Retirement financial guru David Bach is known for “The Latte Factor” on how to save money. Maybe you saw him on Oprah as I did back in the day?
Fast forward years later, he went from burnout to sabbatical living. In hindsight, he now calls a sabbatical “the magic pill” to happiness.
He mentioned in interviews that it all began when his wife asked him what he wanted for one of his birthdays, and he expressed a desire for full-time off from work.
And so that’s just what he did, although he still had to convince himself to get off his busy work train.
Taking time off in a restful sabbatical isn’t a common practice for Americans. There aren’t too many role models to follow. Retirement after 60 and beyond is still the American norm.
Like David Bach, more go-getters in the prime of their career are opening up to this approach to a healthier lifestyle to recharge somewhere in the middle, make life impact changes, and gain clarity about their remaining life’s path.
We all want to live our Best Life, but not all of us do what we need to fully live because we’re not given a road map so we end up playing it safe… staying in the same career or corporate work path with golden handcuffs and benefits, despite being miserable.
Future uncertainty can be uncomfortable to those who want their lives fully planned out, but as I (and you too probably at least in this past year) experienced, life throws monkey wrenches in the mix if you’ve been around long enough, and you can question what this life is really all about.
…and maybe you’ve had those types of questions swirling in your mind lately that you’ve been wrestling with?
If so, you should consider taking a sabbatical if you’re in a place where you can or you all of a sudden, find that you deeply need one to restore your mind-body. It’s not a cop-out, it’s a smart move in case you need to wrestle the idea with the logical side of your mind.
The trend is moving this way. Kids who are just becoming adults are acceptably taking gap years from college. And if you worked in corporate in 2008 with the economy dip, you most likely made a work change, maybe entered a different industry as in 2020 and the aftermath, where we all had our work changed and life turned upside down.
Someone wise ahead of me ingrained this idea that never left me: “Your entire life is a transition.”
So then with that lens, I’m happily entering my fourth act. And depending on your age, you’re probably at least entering or considering your second one (along with almost half the women in the workforce according to survey data).
When I was in college, and it took me 5 years to graduate, that was a big deal in my mind. I questioned why I took a year off after a few semesters of working and attending business school full-time.
During my gap year that wasn’t the usual way, I stopped and learned how to create a business (the reason that you would think you go to business school but most like I did, graduated and entered the corporate workforce).
What I wanted most that I didn’t want to admit to anyone including myself was I wanted deep rest. And that semester off test-taking I got off sleeping aid pills. I got off the hamster wheel and avoided burning out.
Back then, I was already creating a different way of life of taking breaks because my body was calling for it. And now in more aware times, my mind was too.
Similarly, a mid-life sabbatical idea is a pretty darn good idea for recuperating. It can be a lifeline even though it still has a bad wrap. If you’re a well-known author and speaker like David Bach, you can do it because you’ve earned it. But if you’re like most of us or the person trying to make ends meet, then you’re still justifying, like I had to.
I had to lean in and switch into abundant thinking and what I would gain over what I would lose.
And when the call inside you grows louder, the idea can grow more intriguing, and that’s when you know you have to seriously investigate!
You may just need some little sign or nudge to get you to take the step. Or you may just need the right timing or feeling to show up again. In my case, I knew I had more to lose if I didn’t.
You are where you are because of your choices made.
And because of my sabbatical choice, I wouldn’t have traveled to so many great places and countries before 2020. And I wouldn’t have discovered my real passions and purposeful direction in this life that isn’t the corporate path I started on.
I’m not suggesting that’s what you have to do or to be irresponsible. I would never say that as I believe in accountability and personal responsibility. I’m super practical. I’m also led by what I feel is happening in my mind-body-spirit. You get to discern and decide if that’s what is right for you.
From my sabbatical journey, I can tell you, if you follow your internal loving (and not fearful) guides, you won’t be led wrong. Any short-term losses you think you may take, you will gain so much more for your life. Because you’ll pivot into something greater that you would not have uncovered without taking the time off. Your perspective will change and you’ll want to re-strategize your life.
Plus you’ll have all the great memories that you can relive for more years than starting in retirement. (I love looking at sabbatical photos and reminiscing about my vacation and time-off).
But besides good memories, you will gain productivity from resting. You won’t know the individual rewards you’ll gain until you take the bold leap.
