My coaching practice often involves questions about sabbaticals and how to move through these transitional times in intentional, reflective ways. Questions include: How do I find a different pace, a pace that’s more my own? How do I mark this new season of life or new season of career? How do I set boundaries with colleagues, family, and friends? What if I want to consider a career change? How do I make writing a priority when it’s been deprioritized for so long? What if all I want to do is rest?
The questions continue and often add up to a real desire to make change—to use the intentional time of a sabbatical in intentional ways.
I hope to support this desire through sharing reflection questions for sabbaticals (and any transitional seasons of life). May these questions help to define sabbaticals as not only times of transition but also times of inquiry, reflection, and recommitment.
Reflections Questions for Sabbaticals
As you read the following questions, know there’s no need to engage with them all. Work with the questions that resonate, and leave the rest. Notice which pull at your heartstrings or which resonate or which you feel called to. And reach out with questions for me, anytime.
Heart:
- How do I want to feel during sabbatical?
- How do I want to not feel?
- What feelings might I have been ignoring, suppressing, or managing that want to be more meaningfully acknowledged?
- How do I feel about the sabbatical itself?
- What might my emotions be conveying or alerting me to?
Head:
- What do I want to think about during sabbatical?
- What do I not want to think about?
- Relatedly, what do I want to learn and unlearn during sabbatical?
- How might the sabbatical be a time for inquiry, curiosity, and creativity?
- In contrast, how might sabbatical be a time for resting from knowing or figuring things out or even reading?
Hands:
- What do I want to do during sabbatical?
- What do I want to not do?
- Relatedly, what am I ready, willing, and longing to do?
- What am I ready, willing, and longing to stop doing?
- What am I ready, willing, and longing to keep doing?
Entering the sabbatical:
- What have I been longing for or missing in my life?
- What do I really want or need (e.g., rest, reading, art, movement, meditation, community connectedness, time to cook)?
- How will I make these priorities?
- What changes do I want to make both in everyday life and over time?
- If I could prioritize 1-3 things during the sabbatical, what would these be?
- If the sabbatical is an invitation, what is it inviting me into?
Exiting the sabbatical:
- What habits, practices, and conditions have characterized this intentional time?
- Which feel important to take with me and keep as priorities?
- What is my body signaling as non-negotiable (e.g., I can’t go back to _____)?
- What is my body signaling as newly possible (e.g., I’m excited about _____ or I’d like to do more of _____ or I’d like to try _____)?
- What changes do I want to make both in everyday life and over time?
- How have my commitments (deep dedications in life) been shifting, and what are my commitments now? Consider revisiting and writing your commitment statement.
Considering sabbaticals as seasons of life:
- What feels most important in this season of life (and of career)?
- If the sabbatical is welcoming a new season, what is this season?
- What feels particularly important? And what’s less important or not important?
- How might I name, title, or call this season?
- What seasons are being bridged by the sabbatical? What season am I coming out of? What season might I be entering next?
- Again, how will I name these seasons or eras or even chapters (depending on the preferred metaphor)?
- What do these names say about my core commitments and what matters most in life now, at this time?
In addition to these reflection questions, I offer prompts in the past blog post “Journaling and Drawing Exercises for Times of Transition.” That post shares seven exercises, including this one about clarifying and redefining identities:
“Re-center in your identities by writing out a list of identities that feel true at this time. You might contrast those with ones you would have written in the past or might write in the future. Cast the net as wide as feels supportive at this time. What feels true to you during this time of transition and change? Are you still, at the core, an educator? A learner? A crafter or creator or artist or writer? A community member or advocate or organizer? Consider a range of identities, not only those related to professional contexts or career. And, again: you might draw out any identities that feel particularly resonant or any that you’d like to see take shape through art.”
I share this exercise around identities because sabbaticals are among those transitional times when we revisit and redefine ourselves, our commitments, and our ways of being in the world. They often define a season of life, separating what comes before and after. Therefore, they also mark who we are—before, during, and after this intentional, transitional time.
That earlier blog post provides additional prompts for reflection. I am also available for one-with-one coaching, and sabbaticals are a great time for coaching.
To everyone entering, exiting, or simply longing for a sabbatical, I send good wishes!
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This post is written by Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands: Everyday Living for Justice.
For support with career discernment and reflection, including during sabbaticals and in different seasons of life, check out the course “Career Discernment for Academics: Aligning Career with Commitments” or reach out for one-with-one coaching.
For more blog posts like this, check out:
- “Reflection Questions for Committing, Creating, and Pacing This Summer”
- “Reflective Poetry Prompts from Writing Retreats: A Contemplative Writing Practice”
- “Contemplative Writing: Journaling and Other Practices for Reflection, Mindfulness, and Intentionality”
- “Contemplative Practices for Setting Intentions and Welcoming the New Year”
- “Spell-Casting and Other Contemplative Practices for Reflection and Recovery”
- “Writing Support for the School Year (and Year-Round)”
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