Making Space After Burnout

What to know if you’re considering a sabbatical

Today I’m sharing a guest post from Nyam Adodoadji on sabbaticals. I continue to be inspired by people making intentional changes in their career. After taking a sabbatical, Nyam is now a coach helping others do the same. Her guest post is a reflective, clear-eyed look at what it can mean to step away from work and create space to reclaim agency in your career.

This lens is deeply aligned with DRI Your Career, which is all about questioning default paths and making more intentional choices about work and life. Our first cohort is underway, and we just opened up enrollment for a second cohort starting in April.

If you’d like to create a bit of space for yourself but aren’t quite ready for a sabbatical, the winter cohort of my journaling course Creating Space is also open.

Guest post by Nyam Adodoadji

While common in academia and religious contexts, sabbaticals of two months or more for personal endeavors is still not normalized in the tech and corporate worlds. The practice has been gaining traction though as well-known companies like Adobe, Bank of America, and Paypal offer sabbaticals to employees after working there for a certain number of years (although they only offer between 4-6 weeks off). Many professionals are intrigued by the idea of a sabbatical, yet they feel like it’s not a realistic option for them. Below, I share my sabbatical story as well as what to consider if you’re exploring the idea of taking a sabbatical.

Reflect on your why

With forceful vengeance, 2020 and the inception of the pandemic compelled each of us to confront our lives with harsh clarity, and I was no exception. For me that moment of confrontation happened in February 2021. Staring at my computer screen during my remote job, I felt the weight of my 14-year career pattern of crushing workloads, unsupportive managers, and multiple burnout cycles.

Where had my life gone? Was it just going to be one debilitating job after another until I died?

This question propelled me into a year-long process to plan a one year career break that changed my life trajectory. I was hungry to rest, reflect, and create a career that was fulfilling rather than draining.

For some people, the reason for a sabbatical will storm its way to the forefront as mine did; for others, it will be more subtle. In either case, understanding what specifically draws you to the idea of a sabbatical is an important anchor in the planning process. During your sabbatical journey, internal and external challenges will come up. Understanding your motivation will help you stay the course and guide your decisions.

I invite my clients to consider five potential sabbatical themes:

• Rest & rejuvenation: Restoring physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual rest and cultivating sustainable rhythms of rest.

• Adventure & challenge: Embracing physical, mental or creative challenges that are energizing and invite personal growth in certain areas of life or career.

• Exploration & learning: Creating time to take classes or do focused and integrated study in an area of interest.

• Fun & play: Focusing on experiences that reconnect one to what they enjoy and feels light.

• Connection: Prioritizing deeper connection with family, friends or community or caretaking for a loved one that needs support.

These themes aren’t exhaustive, and more than one theme may be applicable. They’re a starting point to reflect on what you uniquely need from a sabbatical. You can use my free Illuminate Your Muse reflection guide as a resource for this reflection.

A few gentle suggestions as you reflect:

• Pay attention to if a motivation is what you want, or if it’s externally influenced. It’s easy to get tangled in expectations for what a sabbatical “should” be rather than tuning into what you want.

• During this reflection, temporarily set aside pragmatic questions, or if it’s helpful, create a list of them that you can come back to. The invitation of this exercise is to tune into your desires, and often practical questions will prevent you from letting what’s stirring within you come to the surface. You don’t need to make any decisions at this point, but rather use your daydreams to shine a light on what it is you’re needing, then take some time to write down your thoughts.

What holds people back from sabbaticals

Because I was so broken-hearted about the time I had lost living an unfulfilling life during my early adulthood, my heartbreak outweighed any fears or concerns I had about taking a year off from work. Also, having experienced so much burnout in my early career, I’d left multiple jobs without having another one lined up, as I was typically so depleted that I didn’t have capacity to search for a job while in my current job. For better or worse, my career was full of holes, but through community and savings, I’d always made it through these stretches, and I was able to find work again. That being said, I did have significant concerns regarding my sabbatical.

