Salina Vanderhorn, with her dog near her aunt’s home in Chalk River, Ont., says that taking a temporary break from work has helped her explore pursuits like writing and painting.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
In 2020, Salina Vanderhorn was a high-performing, 30-year-old graphic designer living solo in Toronto.
Her resumé was a string of dream jobs: editorial designer at The Kit magazine, senior art director at Holt Renfrew leading a team of eight, and finally, co-founder of Aperkoo, a boutique design agency with clients like Lindt and L’Oréal.
But in the early days of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, she found herself staring at her computer screen in crisis mode. The grief she had submerged from her father’s death in 2015 surfaced, along with quiet doubts about her purpose.
“I’ve always been a workaholic because that’s how I get through things,” Ms. Vanderhorn says. “Then 2020 happened and I had to feel everything and be alone in my basement apartment. I started very intense therapy right away because it was clear that I was not going to be okay.”
She moved home to Deep River, Ont., a small town outside Ottawa where her sisters live, and closed up shop. She felt that her life in Toronto had been empty, riddled with frantic deadlines and often toxic clients.
“I felt like I was a hamster on a wheel and was never going to be able to make a client enough money,” she says.
Ms. Vanderhorn started painting and making pottery, took an online creative writing class through the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and gave herself the time and space to be self-reflective. In essence, she went into micro-retirement.
According to Sumana Jeddy, a Calgary-based work wellness coach for large enterprises, micro-retirement is a “strategic, intentional break” that helps individuals with recovery over a health issue or a significant personal experience; it can also redirect personal ambitions.
“[You may] want to study, do your master’s [degree] or upskill, which is a big trend in the workforce, or just pick up a hobby or travel,” she says.
Instead of waiting until 65 to stop working, micro-retirees are taking an extended work break in their 30s or 40s. They do whatever they can to recover and refocus over a three or four-year time period, then return refreshed to the same or a different job with some newly acquired skills and experience.
Self-reflection as a work longevity strategy
People are living longer and working longer: the average lifespan of a Canadian woman has steadily increased over the years and is now 81.3 years. As individuals consider the many years of work ahead, quality of life becomes all-important.
“People are asking themselves how to add recovery strategically and intentionally, and make it part of our lifestyle,” says Ms. Jeddy. “A lot of the younger people now, including the millennials who are in the workforce, are starting to realize that — with the way things are going with the economy and us not being able to buy our houses the way our parents did — mental health, our physical health, is so important that we want to prioritize that no matter what.”
Perception of motherhood is also shifting: While leaving work to care for children might have been seen as a break from work in the past, mothers today understand that while caregiving may be meaningful, it’s also labour. Some are looking for new ways to build well-being in their working lives.
“[Micro-retirement] is a really cool strategy that we may want to lean into more so because we want to think about recovery as an intentional process for our being, versus, ‘I’m going to burn out.’”
The micro-retirement trend also reflects the fact that for the modern woman, work is increasingly becoming a series of branches or a curving road rather than one long straight ride.
“I don’t see myself not working,” says Ms. Vanderhorn. The question is not when to stop working, but how often to pause or shift to build and maintain resilience.
Three tips for a successful micro-retirement
Linda Raynier, career strategist and author of The Quiet Achiever, has three essential rules for people thinking of a micro-retirement. Finances are first.
“It’s absolutely number one to make sure that you prepare for longer than you think you’re going to be in micro-retirement. If you think it’s going to be a year, plan for two,” she says.
“Number two: Get very clear on why you want to do this micro-retirement and who you want to become at the end. It’s giving yourself a vision of an intention to work towards that will lead you closer to the direction of where ultimately your heart wants to go and where you’re meant to go.”
Her third tip is to stay open to new opportunities and experiences.
“You have to be willing to make the moves to establish new relationships, new connections, open yourself up to new perspectives, new people. You don’t gain clarity by repeating what you’ve already done or by stewing in the same thoughts and patterns that you’ve held for the last 30-plus years. If you need help, hire someone from the outside.”
Ms. Raynier also stresses that it’s important not to burn bridges. “Don’t cut off your network unnecessarily. It’s good to keep in touch and keep in contact just because you never know who could potentially help you with the next step [in] where you’re going.”
Time and space to enjoy life
Ms. Vanderhorn says that maintaining her “bridges” has enabled her to extend her micro-retirement in a sustainable way. She uses her freelance design work as a tool to support future goals.
“I’m doing [my job] well, but I’m not in it for the long haul. I’m in it to pay some bills, and then on the side, I’m following so many paths,” she says. Along with writing and painting, Ms. Vanderhorn recently launched Open Closely, an interactive journal prompt community oriented around astrology. She also put together a two-year road map to opening her own bookstore-slash-creative space in town. She’s as busy as ever, she says, but with more intentional purpose, and a view that life is long, she has the space to enjoy it.
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Stacie Campbell/The Globe and Mail