Some companies grant employees a sabbatical of several weeks, months, even up to a year after working a specific tenure. Some companies allow employees to roll over vacation days year-over-year such that you could build yourself a significant reprieve. If your employer doesn’t allow extended vacations, you could negotiate for flexibility to take more than the typical one- or two-week vacation.
If you amass several weeks or months off, here are five employee sabbatical leave ideas for a worthwhile reset:
1 – Check off items on your bucket list
For clients stuck on the next career move, I ask them to list 100 Dreams – things they want to learn, places to go, books to read, etc. — essentially an extra-long bucket list. Some of these items (e.g., finally reading War and Peace) can be incorporated in your current day-to-day. However, items that involve complex travel (e.g., visiting all seven continents) or preparation (e.g., completing an Ironman triathlon) require a dedicated block of time and energy. These items are perfect for your sabbatical leave. You can inventory your 100 Dreams well in advance of your sabbatical. Then once you’re on leave, you have readily available prompts for how to meaningfully spend your time.
2 – Change your environment
Go abroad and learn another language and culture. Or pick a small town or rural area if you’re a city dweller (or vice versa) to expand your comfort zone without needing a passport. Your surroundings have a substantial effect on your development: in an experiment from 1979, psychologist Ellen Langer took a group of 70-year old men and put them in an environment designed to recreate a time decades earlier, when they were in their 40s and 50s. Upon testing their physical and mental fitness, the men appeared to decrease in age! If you don’t travel anywhere for your sabbatical you may want to at least redecorate your living space to match the results you want – a zen space for rejuvenation, or a return to the décor of your first apartment if you want to reexperience your youth.
3 — Go deep into your hobbies
Train for that marathon. Write the book you’ve been meaning to find the time for. Take the improv class or whatever subject you promised yourself you’d learn given more time. On a sabbatical, your free time is now your day job – so how could you spend up to 40 hours on your interests? Joining up with a group (e.g., a class, writer’s group, running group) can give you structure and accountability, so you don’t fritter your time away or get overwhelmed at the start.
4 – Work a different set of muscles than your current career demands
If you’re a knowledge worker, work with your hands. (One non-profit executive I recruited spent a sabbatical restoring a house, which was a stark physical contrast to his typical fundraising duties.) If your work is all spreadsheets, consider taking up something creative. If you tend to work alone, volunteer to teach, fundraise or some role that puts you out in front of people. A sabbatical is a great opportunity to work different parts of your brain, body and comfort zone than you normally use. You might discover a complementary hobby you can continue after the sabbatical that can help stave off burnout and fatigue.
5 — Put wellness first
Many people need to sleep more, exercise more regularly, eat better or incorporate some other widely-recognized healthy habit, but work gets in the way. Devote your sabbatical to putting wellness first, and start on healthy habits that will hopefully stick long past when your leave ends. Kickstart your sabbatical with a wellness retreat or day at the local spa. Hire a trainer, subscribe to a healthy meal plan or enlist an accountability buddy for extra support. Keep a stack of books ready to build in a learning habit (here are six new career books to consider). Track progress on a fitness tracker, and reward yourself every week or whenever you hit a milestone. End your sabbatical with another wellness retreat or day at the spa!
Mix and match different sabbatical ideas to appeal to all of your senses
Ideally, you don’t overschedule your sabbatical such that it’s not restful at all. However, if you’re having a hard time deciding what to dedicate your time to, mix and match some of these ideas, trying a new one each week or switching off each day. You’ll do some wellness, some hobbies, maybe even some travel, and it will all be different and therefore a true reset from work.