When I had my moment of reckoning in 2021, I was single and 36 years old. I wanted to take a year-long career break, but with housing costs, a late start to saving for retirement, and limited options for health insurance, I wasn’t sure the best approach to take. I worked with my own sabbatical coach, Roshida Dowe, a former corporate lawyer, who used her layoff to launch her sabbatical and, eventually, early retirement. Partnering with her offered both practical and emotional support through the planning process. To resolve the concerns I had:

• I had been saving up to buy a home; however, as I played out the purchase, I realized I’d feel financial pressure to keep working in the high paying roles that were crushing me. Instead, I turned those savings into my sabbatical fund that I kept contributing to throughout 2021.

• It wasn’t an easy decision, but I moved back to my parent’s place in order to save on rent during the year of not working.

• I leveraged the health insurance marketplace via which I got a subsidy for health insurance, since I didn’t have income coming in that year. (This option is obviously outdated given the current happenings in the U.S. government).

Many folks I chat with automatically shut down the idea of taking a sabbatical. “I’d love to do that, but I can’t.” People are understandably concerned about money – how can I not work for a year, and where will money come from to take time off? In the U.S., health insurance is another major concern as it’s often tied to an employer. Others are concerned about the impact to their careers – how will employers view a break from the workforce? Still others have concerns regarding childcare, schooling, housing, possessions, and more existentially, who are they if they aren’t working?

These concerns are legitimate, and that’s why it’s important to carefully plan and problem-solve for them. What I find, though, is that many people don’t get past the initial “I can’t” to imagine how they might. There are all kinds of people with different circumstances who have taken sabbaticals. None of the challenges noted above are insurmountable. What I believe ultimately holds people back is that they’re not willing to be curious and creative about options.

They struggle to think outside of the socialization that we always have to be working. They struggle to give themselves permission to pursue their desire for a break. With these internal struggles, people can always point to excuses as to why a sabbatical is not possible for them, whether it’s that they’re single and the only one providing for themselves financially, or that they’re married and can’t imagine what it would look like to manage a travel break with kids.

I invite folks to be curious about what draws you to the idea of a sabbatical. Exploring your options for taking a break doesn’t require you to make a decision, and certainly not a rushed one. Learn about the stories of others who have taken sabbaticals in order to see how it could be possible for you as well. Rebecca Thomas’ Sabbatical Stories podcast is a good place to hear stories. Also, Taking a Career Break for Dummies by Katrina McGhee is a practical resource for planning and problem solving. McGhee, another sabbatical coach, has coached hundreds of people to take career breaks. If they can do it, you can too!

Finding the courage to take the leap

Your why will be your beacon for forging ahead with your sabbatical. Since taking extended time away from the workforce (outside of things like parental leave) is still a counter-cultural decision, it does take courage to move forward with it. That source of courage and motivation will look different for everyone. I became painfully aware that I didn’t like my life, and I couldn’t escape my mortality. Perhaps it sounds morbid, but whether I took the career break or not, the time would pass anyways, and I’d die anyways. I wanted to give myself the chance to live a life that I loved while I still could.

Facing crushing burnout, some people’s driver is that their mental health is worth taking the time to heal and reset for a more sustainable future. Still others prioritize desires to spend precious time with kids while they’re young or to realize dreams or just enjoy life now, rather than in some unpromised future of retirement at 65. Ultimately, money is a renewable resource; time is not. An intentional sabbatical is an investment in a life well lived.

A couple of reflection questions to unearth your courage:

• Imagine yourself in the future at the end of your life. From the vantage point and wisdom of your future self, what did you do in order to make your sabbatical happen? What was the impact?

• What’s the cost for you NOT to take this break?

• What choice would you make if you chose curiosity and bravery over fear?

Different approaches to structuring time off

People ask me what I did during my sabbatical, and while I did travel, work with a leadership coach, start a newsletter and take a music production class, I spent many of the days that year without much structure. I loved having the space and flexibility to move slowly, reflect and savor time with people. I loved how I got to know my body’s natural rhythms, rather than feeling pressure to conform my days to external demands. For me, having loose structure opened up a gentle flow of life that I needed as a break from the rigid schedules of modern work life in the U.S.

For some people though, not working and suddenly having ample free time feels daunting. They wrestle with feeling guilty about not working on a project or skill acquisition that would be classified as productive. One of the gifts of a sabbatical is unlearning the ideas we’ve ingested from the corporate world that we are workers first, humans second. When you take extended time away from the workforce, it becomes clear just how much of life is oriented around work, rather than actual life.