When should you do it?
I think I described it above, but the short answer I would give is: when you can. You’ll know when you can’t!
Especially if you’re burned out from your job, have life overwhelm, life underwhelm, considering a career switch, or get laid off, now may be a great time (to eliminate life in burnout to sabbatical living that you didn’t choose on purpose… that can leave you de-motivated instead of feeling excited and energized).
Or maybe you have a deepening desire to explore something new in life and that is winning over any fears you have for taking a risky and unknown bold step towards your future, despite questions from loved ones you may receive.
One other word of nudging encouragement to take the proactive bold step… free yourself from feeling like you have to please others (or be a martyr to do it for others). Your life and mental health are at risk, and if you lose yourself in the process, then you have nothing to give.
A mid-life crisis is a real phenomenon that still exists and can come falling like a ton of bricks. It often sadly ends with regrets and not the way it started.
I didn’t experience that (and maybe that’s because I took a sabbatical) but I’ve seen it in others’ lives and maybe you have or will too.
Sometimes it’s just easier when things happen to you that are out of your control, so you can more easily explain your decisions. You lose a job. You get a divorce or another loss happens.
You can find your lost soul, your higher spirit, or a new mission on a sabbatical.
Personally, I love that the sabbatical idea is catching on in our work-addicted society, especially after a shocking 2020 year where we all had to rethink and redo old ways.
Maybe now is a good time for you and you’re looking for encouraging supporters to take a sabbatical. And maybe I’ve piqued your interest, then you’ll want to keep reading as I share more from my memoir and ideas that can help you…
So, Let’s start with… what exactly is a sabbatical?
A sabbatical can sound like a religious or spiritual crusade, a time of study, or some kind of “finding yourself” journey. It can be all these things or none of it.
It can have a definite date end like the end of the year that marketer Joe Polish gave himself in his current sabbatical. It can also have an indefinite end date like my 2016 sabbatical (that I describe below).
PhD author, Benjamin Hardy is known for many books including Willpower Doesn’t Work. He recently interviewed successful marketer and Genius Network Founder, Joe Polish, who explained his reasons for taking this year off in a sabbatical, when he started to deeply think about a close friend who had suddenly passed away before the age of 60.
That definitely would make you stop and think about this delicate life and what it all means. And this sadly has been happening more often when we should be living longer than previous generations as our health sciences, technology, and resources have improved.
In the recent interview before he started his sabbatical, Joe said he’s using the time as a way to reset from burnout, replace old ways, and exit out of some relationships that no longer serve him, and to grow into more of who he’s becoming. Those all seem like great reasons.
Personal transformation can happen at any age and sometimes when you’re older and wiser, you’re more open to deeper transformation as you’ve experienced so much already. It’s like space tourism that is now a whole new dimension of travel. Anyway, you may be ready for new exploration.
If you’re curious about a sabbatical, they usually have these 2 common goals (and also others):
Self-discovery is almost always a common thread for those who choose to take a sabbatical and disconnect from their usual busy work lives and daily check-ins. There’s a deeper purpose and calling even if that’s not the main reason to enter a sabbatical.
If in your work you led or lead others, you may need to convince yourself to take a sabbatical as initially all you think about are the practical changes, losses, and potential implications (and you don’t know all the gains you will receive because that’s what you discover in the process).
You learn to surrender your control in order to unfold new possibilities in this life.
Recuperating your body feels needed. You may see tell-tale signs as you feel chronic stress, early aging, lack of years of sleep with bags under the eyes, or you have a tough time stringing words together when they usually rolled off your tongue.
Then you know you need a break that’s usually long overdue for self-care, proper sleep, personal growth, and greater passion and creativity. This is why I believe living in balance is the key to success, health, and happiness.
Sadly Americans mainly will just keep pushing themselves until they have a heart or panic attack, and that’s why vitality and longevity is not something we as a culture brag about despite all the conveniences and luxuries available to a powerful first-world country.
Weekdays can be like Groundhog Day, and in Corporate America, we call that “the rat race.”
Monday is the day that is recorded with the highest number of heart attacks when the workweek begins.
Have you ever felt like you needed another week or an extended vacation after your week-long vacation? That’s a sign that your body probably needed longer to rest, restore and recuperate.
