In search of a different approach to my life

I quit my job a year ago to take a "sabbatical"

My last work day was just over a year ago on December 15, 2022. A year of your life can just fly right by, even without the traditional pressures of work.  

It wasn’t an easy decision. It can be humbling, after 15+ years of career building, to contemplate whether all the accomplishments that you’re proud of, and everything it has enabled for you, might actually be keeping you on a path that while rewarding, is not leading to the most satisfied version of yourself.

I often hesitate to even call this experience a ”sabbatical” but it’s been a useful way to ease conversations with family and friends, who sometimes needed a loose structure to frame something that, to me, needed to be “undefined” for a bit.

The Impact of Expectations

We’ll get to what precipitated this, but I do want to start with “expectations”, and their influence on my path so far.

• Expectations are omnipresent: self expectations, family expectations, work expectations, and broader societal expectations. So much is based on them, but they can be very tricky.

• They can be a positive force, i.e. if there is incentive alignment between expectation “setter” and “getter”, as then it’s about clarity. But there’s a dark side as well, as they can consciously (or subconsciously) cause us to “follow the pack” or act out of obligation.

• We also each have our own flavor to wrangle with. Some unique combo of our internal identity and how the world sees us. Some factors are inherent from birth (origin, race, sexual orientation, blood relatives). Others develop as a result of active (and subliminal) choices that we make and recommit to every day (relationships, education, work, hobbies, etc).

For me, expectations are like fossil fuels: they’ve been around forever, are way too dominant, and have more control over us than we care to admit – and personally, they had me too focused on ticking generic boxes. Mine had overstayed their welcome.

The Pandemic Fueled Introspection

To say that plans for 2020+ went off the “expected” rails is a massive understatement, not just for me, but for all of us as we navigated COVID-19. 

• Personally, there were huge milestones years in the making, like getting married and bucket-list travel that felt continually in a state of limbo. This provided a harsh reality check on “just doing it later” and my sense of control over my time.

• Some of my most life-altering choices, including those from over a decade ago, like moving away from Barbados, now left me feeling increasingly untethered from my family, as travel restrictions caused distances to suddenly feel large.

• Even as it slowed me down in some ways, it also accelerated other things for me and my (now) husband. For example, we bought our first home together, prioritizing our living space to serve as a Swiss army knife (home, office, gym, etc).

• We began to focus more on exploring the outdoors, swapping global travel for national parks, towns and activities in our “backyard.” Social distancing guidelines forced us to also prioritize fewer, but deeper friendships.

• Everything evolved so quickly due to the pandemic, it caused a tear in the playbook that had historically guided me. A newfound sense of empowerment and control that, realistically, had been there all along, now felt exposed.

If expectations were fossil fuels, then COVID-19 felt like a hurricane that brought with it an intense storm surge. We leveraged that water deluge to generate some hydro power, but you don’t exactly want it to stick around, which brings me back to Q4 of 2022 and quitting.

Being honest with myself

2022 was a weird year. Everyone is different, and my fossil fuel is definitely someone else’s green energy. For me, the more things returned to “normal,” the more off-kilter I felt.

• I had just spent 2+ years adapting in ways that felt unfinished, and as much as I welcomed the return of certain aspects of my pre-COVID life (like global travel and in-person experiences), many things about 2022 felt like a regression. 

• I did attempt some “contained” adjustments, including setting aside more time for oft-neglected interests, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to fully explore this new headspace.

• This also wasn’t just a me thing, but a we thing. My husband was actually going through something that seemed eerily similar, and perhaps we were feeding off of each other’s energy.

By Q4 of 2022, it was no longer a question of “why,” but “why not right now?”, especially if we could have the benefit of going through it together versus assuming everything would align on “doing it later”.

Looking ahead

I started this 12 months ago with no idea what my life would look like on the other side, and I’m still (happily) figuring it out as I go along. I’ve enjoyed focusing on the too often ignored aspects of my life (family, hobbies, travel) and building better habits like sleep, mindfulness and Crossfit.

There are things I thought I’d do that I haven’t and others I never imagined that I now love. It’s not been perfect, but it has thus far been an empowering reset.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly what my unique version of a sustainable life looks like, but I do have a lot of ideas I want to explore in 2024 🙂. In my next post, I’ll dive deeper into that.

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