Today marks day one of my sabbatical journey - something that only appeared as a distant option until today. I’m now commencing what I hope will be one of the most extraordinary transformation periods of my life. To the readers, I hope that someday, if you have not already commenced, that you get the chance to step back from the noise and give yourself the thinking time to cultivate within yourself a life that brings the peace you so dearly deserve.

I don’t know where this journey will lead me, but the most exciting part is that I am allowing my heart to lead me, and from that I know that the path will be filled with fruitful lessons and potentially contented triumphs.

My drive? To become the happiest, most fulfilled version of myself so that I can be a more loving partner, son, sibling, uncle…

After almost 10 years in the fast-paced environment of Research and Development, as an engineer, working with many talented performance-driven teams, I’ve finally decided to take the “plunge”, hand in my resignation and forge out a personal reflection period for some unknown amount of time. The desire to re-light that inner flame has been one of the lingering drivers for this.

When I asked myself subconsciously each morning whether I was excited to face the day ahead and what it entailed, that excitement was not there. No matter what pursuit you undertake, on some days it may just be difficult and you need to press on. However, when there are more days lacking that excitement than the days when you feel exhilarated for what’s ahead, something needs to change.

This feeling had festered for a while and I would always be thinking about the personal projects I wanted to dive into and only really ever had evenings (when I was already tired from a busy day) and weekends (where my relationships with my partner and family would be prioritised, and rightfully so). I felt in an endless cycle of suppressing what I wanted the most at the expense of engaging within a high-performance workplace culture.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a place of growth within high-performance roles and teams, however this comes at an expense of the things I mentioned above; your personal pursuits, family time and self-development time. The question that needs to be asked is “What am I willing to sacrifice to be a high performer?” If you are content with all that is to be sacrificed, props to you, I envy your commitment and consistency, I even may have a thing or two to learn from these types of high performers.

Over the next little period I will be sharing my journey, how it felt, what I am doing, the highs, the lows and everything in-between. I want it to be a place where we can cultivate conversations as a community that ultimately propel us into better versions of ourselves.

What is a Sabbatical and how can we apply our own definitions as well as those from historical texts and perspectives to make the most of it?

I’ll be exploring each of these and sharing the relationships between the stage I’m at and the lessons I’ve drawn from those that have walked this path before.

If any of this resonates with you or there is someone you know who might find this useful or like to contribute to the conversation, I’d urge you to subscribe or share this with them!