Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 11 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA:
Create an intermission to get started on your mission: We need to purposefully take some time off to give deep thought to what we want
— From: This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love by Tama J. Kieves
We’ve all heard the saying: “There are seven days in a week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday… and ‘Someday’ is NOT one of them.” So why do we tend to push our dreams, wants, and longings for someday?
Tama Kieves says, “You have no idea how much your current job [read: business / activities / routines / lifestyle] affects your thinking about your future and keeps you chained to your past. On vacation from my law firm, I got a suntan and what seemed like a brain transfusion… Outside my office, not everybody scowled and snapped and neither did I… I could not assess my job and my life while in the thick of my job that was my life.” She continues, “I’ve just noticed that we only tend to find our mission once we take an intermission from the work life that doesn’t work.”
Finding or making time off to give some serious thought to what you want, or find your true calling, or your life’s purpose is not easy. It’s not a lunch-hour activity or something you can do while running on the treadmill. Bill Gates takes “think weeks” every year, and paid and unpaid sabbaticals are on the rise in corporations. Entrepreneur Mike Karnjanaprakorn wrote about the benefits of his time off in this article. But if you absolutely, positively cannot take time off, then use your weekends to set aside time to think and then time to act.
I’ll leave you with one last beautiful quote from Tama:
“All you have to do is take a time-out and honor the purpose of that time. Then inclinations start to tap you on the shoulder. Then dreams. Then means. Just clear the space. Consciously let go of what tires you, and what inspires you will take its place.”
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to think (1) how much time you could take, (2) when you could schedule your intermission to think about your mission, and (3) roughly how much money you’ll need to make it happen. Whether you plan to take time off in full days / weeks / months or in chunks over weekends and holidays, put it in your calendar and honor that purpose. Note that this time to think and ponder about your dreams, aspirations, goals and how to make them happen should not be a burden, nor should it deplete your savings or derail your career. NO! Just the opposite: it should give you a respite from everyday-life’s routines and craziness; and it should bring you great joy to know that you are creating the space and the time to figure out how to do what you love. Enjoy the time that you have set aside for doing this!
FUTURE: In this article from Forbes, Helen Coster quotes Dan Clements, author of Escape 101: Sabbaticals Made Simple, who talks about three steps to put your plan into action: “[1] Start an automatic savings plan, and sock away anything from $10 to $1,000 a month. [2] Choose a departure date and a length of time, and book it on all of your calendars. [3] Then tell a handful of people about your sabbatical plans, so that they can both help you plan and make sure you follow through with your decision. ‘If you don’t carve that time away, it tends to be taken from you,’ says Clements. ‘A sabbatical is one of the easiest things in the world to not do.’”
Psst! Do you know someone who could use a sabbatical or intermission? Please share this post with them and tell them to join us for daily ideas and inspiration!