After more than seven years of running my own business, I just took my first-ever (summer) sabbatical aka I took four full weeks off from my business: no client support, no content creation, no team meetings, no nothing.

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Just me, myself and I… and that turned out to be a lot more confronting than expected lol

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But let’s start from the beginning:

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WHY I TOOK A SABBATICAL

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Earlier this year, I was on a walk with my mom. We talked life, we talked business and suddenly I was like “Why do only employees take sabbaticals? Can’t business owners take sabbaticals, too? I think I wanna take a sabbatical this summer”.

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The second I said it, it was decided. It was one of those famous full-body-hell-yes moments. One of these moments I often tell my clients about: the moment of “Okay, it’s kinda scary, but also F*CKING EXCITING. We’re doing this, period”. 

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Because the truth was: I needed it.

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Not because everything was shit, but because sometimes what feels even worse than everything being shit, is a feeling of complacency... or when you’re wearing those short sneakers socks but they slide down and it’s consistently uncomfortable, but not SO bad you immediately need to stop and fix it… and that’s kinda what I felt.

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In my heart, I knew how much I cared about what I do. About the impact my business makes on women. I knew it - but I didn’t FEEL it so much anymore.

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It felt a little bit as if I had to motivate myself to work – something I wasn’t familiar with, as someone who has turned their passion into a business. 

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And truthfully? That felt like shit!

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“How have I built something SO epic and yet, I have to motivate myself to do it?”

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I think I know now what caused this, but it extends the scope of this post. Let me know if you’re interested in me going more into that and I can write another post about that specifically.

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Anyhow, the simple reason I chose to do a sabbatical: In my body, I knew I NEEDED IT.

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I knew I needed it if I wanted to continue running my business (which somewhere deep down I was as certain about as ever!).

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My goal for the sabbatical:

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Completely step away from my routines, workflows, and seeing how others do things to hopefully reconnect with my creativity and passion for my business.

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Did that work?

Let’s talk about that in a second, but first, I want to tell you…

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HOW I PREPARED FOR MY SABBATICAL

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When deciding to take a full four weeks off, I thought about whether we’d basically shut down the entire business for four weeks, or if I would just go out of office for that time.

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Quickly, we realized: it’s going to be a nice test to see if and how the business (that previously heavily relied on me) can work without me.

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And as it goes when we decide what we want: ideas pop up. Things you’ve been longing to do anyway reveal themselves as the perfect solution which in our case meant bringing guest experts into our Beyond your Wildest Dreams membership that supports women in ditching the hustle without ditching their big goals.

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As for my 1:1 clients, I decided to just pause those as I didn’t see a way to keep them going during that time. Instead, it felt very right to give them a month to integrate what we’ve been working on and let what they feel is next for them to land.

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Since I have pretty epic women in my network, it was easy to pick guest experts to take over the weekly live sessions for the membership while I’m gone. Everyone I asked said YES immediately, and then we just had to create the schedule and communicate it all with the clients.

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Kati, my wonderful assistant, set up everything and functions as the first touchpoint for clients with questions anyway - so that did not need much adjustment and all that was easier than I initially expected.

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Now…

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WHAT HAPPENED DURING MY 4-WEEK SABBATICAL?

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Since we just talked about the clients, I want to quickly touch that the feedback for the guest sessions has been AMAZING which not only made me really happy, but also had a big impact on the future of my business.

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“The kind of guest experts you brought in only makes me love you and this space more.”

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This confirmed my longing to do this more often. To invite more collaboration into my business. To have more option than to facilitate something myself or just not to it at all. Why not curate the most amazing line-up of people to facilitate the transformations and spaces I feel called to create?!

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We often say “collaboration over competition”, but how much are we really collaborating and not seeing similar businesses as competition?

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To me, it feels like there’s a lot of space to do better (and if our businesses are TOO similar to what others are doing, maybe it’s time to become more innovative and add a more unique twist).

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So this is definitely a takeaway from my sabbatical, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll talk more about that soon.

