Designing Your Sabbatical Vision
Start with Your Core Values
Not all sabbaticals are the same.
Some are planned for months with color-coded calendars. Others crash into your life in the form of burnout, a health scare, a layoff, or a moment so clear you can’t keep pushing anymore.
Some sabbaticals stretch across oceans and seasons. Others show up in a single quiet day you finally take for yourself.
Photo by Tom Brown on Unsplash
At Sabbaticalize, we believe a sabbatical is less about duration and more about intention. It’s a conscious pause—a chance to step outside the churn of leadership and ask deeper questions:
What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And who am I becoming?
But before you can answer any of those questions, you have to start somewhere solid.
Not with your itinerary. Not with your goals. Not with what looks good on paper.
Start with your core values.
Because whether your sabbatical is one day or one year, this is your opportunity to lead from the inside out.
Why Core Values Matter (Especially on Sabbatical)
A sabbatical—of any length—isn’t just time off. It’s a reset, a reckoning, and if done with intention—a reinvention.
Without anchoring your time away in your values, it’s easy to default to the same habits you’re trying to interrupt. You might swap your work calendar for a self-help to-do list. You might fill the quiet with busyness disguised as rest.
But sabbaticals aren’t about doing more in different clothes. They’re about remembering who you are when the performance ends.
Your core values are the foundation that help you:
Say no to what doesn’t belong
Choose what actually nourishes you
Design a sabbatical that aligns with the life you’re trying to build—not just escape
When your sabbatical is rooted in values, it becomes less about the itinerary and more about the transformation.
A Story from the Field
One school leader I coached came into her sabbatical planning determined to "learn everything about school redesign." A noble goal—but when we slowed down and got curious about her values, something else emerged.
What she actually craved?
Freedom. Joy. Connection to place.
That changed everything. Instead of enrolling in a string of online workshops, she traveled up the coast visiting different types of schools, and learned through conversation with other school leaders and teachers. She returned not just rested—but realigned. Clearer on what kind of leader she wanted to be and the kind of system she wanted to help shape.
That’s the power of a values-centered sabbatical.
A Values-Based Sabbatical, No Matter the Length
This approach works even if you’re not taking months away. Let’s say you’ve negotiated one mental health day a month. Or you’re in between roles and unsure what’s next. Or you're taking a “working sabbatical” and setting boundaries around your energy.
No matter the format, rooting in your values gives your time direction.
If curiosity is a core value, maybe that one day is for following a question, not a task list.
If community is key, maybe you spend that hour calling someone who reminds you who you are.
The point isn’t how long you’re away—it’s how aligned you are when you return.
How to Identify Your Core Values
Here’s a simple way to begin designing your sabbatical vision:
1. Name 3–5 peak moments in your life or work.
Times when you felt most alive, most you. Write them down.
2. Ask: What values were present in those moments?
Freedom? Creativity? Belonging? Purpose? Rest? Something else?
3. Distill your list.
Circle 3–5 values that feel essential to who you are and who you want to be. These are your sabbatical guideposts.
4. Let your values lead your design.
Even small actions aligned with your values can create radical shifts.
If “truth” is a core value, maybe you use your sabbatical time to tell your story—or to stop telling someone else’s version of it.
If “play” matters, maybe your next leadership breakthrough will come from a ceramics class, not a strategy retreat.
Don’t Just Plan Your Time—Design Your Becoming
This isn’t a productivity hack. It’s an invitation to listen to your life.
Designing a sabbatical vision rooted in your core values isn’t self-indulgent—it’s self-leadership. It’s modeling what it means to be a person who lives and leads in alignment. That kind of leadership is magnetic. It changes teams. It shifts systems. It heals people.
And whether your sabbatical is one day or one year, it can begin today—with one brave decision to listen to what matters most.
Want Help Getting Started?
We created a free Sabbatical Vision Map to help you surface your core values and sketch the early contours of your time away.
And if you're a leader craving a deeper reset—coaching, retreat space, or a full fellowship—we're building the tools to support you. Sabbaticalize is here to make intentional pauses possible, powerful, and even contagious.
Because the future of leadership doesn’t just depend on how hard we work.
It depends on how well we pause, reflect, and realign.
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What core values would guide your sabbatical—whether it’s one year or one quiet Sunday? Hit reply or leave a comment. I’d love to hear what’s stirring in you.
