Why Sabbaticals 

Between the ages of 25 to 55 you’ll spend over 50% of your waking life at work or at work related activities.  In your lifetime it’ll add up to 90,000 hours at work (or 10.9 years of your life).

It’s time to talk about time-off.  

This is not about an extra week of vacation a year.   This is about serious time off from your regularly scheduled work life (even if it’s work you love).  Sabbaticals.  Career breaks.

It sounds like wishful thinking: a nice idea, but one that takes far too much planning, risk, and financial sacrifice.   But for centuries people have taken sabbaticals.  What many accomplished on these “breaks” has defined their careers or altered their lives.  Many famous folk are most known for what they’ve accomplished during or right after a sabbatical (be it a voluntary one or a forced one) from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love to Steve Jobs’ time spent in India.   

A sabbatical is about purpose: building relationships (or repairing broken ones), accomplishment (writing a book, or hiking the PCT), reflection, or being fully present as you care for a loved one (an aging parent, or a child).  It’s for re-discovering motivation and testing your boundaries.  It’s about unplugging, yet recharging.  

Time is our most precocious commodity.

It’s time and not money that’s our most precious commodity. As a wise wizard once said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

Have you taken a sabbatical or a career break?   Share your experience!