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“How can I afford taking time away from earning an income, let alone pay for a long vacation?”
“What will my boss, peers, friends, and family think of me? What would I tell future employers?”
“But I have a partner, kids, a mortgage, or a business that needs me here to handle it!”
A sabbatical isn’t just an expense. It’s an investment in your future self. However, it’s crucial that you feel comfortable taking enough time away from your routine work to experience the benefits of extended leave.
This not only means managing your finances during your time off, but understanding your spending and budgeting for your sabbatical months—or years—in advance.
We created the Sabbatical Project after repeatedly hearing that extended leave is a transformative experience for those who are able to take it. Interviewees describe the impact of their sabbatical on their lives in the same category as the birth of their child and their wedding day. We want more people to experience such a life-changing opportunity.
A survey we conducted among Harvard Business School alumni showed that they were seven times as likely to worry about how others would perceive their time off as they were to judge their own friends, colleagues, or employees for doing the same.
To learn more about how to have conversations with your network around your time off, watch this interview with sabbatical policy expert Russell Woo.
When you know someone who has taken a sabbatical (and survived to tell the tale), it’s easier to do so yourself.
The pull of responsibilities makes it difficult to take off on a whim, but some of the most inspiring sabbatical stories are from people with spouses or families.
Business leaders use their sabbaticals to uncover their blindspots, while investors give their portfolio company leaders extended leave to tackle key personnel risk.