That being said, some people find structure helpful and will feel aimless without it. I’d recommend a few things when creating daily structure for your sabbatical:

• Create simple routines or rituals to start and end your day: These routines are focused on checking in with and nourishing yourself. They can be as simple as journaling with a morning cup of coffee or taking 15 minutes before picking up your kids or before bed to express what you’re grateful for from the day. Maybe it’s going to the gym or taking a walk, run, or swim. The habit will be different based on what connects for you, but the long-term intention is that you cultivate the habit of reconnecting with yourself daily and that you maintain it post sabbatical.

• Organize your days in alignment with your sabbatical why: Before automatically choosing project(s) to work on during your break, come back to your reason for taking the time off. If your purpose is to rest and recover, explore the seven types of rest and how you can incorporate them into your break. If it’s to learn more deeply in an area, start with one project that you want to focus on or a list of books to read. If it’s to deepen connection with your family and community, explore joining a local club or starting a new weekly family or community gathering time.

• Start with your joy: Your sabbatical is a time for you to reconnect with yourself, and an important aspect of that reconnection is tapping back into your joy. When was the last time you made choices from a place of joy or delight? Understanding, embodying and practicing your joy, what lights you up and energizes you, is a type of power. Via this power, you learn how to refuel yourself, discern what feels draining and take ownership of your well-being.

Normalizing sabbaticals

Even though more tech and corporate companies are offering sabbaticals as a benefit, and more folks are creating their own self-funded sabbaticals, for many corporate employees, there’s still resistance. While there are legitimate pragmatic and emotional questions on how to take a sabbatical, part of the resistance is from modern life, work, and culture in the U.S.

Many of us have been socialized to pursue one particular version of life. Get a good education, get a good job and climb the corporate ladder, get married, buy a house, have kids, retire at 65. For some folks like myself, from immigrant families, this version of life is the epitome of success and stability. Hard work is about survival and deep pride, but modes of rest weren’t always accessible or modeled for us. In addition, for many years U.S. work culture has been driven by employees being dependent solely on one job for income and health insurance. In this model it’s easy for folks to shift into autopilot, until a forced external disruption happens. Employers profit from the idea that there are no other options for finances or life outside of this model, and in turn, it creates a culture of fear or scarcity.

Sabbaticals are a jarring reminder that different ways of living and working are possible. They shine a light on the truth that people have more autonomy and options than they think. Part of the resistance to them becoming normalized is that it cracks open the door for people to reimagine their lives outside of being workers first. It opens people to the power of possibility. It varies by story, but many people experience a deep metamorphosis or change in priorities after taking a sabbatical. That type of change can be rattling for their community or workplaces.

After my sabbatical, I didn’t know exactly how it would come together, but I knew that I didn’t want to live the version of life and career that had been sold to me. While I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that version of life, I realized clearly that it wasn’t for me. I wanted to do work that stemmed from my vision and that I found passionate, purposeful, powerful and joyful. I wanted ample time for life – family and friends, creative work and travel.

As things stand today, for many folks, taking a sabbatical from the corporate world will require inner vision and grit to go against the grain. It will require financial resources that many people don’t have access to. As more and more people make the choice and share their stories, it opens up the imagination of the collective. As Tricia Hersey, the Nap Bishop and author of “Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto” professes:

“You were not just born to center your entire existence on work and labor. You were born to heal, to grow, to be of service to yourself and community, to practice, to experiment, to create, to have space, to dream, and to connect.”

Sabbatical Resources

Illuminate Your Muse Sabbatical Reflection Guide

Illuminate Your Muse is a soulful digital guide for mindful, mid-career execs and professionals ready to pause, reflect, and plan a nourishing, intentional career break. Through intuitive prompts, you’ll explore your relationship to rest, reconnect to yourself, and envision what’s next.

https://nyamadodoadji.myflodesk.com/illuminate

The Chrysalis Contemplative

The Chrysalis Contemplative is a 6-month, 1:1 coaching experience to help mid-career tech professionals recover from burnout, craft a career break strategy, reconnect to who you are and create a sustainable life and career that matches.

https://www.nyamadodoadji.com/contemplate

Break Space

Join the community for career breaks and sabbaticals that improve your life, without sabotaging your success. If interested, join any time via this link and use the discount code NYAM30

https://www.gobreakspace.com/join/