The book I’m reviewing this week is Dan Clements and Tara Gignac’s “Escape 101: Sabbaticals Made Simple” (aff). As the title suggests, this is a book about the mental processes, thoughts, and ideas involved in planning a sabbatical. When I first came across this book, I was worried that I’d run into another book with the same old ideas on lifestyle design that I’ve read about elsewhere. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this wasn’t the case. Although I’ve read several books and blogs on the subject, I was glad to learn some new ideas from this book.
Here’s a quick walkthrough of some of the two (2) main parts of the book:
Part 1: The 4 Secrets For Getting Away From It All
The first thing discussed in the book is finding the “why” behind your sabbatical. It also discusses the different personality types that go on a sabbatical and suggests why each type may be driven to it. You’ll be able to explore the motivations behind your sabbatical and what you can do to fuel these motivations to get yourself started.
Clements also points out that one of the big hurdles that most people face when planning a sabbatical is the lack of belief. Basically, this chapter explores and helps you counteract the reasons behind skepticism and disbelief, including lack of experience and going against the status quo.
Personally, the section on belief resonated with me. I think belief is something that generally makes or breaks any attempt to create change - whether it’s personal, social, financial, or political. It’s easy and comforting to create disbelief, mostly because it’s scary to face the idea of failure when we know that success is possible. This is why we avoid believing in the first place.
Another important chapter in the first part is the one about commitment. Here, Clements redefines commitment into the following:
Commitment: an investment which, if not followed through on, generates a perceived emotional, mental or physical loss or pain.
Basically, commitment is an action, not just a decision. This chapter also helps you tackle the different commitments you’ll need to take for the sabbatical, including financial, social, and logistical commitments.
Part 2: Planning It
If the previous section was about getting rid of the excuses, visualizing, and belief, the second part is more about the planning process itself. Clements tackles the differences between planning a vacation and planning a sabbatical.
Basically, this section goes through planning your finances, from saving up to your sabbatical to building a sabbatical income. Clements also discusses how he and his wife tackled the finances, so there’s a breakdown of a real-life example in the book.
Other important chapters in this section include escaping your job, taking a sabbatical with children, leaving your business, and even some chapters on getting the most out of your sabbatical as well as how to deal with your return.
Overall comments: I really learned much more than I expected from this book. It covers all the processes involved in planning and executing a sabbatical extensively that it can serve as a great starting point for those who are considering their own sabbaticals.
However, I’m afraid that Escape 101, because it’s more about the planning process and theories rather than a straightforward list of steps, will inspire people for a week after reading it, but they’d start letting the mental blocks get in their way again. I’ve found that some personality types need the steps, or else they’ll claim that the book isn’t for them or that the ideas don’t work, when really, it’s these people who are failing to make the ideas work for them.
This is why taking the three steps outlined in the chapter “The Fool-proof Three-step Escape Plan” is crucial to making a sabbatical happen. These steps are simple ones which you can take while you’re reading that chapter, and once you’va taken them ,the idea of taking a sabbatical will become more real to you.
Good points:
- A simple, easy to read introduction to lifestyle design.
- One of the things I loved about this book was the emphasis on relationships (whether with your spouse, children, friends, or colleagues) and how sabbaticals affect them. I don’t think this angle has been discussed with such depth in other similar books.
- It covers the entire pre-planning and planning process so extensively that there’s no room for excuses.
- Unlike other books on eascapism, the ideas are applicable, regardless of how you feel about your job, how successful you are, or how much money you have. You don’t necessarily have to start your own business.
Bad points:
- As I mentioned earlier, since this book deals with mostly internal processes, some readers might just read it, get inspired, and forget to take any action and let their negative thoughts get in the way. But this is a risk I see with most lifestyle design and motivational books in the first place. A good workaround would be to improve and broaden the resources available on the website.
Who this book is for: Ideally, this book is for professionals or families who have been idly thinking about getting away for a few months to a year, whether to travel or to pursue other activities (such as writing a book, volunteering, or going after a forgotten passion). Unlike “The 4 Hour Workweek”, which I’ve reviewed before, Escape 101 doesn’t assume that you hate your job or life. Its ideas are still relevant whether you love your job or not.
Although young students longing to backpack around Europe can benefit from some of the ideas, this book really isn’t for them. People who are looking to permanently leave their career and current life path can also benefit from this book, but they’ll need much more resources than this.
If you’re interested in learning more about this book, click here (this is an affiliate link, so if you choose to buy the book through this I’ll get some pocket change). You can even download an excerpt.
Has anyone else read this book? If so, what did you think about it?
Image used with permission from Dan Clements from Escape 101
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