Career Break Taken Seriously

Introduction

Life is full of responsibilities. The main one is satisfying our basic needs like food, housing and clothing, but also health, family, education and self-growth. To ensure our needs are satisfied, we earn money. In order to earn money, we work. Mostly, we have a 9–5 job. 40 hours a week for the whole year (except 4-to-5 week vacation and bank holidays), and then, we retire and eventually die.

If we happen to study at University, we may enjoy the privilege of freedom and summer holidays for a bit longer, yet at some point, we get our first full-time job. Then, we begin to feel thenecessity for aligning many things and daily activities with our job, sometimes we even dispense with our daily events for the benefit of our work, assigning it a greater importance over our personal lives.

And then, at last, after several years, we forget. Forget about the freedom we experienced, the dreams we had. Hours turn into days, days into weeks. And our life will become more or less uneventful — in sharp contrast with what we were once used to.

That being said, for many it’s a comfortable arrangement. 9–5 life is both comfortable and safe. Safe, because the paycheck is kind of steady and you don’t need to bring your “A” game every second. Moreover, if the job requires minimal interaction, it’s an ideal world for people that thrive on repetition and routine. That’s why most people are so hesitant to change. What is more, if the job is dead-end, stressful or even both, its impact on our life will certainly come into play before long, needless to mention long-term consequences.

Luckily, there is a solution to many job-related issues. It’s commonly called a career break or sabbatical leave. I call it a Skill Upgrade as it has a nice ring to it and it better reflects its true purpose.

At any rate, it’s an unpaid leave (or at least it should be treated as such), which lasts months to several years, during which one can spend their time on personal development. Development is the word that distinguishes a Skill Upgrade from a vacation. In sharp contrast with vacation, you can think of it as a challenging race with many hurdles to jump. And you are the one who laid those hurdles.

My story

I got my first full-time job in 2013. I gave it a great importance from the very beginning, had been on super highs as well as on major lows, and then, when I was on a great trajectory, I put a hold to my career progress with a firm intention to finish my Master’s. I tried to manage both work and school, took upon myself much more than I could carry, which exhausted me beyond belief. So, on the day I graduated, I burned out and quit my job.

In light of my apparent inability to work for some time, I went for a 4-month career break before I started a new job. That period changed me a lot. I devoted my time to things I had either cut down on or abandoned completely — I took up the piano, made up many cooking recipes, took up yoga classes, mindfulness classes, drawing classes, Krav Maga classes, and more. When the 4-month period came to its end, I was fully recovered. I felt great.

Since then, it has become my regular event. I haven’t always had a 9–5 job — sometimes I work as a freelancer, enjoying the flexibility in its true nature, working 1–3 days a week and spending the rest on something enjoyable, yet nothing could replace this 6-month period of a pure self-development with no other engagements.

My second skill upgrade took place in 2017, when I got an opportunity to teach at University. It wasn’t exactly a fully-fledged skill upgrade as I spent days in and out of an intensive preparation, I took it as a hobby rather than a job, though. And it was good. It was great. What is more, this particular skill upgrade had a significant impact on my future career thanks to the teaching skills I gained which moreover mirrored my vocabulary — on this front, it paid off. My working and personal life finally began to go to a well-formed direction.

In summer 2019, I started my third skill upgrade. And this one was magnificent. I have learnt many things I had never imagined myself doing — took up 2 new languages, visited 13 countries on 2 continents, spoke at 3 public meetups. In this very moment, I’m in Tromsø in northern Norway, enjoying real winter in the most friendly place I have ever visited. An ideal place for the final stage of my journey.

Thus, skill upgrades became my regular event I venture to every once in a while. I devote those 4–6 months to all the things that matter to me, such as social events, hobbies and education, trying to capitalize on everything I pursue — each new revelation adds to my bliss, yet I still have a lot of work to do on that score.

Pros and Cons of skill upgrades

Pros:

• Reduces stress significantly. Despite the quality of your current job, there is always something that has a negative impact on your personal life, something that may stay hidden for quite a while before it begins to manifest. Being free of your duties, when nobody tells you what to do and how, you will be given a complete freedom, which you can turn into
  re-energizing yourself and your mind, driving all the negative thoughts away. It will help you get a fresh perspective and figure out what direction you want your life to go.
• You will have time for everything. What about spending some time with your parents, grandparents, your family, friends and anything you hold dear? I’m speaking about a tremendous amount of time, not a few hours
  at the weekend. You will have all the time in the world and you can use it as you like — explore new curricular activities, adjust your lifestyle and devote yourself to the perfection of whatever you decide to pursue.
• You can gain a momentum. You can get more work done, because devoting regular time to your hobbies or hobby-projects will help you advance all of them in couple of months more than what you would have achieved in several years. Not only because you will have more time, but also because you will have the momentum. Eventually, you may find yourself running forward with utmost commitment and infinite determination.
• You are free to travel and explore. As your time is something you will have in abundance, you can make full use of it by exploring the world, discovering various cultures, experience a digital detox whilst being somewhere in the wild with no internet connection.

Cons:

• Lot of discipline to maintain. The skill upgrade doesn’t need to go as smoothly as you anticipated and you may go idle after some time, which kind of has a tendency to happen. Sitting in a chair, watching TV, getting exhausted of doing nothing,… The trick is to plan your skill upgrade beforehand and have a proper schedule. The rest you can adjust accordingly. Set specific checkpoints, review your accomplishments and try to perform some activities on regular basis. Having a good strategy that will keep you on track is equally important.
• You may lose your touch. If you devote your time only to things that are not related to your job, depending on the length of your skill upgrade,
  you may be in jeopardy of getting out of the loop. You should pay at least a slight attention to things that you do for living, so that you will catch up pretty quick upon your return.
• It’s very expensive. That’s the way things turn out — it is expensive. It’s easier for those who aren’t from hand to mouth and have passive incomes (flat rental, investments,…) But for the others, this can be a large setback. In this case, you need to think things over very carefully. As a matter of fact, a skill upgrade can actually be thought of as an investment. Take the number from your paycheck and multiple it by the number of months you would like to spend on your personal development — is the investment worth the money? What would you do in exchange for this amount? Would you rather learn a new language, master your skills you are already familiar with or just travel across the globe and explore the world?
• Your employer may disapprove. To my knowledge, many companies offer sabbatical leave as their benefit. In some cases, however, your employer may be in a state of denial about such a daring idea. If you are a real and irreplaceable asset for the company, you should negotiate yourself off as it’s always better for the company to let you follow your dreams than if you were forced to quit — they will save the budget for that year of your absence by not having to pay you, yet they won’t drop the investment they had made in your onboarding. Put another away, it’s a win-win for both the company not losing its employee and the employee not burning out.

Conclusion

Your job should develop your working experience, while a skill upgrade should develop your life experience, which may nonetheless result in gaining better soft-skills that will advance your future career.

It may be scary to make a change, the burden of choice is just too heavy for some — not an easy decision to make. But from my own experience, it’s definitely worth the risk — it will push you out of your comfort zone, elevate your soul beyond its origin and you will feel energized and filled with desire to share your insights and let others know of your find, and that’s an encouraging thought!

Skill-upgrades have become one of the best decisions I have ever made. It helped me to up-skill, find myself (over and over) and sometimes even discover new horizons. What is more, the state of mind I have found myself in, it’s something I would recommend to anybody. Bliss, harmony, happiness, freedom, balance.

We are here, on this very planet, out of ourselves. What matters the most are our very lives, our family and our legacy to this world.

If you can afford it, go for it. At least once in a lifetime. Regardless the price, if handled properly, your commitment will bear fruit, eventually.