision of retirement; the survey offers lessons learned from retirees and what they wished they had done differently when planning for retirement.

Surprisingly, given the opportunity to do it all again, roughly half of retired respondents indicated that they would have focused more on their "life goals" and less on "the numbers" and on hitting a specific nest egg dollar amount when planning for retirement, while the rest indicated that they would have focused more on "the numbers."

Among all retired respondents, only three out of 10 worked with a financial advisor when planning for retirement, but more than half wished they had started doing so sooner.

In the wake of economic recession, 56 per cent of respondents, whether retired or not, found some "silver lining" in how it affected - or may affect - their retirement planning and priorities.

More than half of non-retired respondents made some adjustments to their lifestyle last year, expressing concern about the impact of the economy on their ability to meet their financial goals (50 per cent). Among non-retired respondents who now feel off track in terms of when they had hoped to retire, two-thirds cited that the recession has in some way taken its toll on their finances. Although 29 per cent still expect to retire later than originally planned, this number is down from 37 per cent in the previous survey released in October 2009.

Retired people were asked where they would recommend those within 10 to 15 years of retirement focus their attention and where those more than 15 years from retirement should be focused. Answers included building a plan around what is most important to you in retirement (51 per cent), having a plan to manage retirement income throughout retirement (47 per cent) and paying down debt (40 per cent).

Braun Research conducted the Merrill Lynch Affluent Insights quarterly survey by phone in December 2009 on behalf of Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management.