Q1: The Goal-Getter's Guide to Letting Go - My Sabbatical Story
What happens when you're an aggressively goal oriented person that quits their job to just exist?
Fast tracking my goals
I graduated college early. I gave myself 1 quarter to land a job, and did it. I completed my master's program in 2 years while working. I gave myself yearly timelines for promotions and hit them. I set and evaluate OKRs, performance metrics, and MAU targets every quarter for a living.
It might seem obvious to you, but it took me almost a decade to realize that I am a goal and results oriented person. My husband is laughing at me while I exclaimed this out loud.
And while this has served me well for years, I wanted to give myself the space to breathe and just exist as a human. I wanted to know what I would do when I'm not a student or an employee of a large corporation? What would my life look like when I had no plan?
I've been dreaming of living intentionally outside of my career, and that's exactly what I've embraced during my sabbatical
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Taking a sabbatical to slow down
While many may have expected me to start my own venture or switch career paths, my sabbatical has been sacred time for me to spend on **myself**.
It's been a journey where my personal growth wasn't something I fit in after work hours. It's the only thing I focus on everyday.
As I reflect on my last 5 months, there are 3 strong pillars of grounding my sabbatical.
1. ✍🏽 Learning and development
2. 💙 Romanticizing my life
3. 🗺 Active explorations and adventures (alone)!
1. Learning and development
I obsess over learning new things. In order for me to feel fulfilled in my career, relationship, even conversation: I have to be learning. And this learning can come in so many forms: learning about myself, a new topic, spirituality, a new class, etc.
During my sabbatical, learning has come in the forms of:
Taking classes
Wine certification classes
French classes in Montreal
Reading books
Facebook, Reddit, Substack groups / forums
Bhagavad gita classes
Reading blogs
TikToks
Conversations with people
In the last 5 months of my sabbatical, I learned a few important things about myself:
I was way too burnt out in the first 3 months that I genuinely lost the fierce excitement I have for most things in my life, and only time and being kind to myself was going to get me out of there. I'm pleased to say that I think I am in fact un-burnt out now ◡̈
I am a goal oriented person -- maybe to a fault. When I set a goal, I will achieve it. So it's crucial for me to spend more time ensuring that this is the right goal before I put everything I have behind this goal to achieve it.
I've also learned that working for myself or starting my own venture is not a path I want to take in the next year. This may change quickly, but I'm happy I gave this some thought and came to a conclusion.
2. Romanticizing and reflecting on my life
While I love consuming all this content while learning new things, I have failed to give myself time to (1) create space to reflect on the things I'm consuming and (2) fall in love with the process of doing that. My constant 'go, go, go' attitude made me lose the art of being present. Because of this, I sometimes feel like "life was happening to me" instead of me creating my life.
So these last 5 months, I've forced myself to slow down, be intentional, and thoughtful.
Doing these things have really helped:
Romanticizing my daily life through a photo journal to document the small things: Sabbatical Divya Instagram
Taking time to dump, organize, and share my thoughts on a blog like this substack!
Establishing systems to ensure I'm carving out time for the things I need and want every month. It helped me feel less like "life was happening to me".
I create a monthly template in my notes app. I fill in all of the things I want to
At the start of the month, I list out all the activities, events, and things that makes me fulfilled. I then calendar all of these things in first.
Things like: books/blogs I want to read, podcasts to listen to, classes I want to take, topics I want to research and learn about, creative projects, events I want to attend, physical activity, intentionally showing up in my relationships.
Only after I've done this, will I schedule in my social commitments. (This is new for me.)
At the end of the month, I love taking the time to reflect on the month that's passed. It helps me feel like I'm not just flying through month over month.
This also helps me make sure that I pencil in all the seasonal activities so I don't go through another summer not having gone to the beach (a very Californian problem.)
If anyone is curious what my monthly template looks like, I am happy to share it ◡̈
3. Active exploration and adventure, alone!
Being a crippling extrovert, I've always struggled with spending time by myself. Moving to Montreal was the perfect opportunity to fix this: a new city, no friends, and a whole lot of exploration.
Outcomes of my solo explorations and adventure:
Being outside for 1.5 hours in sunshine is crucial to set up my day for success.
Walking 8+ miles or 15k + steps a day is my favorite form of exercise. Check out my strava: Divya Strava
I've spent a lot of time exploring my new home, Montreal! Check out our 🗺Google Map
The outcome: building foundations that keep me fulfilled.
5 months ago, I was so burnt out and busy that I couldn't tell you what made me happy. And that was a scary thought.
Now I have very clear building blocks to build my day on top of to keep me fulfilled.
Despite the ebbs and flows my career, friendships, and places I live, I know that I need to:
Create space to learn new things
Regularly reflect on my life through daily, weekly, and monthly notes.
Physically explore my surroundings I live and get sunshine every day.
I hope that grounding myself in the things that keep me fulfilled will prevent burnout when I go back to work and take on new adventures. That's the next hypothesis to test.
I’m so curious - for those of you who didn’t have to take a sabbatical to figure this out, how do you structure the foundational pillars that keep you fulfilled? How did you learn this about yourself?! Do things change in various phases of your life?
— divs