In May 2022, I decided to take a sabbatical. Here is what I learned after from my career break:
1. Taking a real break is harder than I thought.
It's not easy to rest your brain and stop your weekly routine of working because it has become your physical and mental habit after many years of working.
2. To break myself from working FOMO, I went for intense exercise and it worked.
I had wanted to get certified to be a yoga teacher for many years. And finally, I took this opportunity to join 200-hour training program and it was really intense to complete in a month and half.
Practicing yoga everyday at a higher level and learning how to teach people yoga are really exciting and challenging. At the same time, it helped me create a new routine and really had a break from working.
3. Learned how to spend time with my family.
This is extremely important because as you work, let's say 50-70 hours/week, you barely have energy to really enjoy your time with family, cook something good, having daily dates with your loved partner and spending all days hanging out with kid.
Sabbatical allows my family to do all of that.
4. I successfully built a coaching business.
I learned that it's nice to discover your passion, it's wonderful to leverage your passion help people for free and but it's even more fascinating to monetize your passion and run it sustainably.
It's a whole new level of feeling. It's very different from receiving month-to-month paychecks. It's not about making more money - it's a real taste of entrepreneurship.
5. I learned how to build and connect with my audience through LinkedIn.
When I started sharing my voice on LinkedIn almost a year ago, lots of things have changed.
While my actual professional profile on LinkedIn were 90% staying the same, the way I connect to the world and how I present myself have shifted to be more open and even vulnerable:
- I shared my learnings - achievements and failures I had throughout the years
- I documented my growth journey as a marketer, a coach and a parent
- I engaged with people through Q&A, comments and inbox messages.
- I opened my calendar to connect with people and even gained new friends and long-term clients from there.
To end my post, I encourage everyone to consider taking a long break to refresh, recharge, reconnect and take a chance to do something new or things you have been wanted to do.
I finally realized that you can always go back to work ANYTIME. But it's much harder to stop everything that you're familiar with to explore what you really want in life.
Take a sabbatical at least once in your career!
Check out other posts I wrote about career here.
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