Is there just one correct way to structure your life?
“We spend about 25 years of our lives learning. Then there are about 40 years reserved for working. And then, tucked at the end of it, are about 15 years of retirement,” says Stefan Sagmeister in this excellent TED talk. “I thought it might be helpful to cut off 5 of those retirement years and intersperse in between those working years.”
Basically, he structures his working years in this way: work for 7 years, take a 1-year sabbatical, work for 7 more years, take another 1-year sabbatical and so on until he retires. (If you haven’t watched the video, I highly recommend it. Aside from the thought-provoking content, it also has some stunning visuals.)
Why take a career break?
After watching the TED talk video, a man by the name of Winston Chen took his entire family to a remote island north of the Arctic Circle for a year. He reasons, “We live in a society that celebrates strong work ethics and delayed gratification — all good things, but we’ve taken this cultural mindset to the extreme. We deny ourselves the time to do anything significant outside of work until we’re physically and mentally well past our prime.” (Read his story here.)
What do you do during the sabbatical?
Sagmeister’s sabbaticals are deliberate; he even prepares timetables for himself, which contain items like “story writing” and “future thinking”. After all, he takes these career breaks so when he gets home he can enjoy his work better and produce fresh results.
Chen, on the other hand, had no lofty plans when he set off on his journey. But he ended up creating an app, learning to be more Zen and connecting with his children on a deeper level.
It’s really up to you what you want to do during a career break. In the TED talk, Sagmeister’s point seems to be that time off can make you perform better at work. But I don’t think that’s the only good reason for taking some time off.
Even Steve Jobs took a career break as a young man. He traveled to India to pursue his spiritual interests, which may have been set aside while he was working.
In the past, I have interviewed travelers who do this: spend a few years working as they save money, take off to travel until money runs out, then start working again (maybe to make more money for future travels). In this scenario, travel is a reason unto itself.
But how will I get a job after the career break?
Well, I have no good answer to that. This is a question that you can answer best; nobody knows better than you do how competitive your industry is and how marketable your skills are. (Obviously things are a lot easier for Sagmeister, who runs his own design business.)
Some companies do allow their employees to take sabbatical leaves, but they’re in the minority. Most employers don’t look too kindly upon gaps in employment, so the break could very well end up lasting longer than you want.
In other words, yes, taking a sabbatical is probably not the best thing for your job security and career advancement, .
But if you feel like this is something you need to do, then maybe it’s worth the risk. Winston Chen had two small kids and no guaranteed job upon his return. Fortuitously, the app he created during the break developed into a real business. This wouldn’t have been possible if he didn’t take the time off. The path of a career, he notes, doesn’t have to be “linear”.
Image credit: Holly Lay (CC BY 2.0 License).
How about combining a work and leisure?
As somebody said: Engage in a favorite thing, and you’ll never have to work.
Do you mean working in a field that you feel passionate about? The problem with that is there can be too much of a good thing.
For example, I like doing little DIY projects on my days off — painting a chair or even a whole room. But the beauty of it is I can do it how I want to and as much/as little as I want to. I do it on my terms. I wouldn’t want to work as a painter, with the client pressuring me to finish the job to his specifications by the end of the work day even if I have to miss my lunch. After a while at this job, painting would probably not bring me much pleasure anymore.
Maybe you’re right, but it’s much more fun to do what you love to do.
I’m not saying I know the ultimate answer. I just think that maybe that old “do what you love” adage isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for happiness, maybe it takes some trial and error to figure out what fits. :)
My husband takes a 3 month break every four years. He saves his holiday entitlement apart from the 3 days at Christmas and 1 week at the end of the summer school holidays. I work part time in my own business and all the money I earn goes into the travel account. We take our son out of school and visit one country each time. We’ve done Spain twice and France once. Our boy is 10 and we’ve been doing it since he was 1. My husband has just negotiated to work 75% of a week doing 3 days instead of 5 days. We can still save for travel and will do one more trip before our boy goes to high school. We will travel less often on shorter trips to fit in with the school holidays. We live quite frugally. When our son is off to University then my husband will take 1 year off and we will travel more extensively. His workplace allows all staff to accumulate up to 3 years (60 days @20 days per year). 60 days is 3 months as there are 20 working days in a month. It works for us as a family and for him as an employee
Wow Penny, sounds like you have it all figured out! That’s a really nice plan you have there. Thanks for sharing! :D
I am one year into a 2 year planned break. It has been the best thing I ever did from a personal perspective, but I have no idea what I’ll do professionally when I’m finished with this journey (come to think of it, maybe I won’t ever stop traveling). I did not enjoy what I was doing so can’t imagine going back to that space. I guess I’m counting on a brainstorm along the way somewhere — this year has certainly fired up my creative juices! Wish me luck. :)
Sounds like quite an adventure, Nan. There’s always the “danger” that you’ll change your career path every time you take a break. ;) All the best with your journey!
I love the idea of doing themed sabbaticals! That adds something to focus on while still leaving a lot of room (and more importantly, time) to explore and try new things. I had never heard of that idea before, thanks for introducing me to it! Cheers!
Yup, the idea of having a schedule while you’re traveling seemed strange to me too, but I guess it makes sense. :)
About a year ago I sat down and systematically evaluated the amount of time I spent at work, commuting, and sleeping then compared it to the amount of time I actually got to spend with my family and it was absolutely ridiculous. The people you care about the most you rarely spend time with in this day and age. I agree full heartedly with your site’s concept. A quick question though, what do you recommend as a travel hack for couples with young kids?
Hey Marvin, that sounds interesting. Now I want to calculate the amount of time I spend on different things. ;)
I don’t have kids, so I wouldn’t know too much about it, to be honest. Money-wise, it shouldn’t be too different from single or couple travelers, I think. Basically you need ways to financially support yourselves and spend as little as possible on the trip. If you’re looking for information on education while traveling or other details like that, you may want to get in touch with family travel bloggers like Sharon of Where’s Sharon or John and Nancy Vogel of Family on Bikes.
Thanks for the links Deia! I really appreciate it!
Oops hit enter too soon!
The NZ way is usually to head off overseas and work abroad for a few years but increasingly I’m seeing more people take the sabbatical/break route. One of my colleagues just got her sababtical approved – she’ll be off for four months next year.
I can’t lie, it’s been hard for my partner. The main reason it’s been hard is he’s a bit of a drifter. I think he could pretty easily have gone back to his old field as there’s always jobs, but he really didn’t enjoy. After a couple of different jobs that didn’t work out for various reasons since coming back, we’re now looking at getting him back into that field but the time off + different jobs isn’t helping.
I definitely see many more Australians/Kiwis who take time off to travel compared to North Americans. Having a gap year is practically a rite of passage there, it seems.
I suppose being part of a couple gives you some security when it comes to taking career breaks. There’s less risk of unemployment with two of you looking. And if only one of you finds a job, it’s not the end of the world. That said, I hope your partner finds work soon.
Totally worth the risk for me. I image it might be harder ahrder if the economy is tougher where you arr, or if you work in a much more traditional/hierarchical industry. Even if I hadn’t been able to get leave, I would simply have quit outright.
Thanks for sharing! In France most big companies allow to take a sabbatical leave after several years working, and I recently applied for it to travel for a year. I was very nervous but everything went very well, they were very nice and I had no problems. I think it is worth to consider this option :)
It seems European companies are more understanding of their employees’ need to have a life outside of work. ;) All the best with your sabbatical and have fun!