Sometimes, the best way to be great at your job is to simply stop doing it.

Sometimes, the best way to be great at your job is to simply stop doing it.

Studies increasingly show the positive effect sabbaticals have on all workers, and I’m grateful that more companies and nonprofits are leading the charge to offer the benefit to their employees. I’m even more grateful that Girls Who Code can consider ourselves among those trailblazers.

All year, I’ve watched my colleagues – who have also hit that 7-year employment milestone – return from their sabbaticals feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, and ready to bring a new energy to their work. And now, it’s my turn.

I’ve been CEO of Girls Who Code for two years, and it’s been immensely gratifying to shepherd our organization through both exciting and challenging times. We survived a pandemic, and served more students than ever. We celebrated our 10th Anniversary, and looked ahead to our next decade of work.?

Through it all, I’ve worked hard to have a balanced lifestyle – to juggle my professional responsibilities along with my responsibilities as a wife, mother, and daughter. However, those responsibilities inevitably bleed together, and finding that balance can be tricky.?

That’s why I’m so excited to take this extended time off. Especially with my kids growing up – entering high school, and with college on the horizon – and with my mother getting older, this time we have together is precious. I want to be as present as possible.

But as important as it is for me to spend time with my family, it’s just as important for me to focus on my mental and physical health, and to reconnect with myself.? I’m excited to take Yale University’s popular course, “The Science of Well-Being” to help me build good habits during tough times. I’m particularly excited to go on a solo trip to Woodstock, NY, and am looking forward to taking a Northern Italian cooking class. And, I’ll also be doing a wellness consultation to learn how to take better care of my physical and mental health, especially as I get older and enter a new phase of my life.?

However, I have to admit that, true to my personality, I went into the sabbatical planning process overly outcomes focused, and thinking about what I want to achieve. But I realized that this mentality was antithetical to the purpose of a sabbatical.

Instead, I decided that I need to allow myself to be ”unproductive” by my typical definition. I want to go shopping, visit museums, or lay in bed with a book. I want to practice mindfulness in my daily life and carve out time for meditation. I want to cook with my kids when they come home from camp. I want to offer myself grace if things don’t go according to plan.

At Girls Who Code, we believe deeply in being role models for our community and for our staff, and that means mirroring the habits that we hope to see.?

I want our community to know that taking care of yourself is a sometimes radical act, especially for women, and Black women in particular. We need young people to know, as Gloria Steinem aptly puts it, that dreaming is a form of planning, and that time spent in service of your own needs, is time well spent.