If you’re able to take a few months off for vacation, you could then feel amazingly great and recharged, especially in the first few weeks. That’s the beginning from burnout to sabbatical living.
You can think of the feeling like when you were young and you were playing and had no cares in the world, or when you were older and in a new love relationship where you were on Cloud 9 euphoria, doing everything and nothing at all if you felt like.
That’s how my burnout to sabbatical life started in the summer of 2016 where I didn’t know when it would end but I was excited it began. The end date would depend on opportunities that showed up. I had a lot of trust in this life and the Universe above.
That may sound scary to some, but for someone who has been led into a spiritual path connecting life dots as I have, this is how we live, balancing both trust and responsibility for the life we’re given.
And for an Enneagram 7 that I am, I can look at my past sabbatical as both adventurous and from an optimistic lens. 😊
Here’s why I took a sabbatical…
My 2016 sabbatical wasn’t about finding myself as I started that searching quest years earlier when I ran into many young adult situational work and life problems, mixed with start and stops in life where I adapted constantly.
If you’re into psychology or familiar with Myers-Briggs, just so you have an idea how much I transformed, I began my 20’s as an ENTJ and later evolved into an ESFP/ISFP (depending on the situation).
So, entering this 2016 burnout to sabbatical life as a more mature adult, was primarily about a time of reflection, resting, waiting (that I’ll explain more about), and re-evaluating my life from an already whirlwind spirit-led life journey I was on.
My then-job burnout and my future calling I was waiting on, were the two main reasons for my taking the sabbatical.
I was hoping to set and get on a new path, ready and open for what was next, and not knowing what that could exactly look like except that all would turn out well. That was my belief (and I believe what you believe will happen and what you become).
At the time, I had a feeling that for peace and happiness I had to change course either now or never. I wasn’t getting any younger, as none of us are.
I was also overworked from a specific job where I saw no real future for personal growth and there was no path upward. I had gone as far up as I could for this small company. I felt life is too short to stay stagnant, limited, and I was a bit bored (that’s death to me). This work boredom feeling wasn’t a new concept to me (and I think entrepreneurial spirited folks can all relate).
In this leading up from burnout to sabbatical, I didn’t have a work-life balance, good work challenge anymore, or the ability to fully showcase my creative work passions. I did no expressive writing besides contracts.
I also had been laid off several times before and had already switched industry careers earlier on in life, so I was used to reinvention and adapting easily with transferable skills and knowledge. Burnout to sabbatical seemed inevitable to get me to take next bold steps.
I was missing the indicators that I was at a lifelong and fulfilling career job if they still exist. But mostly I just needed a long vacation from working 15 hour days during some seasons and not having any real vacations ever in my then-job job or in future sight.
Deciding to leave the job didn’t phase me and didn’t require long thinking. The idea just kept quietly nagging at my core until the day I announced the decision.
Let me back up here a minute. I’ve been fearless most of my adult life. I started out my earlier work life making cold calls to Fortune 1000 company executives where the business rejection side never bothered me.
Then in my own personal development, I learned to become humble and patient growing up in a metro area where being self-absorbed, and ego-centric is heightened being around movers-and-shakers. I moved away from that air and in my time away, I learned to push away my ego pride that for all of us is mostly fear-driven. That grew me further into deeper levels of personal growth maturity.
Developing fearlessness for me came from a deeper and higher belief and source that all is safe and will be okay no matter what the situation is. Fear, being a primal reaction is really meant to protect us from real danger.
Fear actually harms us if we give our self-imposed irrational fears the energy that our ego minds can spin into a false drama that we ourselves buy into if we’re not vigilantly witnessing our thoughts.
In my case, I’d suffered through insecure thoughts from my past long enough, sought self-help, went through enough life teaching trials, and survived, and that’s how I learned to thrive, manage, and live better. I aspire to whatever the question, love is the answer. …What you think about, you become, so why not think positively?
So then coming from that higher road lens, uncertainty becomes a way of living path I learned to embrace and trust. That rid most worry and anxiety of future fears. In Ayurvedic terms, I’m a Vata so we’re naturally anxious and have worried thoughts, but I chose to transform that part of me that didn’t serve me. And when I took a sabbatical I was the calmest Vata you’ll ever meet (at least for the first 6 months).
I believe and have seen firsthand from my own life that when you close one door, you allow new abundant possibilities to enter. This new way of thinking took years to take up mind residence and cement from an earlier adult victim mentality I started out with.
And then once I closed the 2016 burnout job door, a new chapter entered in less than a year. I stayed believing in a bright future and was excited about my burnout to sabbatical journey.
So here is how my sabbatical began…
On this new burnout to sabbatical path, I wanted to get space and allow new opportunities to start emerging.
But my first mission being free from work was I wanted to decompress, sleep in, and travel. I basically just wanted to chill and inhale the freedom, pizza, and la dolce vita first, like in Eat, Pray, Love. Good movie I’ve watched many times.
I didn’t have anyone I had to report to anymore. I was healthy and relaxed.
I entered my burnout to sabbatical time with feeling freedom and euphoric, like that feeling above I mentioned when you’re on vacation and you happily think I just need a few more weeks of this!
Overseas travel has always excited me. My last trips in this same decade included touring Spain, visiting Paris, and spending 3 eye-opening weeks in Italy. So I went and discovered new places, cultures, visited some friends and family, and got really relaxed.
As the year drew to a close about 6 months into my sabbatical, I knew I didn’t want to stay too relaxed.
And I knew I needed to start working again, not immediately, but soon. Thinking that way helped me to get back to reality. And a new year had just started.
Not knowing when my sabbatical would actually end, I started to feel restless. Remember, I didn’t have a job to go back to, so I took a big life risk. But I had seen in my past that with big risks, comes big rewards.
You can only journal, try and get new insight, and make the perfect coffee for so long before you feel life is passing you by. There’s a time to pause, stop, reflect, and a time to go!
Then as even more weeks and months went by and the euphoria wore off, I started to seriously think about what now?
Remember, I didn’t have a job to go back to…
Sabbatical Waiting
I mentioned above I was “waiting” so let me back up here… Pre-sabbatical, I had received a mystical-type vision. Whoaaaa, I know that sounds heavy… and well, mystical and not too relatable. So I’ll give you the short version. And this may not appeal to you to encounter in your life, as interruptively shocking, and may even come across as defying logic, but this is what happened to me.
Here’s my best way to describe this. A prophetic (received) vision, the kind I received years before my sabbatical, is not the vision board kind or concept that people talk about that seems to come back around in popularity every January when people typically make goals or resolutions.
No one teaches you how to receive a prophetic vision, and I actually don’t know anyone I’ve talked to who has received one, so it’s a bit strange to share with you, but I’m all for helping others gain clarity in their lives in this unclear world. And I’m sure there are others out there, I just haven’t met them yet.
I have in fact read book stories written about a boy’s surreal and interesting account and from a physician’s personal hospital experience that I think were all rewritten or made into movies at some point.
Anyway, my experience receiving a vision (for anyone out there who knows what it’s like), is a uniquely personal experience just like a daily whisper you get can be.
But for everyone, miracles happen every day all the time if you want to believe, and a vision is a super big miracle that’s supernatural.
…It’s like being given a future calling, and you know without a shadow of a doubt (a gut-knowing) that it’s a future destiny that will happen for you, but you can’t make it happen in your way or any faster than it’s meant to.
It requires long waiting (as anything good in life does), keeping belief alive, and seeing this life from an enlightened perspective where you may not have before.
You can at some point question this life and realize you are just a small part of this life and world, even though your mind magnifies your existence and still makes you the center of your life as you control your actions.
A pessimist may call waiting for a vision, enduring long-suffering, while an optimist may say it’s special, amazing, and worth the wait. By now you know I’m an optimist.
So after I entered this new restless waiting period in my sabbatical, I started trying and doing new things that I thought my future would benefit from. I continued higher education learning in my field, plus starting contract work in a new industry with the skills I’d already honed.
I searched for full-time management levels jobs in my field and got hired, so officially that’s when my sabbatical ended in spring 2018. I didn’t want to go back to the industries I had already worked in as those opportunities dried up and they were missing satisfying pieces, but I was open to something new.
After a couple of years in the non-profit industry I entered (I previously worked for-profit), I found myself having to stop again from situations out of my control.
