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5 Signs That You Should Take a Sabbatical

By Marcus Gould

Overworking yourself can be harmful to your personal and professional health. Shockingly, you will find yourself working without taking a timeout. Even though you have deadlines to meet, you should know that you, as a human being you cannot function that way forever.

Many of us, with the introduction of technology in our workplaces, we tend to get glued to our workstations until it’s time to leave the office in the evening. While we are struggling to accomplish the day’s work, it can be dangerous for our health.

Sometimes we get sick and need support. The Maryland Healthy Working Families Act applies to all employers, including state and local governments, enabling them to provide sick leave to their employees.

Unlike the machines we use to work with that are driven by some special equipment, we as humans need to have time for ourselves. Instead of waiting until you get burn out, watch out for the following signs that you should take a sabbatical. The words sabbatical and career break are often used to mean the same thing. While both are used to mean a period of time a person spends away from their normal work, they are different to some extent.

Let’s find out what a sabbatical and career break is...

What is a Sabbatical?

The word sabbatical comes from the word Sabbath and originated from early Hebrew culture that stated that the seventh day of every week should be a day to rest.

A sabbatical is the agreed amount of time off between you and your employer. It is the time you spend out of your daily routine and the amount of time you spend depends on the company policy. During a sabbatical period, you will not get the usual job perks like pension contributions and others. The good thing about a sabbatical is that you can still return to your respective job.

What is a Career Break?

A career break is a period in time when you leave what you are doing (job) and focus on something new, worthwhile or different. A career break may sometimes compel you to resign from your job to take it, especially if the company you are working with lacks a sabbatical policy.

You can take a career break when you get bored with what you are doing at that moment and you feel like doing something different. A career break can last for months or even years and sometimes people use this period to change careers or find out what they want to do differently.

Now that you’ve known what a sabbatical and a career break is, we dive into the signs that should tell you it’s time to take a sabbatical...

1. Your Work is Full of Careless Mistakes
   If you find out that what you are producing is full of careless mistakes, then it’s a sign to take a sabbatical. When you started, you could work for the whole day without making any mistakes, but you now can make mistakes after every minute.

   Could it be due to the fact that you aren’t fit for the job or that’s how you work? No. It could be a sign of burn out or you’ve overworked yourself. Oftentimes these mistakes could be rectified in a few minutes for instance if you are an article writer and you make spellings and grammatical mistakes while writing an article, but sometimes these careless mistakes could adversely affect your job especially when it comes to account work and you make errors or hitting someone with a tool when working in an industry.

2. You Don’t Feel Motivated
   When you have to work from dawn till dusk to an extent you start to lack time for yourself or you can balance between work and life, you tend to feel unhappy. Once you become unhappy, you start to lose motivation and this can affect the way you do your job.

   If you find out that you don’t feel motivated to wake up and work, this does not mean it’s time to leave the job. It could be the time to take a sabbatical and come back to your job when you are completely refreshed and motivated.

   A study has shown that feeling emotionally drained, feeling underrated, among other abnormal behaviors are symptoms of burnout and depression and these symptoms may not only cause damage to your wellbeing but will also make you lose motivation and hence becoming unproductive at work. If you find that you don’t feel like doing anything that is related to your job, taking a sabbatical could help you recharged your batteries.

3. You Don’t Have Work-Life Balance
   There must be a balance between your work and your personal life. For instance, if you lack the time to be with your family and friends, then expect an unhappy life. As a human being, you will like to have leisure and personal time as well as good health and spending time with people you care can contribute a lot to being happy at work.

   In fact, in today’s world where most jobs have become more stressful and sometimes can lead to a work-life discrepancy, if you find that you are too much into work than your personal life, then it’s time to take a sabbatical.

4. You think about the Weekends When It’s Monday
   Well, we must be honest here, although it’s good to enjoy and have fun on weekends, you also need to enjoy your weekdays too. You will spend a third of your lifetime at work so you need to know whether you will spend all that time doing something you fear. Although it’s true that sometimes work gets stressful if your workload has suppressed you, then you need to take a sabbatical.
5. Your Health Is Deteriorating
   This is one of the worst and sure signs that you should take a sabbatical. It’s good to work hard and in fact, it can help you achieve your goals in life and in your career, but when your health starts to go down, then you have no choice but to take a sabbatical. Taking a sabbatical will provide you an opportunity to recharge yourself or even learn something new.
6. You Feel the Need to Learn a New Skill
   Well, you might not be thinking of learning a new skill or refresh your existing one, whichever the case, but when you find yourself thirsty about it then you should give yourself the time to follow your passion. In fact, taking a sabbatical can be a fantastic approach to follow your passions outside your workplace.

   Many professionals have taken advantage of sabbaticals to learn new skills that will help them to advance their career.

7. You Dream Of Traveling
   Most people take sabbaticals to travel and the reason for this is that weekends are normally short to see the world from its furthest corners and taking a time-out from your job can be the best way to achieve that. Traveling helps you to learn about new cultures and new views and you cannot achieve this by simply going for a vacation and that’s why people extend their stay off work by taking a sabbatical.

Final Words

Ever experienced any of the signs above? Well, these are just a few signs you need to pay attention to and do your body the favor and take a sabbatical. There are many signs apart from these ones so it’s up to you to know when it’s time to take a sabbatical.

Marcus Gould is a marketing and business content writer at Brill Assignment. The most recurring themes he covers are marketing, education and technology. In his free time he enjoys traveling and learning new writing techniques. Feel free to follow him on Twitter.