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What happened during my sabbatical?

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In short: not much. lol

In a way, it felt like I didn’t take one.

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One thing the sabbatical made me realize is how CHILL my work life is. That in a way my way of LIVING and WORKING feels like one big fat holiday – which is fabulous of course. At the same time, it was also quite confronting to realize that while I don’t work much, I’ve been struggling to fully unplug. Not to think about business all the time.

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I think because I had lost a bit of my spark for it, I had been in a lot of brainstorming, trying things out, planning things that I then didn’t end up doing, etc. – and even during the sabbatical, it wasn’t easy to stop (and definitely didn’t help that I was in mentorship while on my sabbatical so I was kinda forced to think about business while officially being off).

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After all, this is how I make a living. This isn’t some side hustle - this is what makes me money. What pays my bills. There’s only so long you can peacefully take a step back and “just let it unfold”.

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So that was… not fun lol

Not fun realizing that the Queen of Ease, was actually not bathing in ease – which of course I kinda knew before, but only really realized when I was supposed to be off, but struggled to unplug.

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On the other hand, I did have so much fun visiting my brother in the US and it was amazing to fully BE there without having to do… anything. I spent so much time with my nephew which was lovely (the highlight: him refusing to be with anyone but me and repetitively closing the door for anyone else to come in lol I felt so special).

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Aside from that, one of my goals regarding reconnecting with my creativity FAILED MASSIVELY (lol). One of my goals within reconnecting with my creativity was playing around with my camera. I actually had a lot of videography classes in university (I even wrote my bachelor thesis about YouTube) and for a while had been eager to step up my videography again, but I feel like I keep realizing:

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I like to enjoy a moment without having to think about how to capture it (well). 

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So while I took my camera out a few times, I felt like I mostly either got boring shots, or was then unhappy with my lack of presence in the moment of taking it (because it became about the video, not the moment).

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If you have tips on how to navigate that, please send them over. I’ve been trying to solve this one for a while and so far, I’m failing lol.

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One thing that gave me major giggles during this sabbatical though: of course on the LAST day of my sabbatical, something MAJOR clicked.

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What it was? Let’s dive in!

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WHAT AM I TAKING FROM MY SUMMER SABBATICAL?

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I think a part of me was trying to somehow get motivated again for what I used to do instead of embracing what wanted to emerge (which isn’t even really different from what I used to do, it’s just deeper, the next era/level of it…).

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During a conversation with my man, I found myself saying something that instantly made my body light up. Something that felt like a big, fat exhale. Something that felt like a FULL-BODY-YES.

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And again, in a way, this is nothing new, but sometimes, it’s just that small shift. That new angle that lights your soul on fire. Like when you look at yourself in the mirror from a different angle and you’re just like “Damn, girl!” 

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You still look like you, but something seems different. Hotter.

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I know that you want to know what that something is (don’t we all hate when people tease their huge realizations and you’re just like “But TELL ME WHAT IT ISSSSSS. I WANNA KNOW”?!)

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Probably many of you will feel like this is what the business has done all along, but like I said, it’s just more clear than ever to me:

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FEMSU (my business; short for “The Feminine Way of Success”) helps women THRIVE AS WOMEN.

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…which means: ditching the hustle, ditching accepting a life that looks good on paper, but leaves the soul aching for more & deeper… WITHOUT ditching the big goals.

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We’ve had the soft life trend. The trad wife trend.

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Collectively, we’ve been yearning to TAKE A F*CKING BREATHER.

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We want to live life to the fullest. We want what we want.

We want business class. And nice hotels. We want clothes that feel like God touching your soul. We want jobs that give us energy, rather than draining ours.

We want it all.

But we’re not willing to sacrifice our wellbeing, and our inner peace – which most of us never had to begin with.

(If this speaks to your soul, make sure to grab the Feminine Energy Morning Activation!)

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Again, I know it’s nothing entirely new. It’s a sharpening of the mission. A remembering, in some way.

