Update May 2011: I’ve continued to write more about my leave. You can follow along here in my Archives for A Tiny Leap.

On April 1, I’ll be embarking on a leave from my full-time job as the Senior Web Coordinator at UBC. Although the official term for this is a “leave of absence”, leaving tends to focus on what’s being left behind, but what’s really motivating this isn’t so much what I’m leaving behind, but rather what I’m moving towards.

This was a decision that was almost a year in the making. Over the last year, there have been a handful of experiences that really helped put many things into new perspectives for me. While each experience added up to make a difference, there were three that were quite pivotal:

1. The first was Traveling to Indonesia with my parents to see where they grew up and to meet extended family who have continued to live in a part of the world I had only heard stories about. While the trip itself was an eye-opening experience, it was the trip combined with my return back home that gave me an immense appreciation of life here in Vancouver.
2. Another was the passing of an old friend, not-so-suddenly, but suddenly for me to find out. I’ve lost friends before, but this time around it really hit home how quickly life can change.
3. And then there has been a collection of events: seeing my dad retire, my brother get engaged, my friends expecting their first kids, and my nephews growing up right before my eyes – all of which showed me how life goes on and on and on.

Over the past year I gained an immense appreciation of the life I have been given to live and this appreciation has put the preciousness of time into a clear focus for me. It’s not every day that this kind of perspective falls on your lap, so I took this as an opportunity to look at my life and think carefully about how I want to live it. In some ways, it was as if I was reading the story of my life in a paperback novel, and then suddenly had the chance to put my thumb down on the page, stop, and think about what I wanted to read next.

I’m not going on leave to leave my job per se. Rather, I’m moving towards an opportunity to re-assess my values, set goals that support me in realizing these values, and refocus my energy towards achieving these goals. While I have a rough plan, I really don’t know how this will all unfold, and so while it will be down on paper as a “leave”, I’m really thinking of it more as a small step into unknown change and opportunity, or for me, a tiny leap.

I expect I’ll be doing a little bit of traveling, and I’m hoping to spend some time with my family and friends. A big part of this will also be about working on new creative projects and learning new skills, as well as taking everything I’ve learned in the last several years and applying this experience in new settings. I’m treating it like a personal and professional sabbatical, a little along the lines of what Stefan Sagmeister talks about in The Power of Time Off.

There are several revelations that led me here, and every time I share these thoughts with others I can see people’s eyes light up with excitement, so I figured why not share more of the experience. I’m planning on posting some updates online, so if you’d like to follow along, please do! (check back right here or on twitter) This is all new territory for me but I’ve already learned that any process of change becomes a lot easier (and goes a lot farther) with the support of others, so I will always be open to comments, emails, phone calls, chats over coffee….you get the idea!

To end this off, I’ll repeat a quote I’ve posted before:

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” – Goethe

And so it begins!