I was sad for this end, but I kinda knew that I could’ve just gone from this new job from burnout to a sabbatical or another job, so there must’ve been a greater purpose reason for entering my sabbatical than just taking time off to transition into a new job. My initial burnout to sabbatical feeling turned into feelings of wanting to be productive (there’s a time to rest and a time to go).
And then one day I woke up and started writing about my burned finger on a hot teapot and metaphoric life lessons I learned. That one story led to other stories I wanted to share. So I self-published those accounts on the world wide web like any of us can do.
And every day I wrote and published for the rest of the year. I felt I had found my consistent passion, so I never stopped. I kinda knew I liked expressive writing at some point in my adult life but never thought I was a good writer… but enjoying sharing, helping, and encouraging others through typed words was a reminder that my sabbatical was for a purpose bigger than me.
I had started a popular blog about a decade earlier in one of my life’s pivots when people would ask what is a blog? But I never had a chance to get that blog going fully as life moved me and pulled me in another direction. (So here I am… this may be my second chance at a blog 😊).
So that, my friends, is my work-life burnout to sabbatical story and now you probably know more about me than your next-door neighbor (haha).
But in short, had I not taken the sabbatical, I would not have found the path to my mentoring that came with one of the post-sabbatical work opportunities, and discovered writing as a passion that takes creative mind and breathing space to fully bake.
And in case you’re now wondering, should YOU take a sabbatical?…
I’d say, as mentioned before, if you can do it responsibly, yes… by all means! You will learn and unleash so much in your life and for the rest of your life. If you are missing work-life balance, you can go from burnout to sabbatical living and feel like a new person in just a few short weeks and months.
For me, if I haven’t conveyed enough already, taking the mid-life sabbatical was actually a logical decision, as I had so many starts and stops in my career (that has been my life’s focus so far). Your reasons could be different, but similar in knowing there are more possibilities out there for you.
Despite the re-routes outside of my control, my life makes sense to me in so many other ways when I reflect back. One step has led to the next, as it has for you in your life. And that’s why you are where you are and have the chance to take next steps.
In the silent and opportunistic moments, this life provides clues to show you what to do next on a need-to-know basis, if you take baby steps (so you don’t have to make mistakes that no one wants to intentionally do). If you like surprises in general, then you’re okay with that.
And if you’re someone who has never considered taking a sabbatical, the idea and decision may sound adventurous and maybe a ‘lil reckless and carefree. And that really depends on how you act and feel. If you know how to operate responsibly with boundaries, you won’t make the wrong decision.
I feel our society needs greater acceptance for those who want to take time off to improve their physical and mental health, and to live their individual best life path that they may not be currently on.
Freedom and choice are some of the reasons that make our nation great and can make our society and the individuals more whole.
We seem to be able to sympathize with others’ emotional, bizarre, and erratic mid-life crisis behaviors or spontaneous mid-life luxury sports car or luxury item purchase, but we can’t easily accept without judgment, someone wanting to take a healthy preventative and relaxing sabbatical vacation from too much work…hmmm? Something needs to change in our society.
My last few tips… if you do decide to take a sabbatical, go full throttle. If you are coming from work burnout to sabbatical living, then you’ll be super excited once you’re in your time off mode (and maybe you’re giddy about the idea now).
Listen to your own heart and desires, and believe you made the right choice and especially if your whispers inside you become louder and louder.
Even though your avoid burnout to sabbatical choice may seem uncomfortable at first, you should lean into those original feelings you felt (that could’ve started off as drifting off mood or not feeling like yourself). You won’t regret it.
You’re the only one who knows and lives in your mind-body and co-creates happenings in your life.
Taking a mid-life sabbatical can be a reset, starting a new way or a newer life when you’re only given this precious one.
Right now we’re all being asked to pivot in ways, and these new starts will bring about a newer, different society. This could be the right time and place in your life to reset new intentions. A sabbatical may be just what you need to gain back daily joy, peace, and freedom.
And as bonuses along the way, you may find your passions, purpose, life fulfillment, and creativity again, or for the first time like I did. If you can improve just one of those areas, that can be life-changing.
…Imagine if you could change all of them (and how that could transform your life)?
And even if you just get a long vacation, your time off from work will be worth its weight in gold, as you won’t get this time back and you’ll learn so much about yourself and what you want more of in this life.