My Mini Sabbatical

I spent the last 2.5 years building a startup from 0 -> 1. Putting out fires at 4am then showing up to meetings at 7am, running teams across 12-hour timezone diffs, shipping through weekends, taking hits from clients, dealing with legal, bad actors, and the majority of people not believing in you.

When something broke, I fixed it. When something else broke, I fixed that too. And the next thing. And the next. Life was on a constant run, run, RUN. What even is PTO?

I loved it even though the startup grind is brutal and isolating in a way that's hard to explain to people who haven't lived it. But it's also the most alive I've ever felt.

My body, however, kept a ledger -- quietly tallying every skipped meal, every midnight deploy, every social event I flaked on to push out a new PR.

I thought I was fine but by the end of 2025, my mind and body were screaming. I remember one late night in November thinking, "Oh shit, I guess I really am not okay".

The decision

And so I took the entire month of January 2026 off. A mini sabbatical!

For someone that has built their entire identity around productivity and output, taking a month to do nothing productive felt almost transgressive, like I was committing a sin. And ngl, it took me 2 weeks before I strong-armed myself into not checking Slack. It was a struggle, but that was the exact feeling I knew I had to learn to fight.

What I actually did

I travelled and side-quested ... a lot! Sat in nature with no phone, no laptop, no Slack notifications. Just me and my own thoughts for hours. Cut out alcohol entirely. And rode horses (cantered even!).

The horses thing sounds random, but there's something about being around an animal that weighs 500kg, communicating through pressure, balance, and calm, that recalibrates you. You can't fake composure around a horse btw, because they feel your tension before you're even aware of it. Your mind has got to be completely clear to ride well.

Mostly though, I had time to think. Not shower-between-meetings thinking. Real thinking, like the kind where you sit with something uncomfortable long enough for it to actually resolve.

On introspection

Startup life makes self-reflection feel indulgent. There's always a more pressing fire. Your feelings get queued up like background jobs that never get processed.

During the sabbatical I finally had the space and cycles to run those jobs. To replay moments I'd been too busy to process and to sit with feelings I'd shoved aside for far too long. For the first time in a very long time, my mind became so transparent (demon slayer, anyone?) and I felt so at peace.

The introspection was definitely uncomfortable. I get why therapists are so in demand -- they're like short-circuit aids to thinking. But because I love playing life on hard mode, I sat in both chairs myself in the therapy room out by the river, on the horse, on the mountain. Was a very interesting experience.

Making my writing public

I had a bunch of takeaways from all that thinking. One big one: I actually have things I want to say out loud, in public. Nothing groundbreaking or crazy, just little musings on startups, tech, crypto, why I like ducks, and everything in between.

I’ve always processed things quickly in my head, tied them up neatly, and moved on. Thread closed. But something about the sabbatical made me want to slow down and put some of my thoughts out there. Like ... maybe I do have a few interesting things to yap about? And if even one person reads my stuff and feels like they've taken away something, bonus.

The rest of my takeaways? I'll keep them to myself for now :P

Hard as it may be

Anyways, this isn't your typical cautionary tale about burnout. I'm not here to say "don't work hard" or "prioritize work-life balance" or whatever the current LinkedIn BS consensus is.

In fact, I am very pro-sacrificing-your-youth-and-nice-things-for-growth. As long as your mind and body can withstand it, you should definitely push yourself + get good + learn new things + swing big + do hard things.

Hard as it may be, I would do it all over again. I looked at every trial and tribulation in the eye during my break and all I felt was immense gratitude for the growth they gave me. The sabbatical was just my long-overdue recovery session and I came back sharper and more intentional -- not just at work, but in every other aspect of my life.

The road ahead is still going to be bumpy but I'm back at the starting line, itching to go. Better form, much faster. LFG!