Why the Word “Sabbatical” Changed Something for Me

Research shows they're not just for professors and pastors anymore.

The term “sabbatical” seems to be popping up more and more these days. It did for me, as I came to grips with my own decision to take a hiatus from the corporate grind.

Then one day, in the thick of my transition, I happened to catch DJ DiDonna on the news talking about his forthcoming book, Big Time Off. DiDonna is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and founder of The Sabbatical Project, an initiative he launched in 2019 to study what happens when non-academics take extended time away from work.

My first reaction was probably the same one a lot of people have: Wait, sabbaticals are for professors. And pastors. Maybe writers. Maybe people with endowed chairs, tweed jackets, and offices lined with books. Not people in corporate jobs with inboxes, calendars, budgets, children, mortgages, and a low-grade sense that they should always be “on.”

Why don’t we talk about sabbaticals more in the business world?

Of course, we talk about time off. We talk about PTO, vacation days, sick days, mental health days, parental leave, FMLA, short-term disability, long-term disability. Those categories all make sense. They serve real purposes. But they are not quite the same as asking a more unsettling question:

What about extended time off for rest, reflection, and recalibration?

And maybe even more uncomfortable: why does that question feel so indulgent? Or irresponsible? Or vaguely shameful in a culture that still treats constant productivity as proof of character?

That was the tension I was wrestling with when I started reading more of DiDonna’s work and the findings from The Sabbatical Project. What I found was both validating and challenging.

Sabbaticals, it turns out, are no longer just an academic concept. They are increasingly showing up among professionals across industries, and the research suggests they can become identity-changing experiences, not just nice breaks from work.

In narrative interviews with 50 professionals, researchers found that the deepest value of a sabbatical was not simply rest, but the chance to revise both personal and work identity.

That distinction matters.

Because if all you need is a vacation, take a vacation. Rest is good. Rest is necessary. But a sabbatical appears to do something different. It creates enough distance from routine that you can begin to hear yourself again.

One of the most useful ideas in this research is that meaningful sabbaticals are not random. They tend to involve three kinds of activity: recover, explore, and practice.

Recovery is the baseline. It is the decompression stage, the part where you begin to unhook from stress, fatigue, adrenaline, and the routines that have been running your life. In DiDonna’s research, this phase often took longer than people expected — roughly six to eight weeks on average.

Then comes exploration. That is the stage where curiosity starts to return. You travel, read, experiment, reconnect, try on different parts of yourself, and ask questions that your normal life does not give you enough room to ask.

And then there is practice, which may be the most important part for people who are not just trying to rest, but trying to change. Practice is the bridge between insight and action. It is where you prototype the next chapter: writing the book, testing the business idea, learning the craft, trying the different career path before making it official.

The research found that when people moved beyond recovery into exploration and practice, the odds of real transformation increased.

The research also makes another point that feels important to name honestly: this kind of time off is still, in many cases, a privilege. Many participants described sabbaticals as something made possible by prior financial stability, savings, or the ability to earn some income while away. The promise is real, but so is the inequality built into who gets access to extended time and who does not.

And perhaps that raises questions for employers looking for ways to keep their best people. For starters, should paid sabbaticals be part of the retention toolkit?

Maybe part of the work ahead — for individuals and for organizations — is to stop treating extended time off as an eccentric luxury and start treating it as a legitimate tool for renewal, development, and even better work. DiDonna has argued that sabbaticals can benefit employers too, not only by helping people return refreshed and more creative, but by normalizing a healthier relationship to ambition, identity, and growth.

What I do know is: this framework gave me language for what I had been living, even before I fully understood it. I imagine it might do the same for many others reading this post. A word that once sounded foreign, almost inaccessible, now feels like an idea that gave me permission to understand my own life more clearly.

Have you ever taken a sabbatical? If so, leave a comment telling us about your experience.