Plan your career break in 4 steps

When I took my career break I did as little planning as possible - in my year-long trip I visited about 44 cities in almost as many countries. But I definitely made mistakes along the way. Mistakes you don’t have to make.

I show people how to take career breaks and sabbaticals every day. And if you want personalized help with your break, I’m your girl. But if you want to get started planning on your own, I’m giving you my four-step framework for planning your own career break.

If you want to keep it light and flexible, you can do just that. If you want to plan every possible detail, you can add sub-steps to this and create a whole chart. But starting with these four steps will give you everything you need to know about your career break and give you a framework to then create the details.

1. Pick your departure date

   Once you pick your departure date you’ll have something anchoring your trip. And once you have that it makes it so much more real. Pick a date to leave, it helps to have it relate to an important date in your life. Mark this date on the calendar and set up reminders so you know when it’s nine months away, six months away, and three months away, and finally one month away.
   
   You have your departure date, now it’s time to figure out how long you want your trip to be. How long do you want to take off? How much of a break do you need? You don’t have to stick to this time period, but it helps to have a good idea when we get to the next step.

2. Figure out which destinations you want to visit

   This is your time to grab your journal or notebook and start dreaming. Write down the name of all the places you would love to visit. Don’t worry about money or time, just dream of your perfect trip. Where would you go? How long would you stay in each destination?

   As a guide, I recommend that you don’t travel to more than one new location a month. You can definitely do more, but if you want your vacation to be relaxing and restful, try slow-traveling as much as possible.

3. Create Your Budget

   You know how long you want to travel for, and now you know which destinations you want to visit. Use a cost of living calculator like numbeo.com to figure out the cost of visiting different cities on your list. When you see the cost of living in certain cities, you might be tempted to cross them off your list, but don’t do that yet, we’re still in the dreaming zone, so don’t kill those dreams just yet. Come up with the total budget for your ideal trip, and write that number down in your notebook, because we’re making a plan for that number now.

4. Focus on your money

   This is the part that many people let get in their way. But you don’t have to. This is the part where we stop dreaming. Dig into all the financial accounts and see how much debt and savings you have.

   Yes, you have to face those numbers.

   Now figure out if you have any expected money coming in between now and your departure date that you can use to fund your trip.

   Try to pay off as much consumer debt before you leave for your career break so that you don’t have to stress about money while you’re gone.

   Also, figure out what you can cut out of your current budget to help save for your break. Oh, you don’t have a budget - consider that step .5 in this framework. You don’t need a lot of money to take a career break, but you do need to have a handle on how much money you have and where it is going.

And that’s it. Simple, right? 4 steps to planning your career break.

Once you have this framework complete, you’ll be in a great position to plan the details of your trip like purchasing flights and renting accommodations.

Good luck planning your break, you can get more planning information in my free Sabbatical Planning Guide or meet with me for a one on one planning session.