Taking a sabbatical 12 years into a corporate career helped me realize that I don’t know how to rest, relax, or slow down because it’s completely counter to how I’ve been wired.

Even though I had temporarily removed my work responsibilities, I approached my personal life and sabbatical time with the same practices I used at work: schedule everything into a calendar, have the day planned out, be efficient, make a to do list and check things off. It took me a week to realize how exhausting it is to live this way.

Dealing with meetings, office politics, and responding to Slack messages just got replaced with running errands, laundry, cleaning the house, and planning my life. My goal for the sabbatical, rest, was nowhere in the picture.

That was a year ago, and I’m still untangling my mindset and beliefs around productivity-as-self-worth. However, the progress I’ve made is confirmation that it’s worth the effort.