Give Your Sabbatical More Meaning Than an “Escape”

Over a mere few months, a job I held in my early 20s quickly escalated from good to moderately stressful to insanely stressful to flat out unreasonable. I reached my breaking point about a dozen times. In the midst of all that, it was nearly impossible for my sabbatical plans not to start feeling like an escape. For my motivation not to become leaving that terrible position behind me.

Travel as an escape was a pattern for me, and a really common feeling for lots of Americans. I hold myself to high standards and used to work until I literally could not handle another day on the job. Then I would work a few more months, and then I would take a vacation. And after a week or two, I’d start the whole cycle over again. It wasn’t good for my well-being or even especially good for my connection to travel.

I do think the other extreme – the Eat, Pray, Love side of things, if you will – can get a bit overblown. I don’t think everyone has to travel to find themselves or to feel fulfilled by their daily lives. And I don’t think it’s a given that leaving your home country for an extended period of time will open your mind and turn you into the best person anyone has ever met.

So why do you want to take a sabbatical and travel long term? What will answering that siren call really do for you?

I have a pretty good grasp of who I am, and my sabbatical wasn’t about chasing the Eat, Pray, Love dream of pseudo-self-discovery.  Consider, then, my travels as an augmentation to my self-perception. I’ll never become an extrovert, and I don’t want to, but I do sometimes connect better to other people outside the 9-to-5 bubble.

When I was planning my sabbatical, I didn’t know what else I would discover in my travels, but I think that’s one of the most important pieces of the long-term travel puzzle. You can’t order up an epiphany like a burger and fries. That way of thinking is how shorter trips became a commodity.

I can tell you all about becoming more confident, more decisive, more informed about social issues. I could say I gained clarity on aspects of my identity or learned various skills, so you can too.

But the specifics aren’t the point. These are all just examples to remind you that taking a sabbatical holds possibilities for you and it’s more than an escape from “real life.”

Your personal journey isn’t something that can be fully tailor made in advance. What I create with my clients is a manuscript and it focuses on giving structure to some things, so you’re freed up to fully experience the magic once you take that one-way flight.

If you’re working on escaping that urge to escape, click here to book a free call with me. I would love to talk travel goals and help you start your sabbatical story.