The benefits of taking a break aren’t just about what you can do. They are also about what or who you can be. Here are the benefits of taking a break from work or personal projects!
I think a good topic to write about after taking a break for about eight months is the benefits of taking a break. Perfect.
I take a break from time to time because I am prone to burnout. I juggle many projects, personal and professional. Sometimes, it overwhelms me.
Here are the benefits of taking a break from work or personal projects. You might be here because you want to breathe:
- You can focus on more important things.
- You will get to know yourself more.
- You will discover better ideas.
- You feel better because you don’t feel pressured.
- Everything will start to make sense.
Let’s begin.
5 Benefits of Taking a Break From Work or Personal Projects
The benefits of taking a break aren’t just about what you can do. They are also about what or who you can be. I know I became a better person within 8 months.
Adults deal with a bunch of responsibilities: work, family, friends, school, and many more. That is the case even if you are single, like me.
The reason why I took a break was that I tried accomplishing many things within a short time frame, and that burned me out.
I am not the only one who seems to always be in a rush. Actually, some people do it more intensely than I do. They try to have a 4-hour work week even though they have 40+ tasks to accomplish, and they do it alone.
*exhales* I can’t do that. That is not sustainable.
I also work from home, so I get just a small amount of the “sunshine vitamin.” Vitamin D deficiency could cause depression.
I know that is the major reason for my depressive mood, so I try to work in coffee shops and public libraries. Internet off.
Being online many times a day becomes exhausting, too. There are times when it feels stressful to even look at the screen. It suddenly is too bright!
I am an introvert, so I need alone time to keep my sanity. That is why I take a break from work and personal projects from time to time.
According to Harvard Business Review, it is exhausting to do extroverted things as an introvert. If you are an introvert and the situation calls for “extroverted” responses, you should take a break after!
My work requires me to think and reflect. I will not be able to do those properly if my mind is too cluttered and stressed.
Life is loud. It is difficult to see ourselves more closely if we are focused on work, other people, and something else. Have you been able to look deep into yourself?
If you have not done that, here are the benefits of taking a break!
1. You can focus on more important things.
One of the benefits of taking a break is that you can focus on more important things. But what are the “more important” things?
In my case, at the time, I had a full-time job that was demanding. I was able to manage my stress levels when I took a break from my personal projects.
The “more important” things depend on what you are taking a break from. If you take a break from work, work is not “more important.”
You would not take a break from it if it were more important than anything else.
Ask yourself, what is more important to you? Is your family more important than your work? Or is it the other way around?
If your family stresses you out, Verywell Family says that 80% of those who cut off family relatives became happier.
Is love more important to you than money? If so, I just hope you don’t regret anything in your life. I prioritized love once, and it made me miserable.
Before you prioritize love over anything else, make sure the person is worthy of being your top priority. And I know I shouldn’t be sharing love advice here.
2. You will get to know yourself more.
Another benefit of taking a break is that you will get to know yourself better. I was able to. But it is partly because I have done a lot of new things.
I once thought that my bachelor’s degree was useless. It was not helping me with my writing career, so I somewhat regretted it.
If your educational background is not related to the field you want to work in, Idealist suggests you look for the skills you learned in your degree and find ways to apply them in the field.
But I realized that I could be a political writer, which is quite related to journalism. Journalism was a field I dreamed to be in.
So, I started a sociopolitical blog. I am also fascinated with society and societal issues, so that seemed a good direction to go.
To ensure that my blog posts make sense, I need to study politics again. I decided to do that in a public library in our province. I applied for a library card.
Staying in the library also helps me manage my mood because I get to be in different environments, not just at home.
3. You will discover better ideas.
I started my passion projects when I was heartbroken, miserable, professionally struggling, financially unstable, and mentally unhealthy.
Basically, I was a living and walking disaster. As a result, I couldn’t write good-enough blog posts, and I was inconsistent.
I was updating the blogs, but I was a mess behind the scenes. Four months later, though, I got a full-time job and my blog posts started ranking on Google.
I think those were God’s way of trying to make me feel better. Or of giving me hope.
According to BetterUp, being self-motivated is important to achieve goals because you need to keep moving forward at times when you feel like quitting or when people demotivate you.
But the point is, my passion projects were terrible in the beginning. Now that I feel good and have peace of mind, I can see areas that can be improved.
I founded A Writer in Disguise in February of 2020, but it was just in 2023 that I was able to polish my plan for that. A language learning publication!
Currently, I am the only one who writes for the publication. In the future, I might welcome other writers.
This blog was created in 2019, but I started publishing posts at the end of 2020. I knew the quality of many was terrible, so I edited them.
It is easier to think of good ideas when you are not frustrated or dealing with some disturbing issue. Calm down before you think if you want to improve your life.
4. You feel better because you don’t feel pressured.
I own A Lover in Disguise, A Writer in Disguise, Traveling in Disguise, and a sociopolitical blog, so I can not do anything if I want to.
I am working as a freelancer, so I am under no one. I decide when my rest days are.
This is why I can take a break from work and personal projects whenever I feel like my mental health is becoming bad. But of course, there are consequences.
I don’t make progress. I don’t earn money. Life somewhat stops.
But the thing about having savings and marketable skills is that you can pause your life, even if it means quitting clients.
In an article by BBC, you should stay at a job for at least a year so that it doesn’t ruin your resume. It doesn’t apply to independent contractors.
I started working for foreign companies in March of 2019. But even though I was working full-time, in reality, I was a contractor or freelancer working full-time.
I can never be an employee of a foreign company unless I live in their country.
Their labor law doesn’t have any effect on me because only the Philippine labor law will as I am in the Philippines. I knew that when I took a break.
5. Everything will start to make sense.
One of the benefits of taking a break is that you will be able to think properly about the things that matter. Everything will start to make sense.
If we are too focused on something else, or too emotional about something, we will not see things clearly. Other thoughts and demands cloud our judgment.
A Conscious Rethink says that self-reflection is the process of looking inward so that you can see if you are going in the direction of who you want to be.
During your break, you can read personal development books, or books in the field of your interest. You can also read online articles like you are doing now.
If you are a working professional, most likely, you spend the majority of your day working. Probably 8 hours a day like what many do.
But work usually doesn’t end right after you clock out. You will think about it afterward and ask yourself: What will I do first thing tomorrow morning?
You don’t have time or energy to look deep inside yourself and figure out whether what you will do first thing will help you become the person you want to be.
Last Words
Taking a break may seem unproductive, and you may be called lazy if you request for it. But it allows us to recharge. You become more productive when you return.
Are you ready to receive the benefits of taking a break?
If you enjoyed reading the benefits of taking a break, here is a video of me that I was able to produce because I didn’t take a break:
