In the process of writing my book on sabbatical-takers, people who intentionally take extended leave from their routine jobs, I found many parallels between the experience of taking a gap year and embarking on a midlife break from work. My conclusion: gap years are wasted on the young.
Here’s why a gap year, at any age, should be in your concrete plans instead of your bucket list.
First and foremost, breaks from the stress and toil of work are essential components of healing from burnout. Professionals who have taken sabbaticals from their careers describe it taking as long as eight weeks to feel healthy and like themselves again. Restoring our energy and disengaging from our work identities takes time, and cannot be magically found over a weekend.
Second, extended breaks from work—ideally more than two months, with four to six months as the ideal—are necessary to undergo a deeper journey of self-exploration. In this process, we can examine who we’ve become and actively choose how we’d like to live going forward.
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