The fear of losing your identity is very real... From one day to the next, I went from being a productive member of society who earned money to *not* being or doing that.
Two things helped me with that (I'm curious what you think):
1/ I had been a productive member of society for such a long time so I was comforta…
The fear of losing your identity is very real... From one day to the next, I went from being a productive member of society who earned money to *not* being or doing that.
Two things helped me with that (I'm curious what you think):
1/ I had been a productive member of society for such a long time so I was comfortable taking a break from that. It's like I'd earned a break.
2/ Setting my sabbatical up such that it was time-bound was valuable. It helped me see it as a life experiment rather than a life shift. Anything I did (or didn't do) within those twelve months was therefore part of the experiment. I was experimenting not earning money for a few months
I love these strategies! It is so interesting that we tie so much of our identity into our roles as paid employees and I love your mindset that you (and everyone who decides to take a sabbatical) has earned it and should not feel bad for taking some time away to rest and explore new curiosities.
I also like that you set a finite amount of time for your sabbatical. For me, I knew I didn’t want to return to my previous position so quitting without a specific plan/timeline to return to the workforce was the best option for me. One new strategy I am experimenting with is to chunk my sabbatical into phases which has been helpful for not defaulting to just going back to work because I have no other plan.
Phase 1- Decompress from full-time work: This included 2 months of relaxing, exercising outside with friends, an exploring the gig economy (walking dogs for Rover)
Phase 2 (current phase)- International travel: Traveling around SE Asia as well as Australia for 3 months
Phase 3: Exploring new ways to travel: Experimenting with Trusted House Sitters (https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/) in my local area (Seattle) to see if we can use this as a lower cost way to travel around the world in the future (~2-3 months).
Thanks so much, Kristy!
The fear of losing your identity is very real... From one day to the next, I went from being a productive member of society who earned money to *not* being or doing that.
Two things helped me with that (I'm curious what you think):
1/ I had been a productive member of society for such a long time so I was comfortable taking a break from that. It's like I'd earned a break.
2/ Setting my sabbatical up such that it was time-bound was valuable. It helped me see it as a life experiment rather than a life shift. Anything I did (or didn't do) within those twelve months was therefore part of the experiment. I was experimenting not earning money for a few months
I love these strategies! It is so interesting that we tie so much of our identity into our roles as paid employees and I love your mindset that you (and everyone who decides to take a sabbatical) has earned it and should not feel bad for taking some time away to rest and explore new curiosities.
I also like that you set a finite amount of time for your sabbatical. For me, I knew I didn’t want to return to my previous position so quitting without a specific plan/timeline to return to the workforce was the best option for me. One new strategy I am experimenting with is to chunk my sabbatical into phases which has been helpful for not defaulting to just going back to work because I have no other plan.
Phase 1- Decompress from full-time work: This included 2 months of relaxing, exercising outside with friends, an exploring the gig economy (walking dogs for Rover)
Phase 2 (current phase)- International travel: Traveling around SE Asia as well as Australia for 3 months
Phase 3: Exploring new ways to travel: Experimenting with Trusted House Sitters (https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/) in my local area (Seattle) to see if we can use this as a lower cost way to travel around the world in the future (~2-3 months).
Phases are a great way to address this problem...
I’m curious about your ‘trusted house sitters’ project, I hope you find great people for your home and that you can keep travelling!!