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It’s what I needed to feel to feel that spark again. To wake up excited again. To bathe in ideas. To feel in FLOW again.

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Aside from that sharpened mission and vision, I’m also taking a majorly sharpened content strategy with me. 

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Now, for the longest time, my content strategy has been “posting what’s alive” as my friend Nina (@its_ninachin) has so beautifully stated in a convo recently.

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But truthfully?

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I got bored of it (can you tell we had a bit of a pattern of boredom and misalignment here?! lol).

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So I hired the one and only Xanthe Appleyard (@xanthe.appleyard) to help me with my strategy and while it partly turned out to be inconvenient to be in mentorship during a sabbatical, I took SO MUCH from our time together.

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Not only did the entire set-up of the mentorship show me a new way of setting up a 1:1 space, but it also felt SO good to go SO deep. To have ONE clear topic to focus on (content creation) and really go deep in a short time.

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Just being in the space “forced” me to take an honest look what felt good, what kind of content excited me and which one I actually felt capable of creating consistently (because as Xanthe recently said “If you want to stop feeling shitty about your content, stop saving inspo that looks nothing like your life”).

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I wouldn’t say I’ve got it 100% of “all figured out” – but do we ever?

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What I do know is that I feel like I’ve left “the void”.

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The void of realizing an old shoe doesn’t fit anymore, but not having found a new pair you love. 

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I’ve found that new pair of Manolo’s that I love and that fits. 😉

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…but that wasn’t even everything because YES, it was challenging, but also very fruitful.

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Another thing I took from my sabbatical was a desire for more of a structured workflow. 

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Like I said, my work life feels very much like an endless holiday and while that’s partly fabulous, it’s also not entirely what I want – because I actually love to work, too. My work isn’t just work. It’s my purpose. My legacy. Something I’d do if I didn’t get paid for it.

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So, again inspired by Xanthe, I’ve been playing around with doing a “Marketing Shift” in the morning. Basically, getting my own marketing tasks done first thing (after doing a little morning routine ofc – which I’ve also majorly simplified and optimized cause who wants to have a 20-step 2-hr morning routine?!).

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To even be able to do this, I needed to get more structured with my tasks / projects I want to do.

‍Honestly? This has been HEAVENLY and just sitting here writing this post and feeling like I’m actually doing what I long to do… YAYAYAYAYAY!

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I think a lot of my previous frustration and complacency has also come from me feeling full of ideas but not really knowing how to get them all done… without just getting them done (as in: I want to enjoy the process and not spend my days ticking off to do’s cause what’s the point of that?!). So that’s truly been incredible and SO helpful for me. 

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Talking about structure and getting things done… another big thing that has come from my sabbatical: MY FIANCÉE HAS JOINED MY BUSINESS!!

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We already gave that a shot back in 2022, but failed miserably (lol) but since about two years, I’ve been begging him to come back and give me another chance in not being the worst business partner ever (lol #2).

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The sabbatical and some of its takeaways gave me the spaciousness to truly reflect what I felt like I needed and where I want to take my life and business in this next season (which I already kiiiiinda knew before again, but it became obvious during this time):

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I want to be a creative director and facilitator. Not a CEO.

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…and even though I’ve already crowned God my CEO earlier this year, it did feel handy to get a more… physical CEO into the business, too.

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I’ve got the confidence to own that I know I am incredibly good at what I do – and the humbleness to know what I’m not very good at.

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…and it’s not helpful for me, or the business, to keep trying to play in my weakness instead of my strength.

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I want to be able to just drip in my wild, creative energy instead of trying to get better at overlooking tasks, projects, etc. – so I’m insanely happy the man has joined (we also figured this move would be wildly supportive for a future with kids).

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And now, after what feels like half a book, I think now we’ve covered it all. Quite the update. Lots of takeaways. 

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Have you ever considered taking a sabbatical? What are your thoughts on it and has it maybe changed after reading this post?

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I’d be thrilled to hear from you – just shoot me a message over on Instagram.