Lisa’s Sabbatical to Change Course

My sabbatical allowed me to take all the ideas swirling around my head, sort through them in organized way, and develop a more focused path forward.

Immersion in Seville: language, culture, and a life goal fulfilled

I started my sabbatical by taking Spanish immersion courses in Spain. It is a life goal of mine to speak another language, and in the future, I would like to be able to do more work abroad. I also had previously visited Seville and knew I loved the city.

While in Seville, I was able to embrace the local culture through various cultural activities and attending Spanish/English language meetups. At the meetups, I met not only Spaniards, but people from across Europe. I also was able to take weekend travel trips in Spain and travel in Europe.

Upon returning home, I began working on a professional certification, attended professional conferences, met up with old coworkers for coffee, and started pitching freelance articles. I also opened an LLC in case I wanted to consult in the future, and I volunteered. On the personal side, I spent extended periods of time with family and close friends, reconnected with acquaintances, exercised daily, and caught up on life to-dos like doctor’s appointments and tackling financial matters.

Finding clarity through iteration

I got places to be and tapas to eat!

During my sabbatical, I never had an “aha” moment like I hoped. However, by giving myself a large amount of uninterrupted time, I was able to chip away at my long list of activities. And through an iterative process, I was able to experiment with different projects, simultaneously learn from them, and decide where to focus my future energy. In retrospect, it would have taken me years to discover the same things if I were only chipping away at projects for a few hours every week.

Sabbatical Activities

• Lived in Spain for three months:
  • Took Spanish immersion classes
  • Took a flamenco class and saw a live performance
  • Toured an olive farm
  • Watched Spanish movies in Spanish
  • Visited museums
  • Took weekend day trips
  • Ate lots of tapas and visited wineries to learn about Spanish wine
  • Attended Spanish language meetups
• Fulfilled the requirements for a professional certification, which included completing 50 hours of continuing education credits, studying for, and passing an exam, and putting together an extensive amount of paperwork to demonstrate professional contributions in six areas
• Attended four professional conferences
• Caught up on general life stuff (doctors, insurance claims, financial matters, etc.)
• Spent extended time with family and close friends
• Met up with old co-workers and acquaintances
• Exercised: Kayaked, swam, and took daily walks in the park
• Traveled domestically and internationally
• Endless packing and moving: into airbnb rentals, school housing, coordinating and subletting my apartment, staying with family and friends etc.
• Applied to a writing fellowship and began freelancing
• Opened an LLC
• Explored teaching opportunities in my profession
• Volunteered with my undergraduate alumni association

Did HOW you work change at all, post-sabbatical?
No major change

What kind of work did you return to? Different company, different role

My sabbatical helped give me the confidence to take more chances and pursue more inspirational projects.

How did your sabbatical experience change the way you thought about your employer?
After consistently working for over a decade, I had accumulated a long list of professional projects that I wanted to explore. However, whenever I tried to make the time to tackle one of these projects, something more immediate always competed for my attention. And on the few occasions I was able to carve out some time to focus on my “wish list” items, it felt difficult to pick just one, so I’d get overwhelmed, and fail to make any real progress.

When should people consider sabbaticals?

A sabbatical can give you the time and space to reflect and to make changes. It can be especially useful if you feel stuck, uninspired, burned out, or if you have a goal that you can’t achieve given current obligations.

However, by design, a sabbatical is disruptive, so I wouldn’t recommend it until you’ve tried the easier options first. For example, before taking a sabbatical, I had personally tried: using vacation time for my interests, taking a few days off unpaid, volunteering, doing an externship, taking classes, having informational interviews to explore ideas, dedicated scheduled time on the weekends to projects, etc.

A sabbatical can also be expensive and stressful (packing, housing matters, traveling, planning) so, while a sabbatical was the right move for me, unless you have a clear goal or reason it may not be worth the drawbacks.

You can connect with Lisa here.

Interested in more stories about using sabbaticals to test out ideas and explore career paths? Check out Paul’s story here.