Episode 40: Mini-Retirements with Jillian Johnsrud

In this inspiring episode, Jillian Johnsrud shares how the unconventional choice of taking “mini-retirements” has allowed her to design a life of freedom, adventure, and deep purpose. By 40, Jillian had taken over a dozen mini-retirements that gave her space to recover from loss, explore the world, adopt and raise children, and invest in her dreams.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• What a mini-retirement is and why it’s different from a traditional vacation
• The kinds of life experiences and healing that are possible when you step away from work
• Practical strategies for making mini-retirements financially and professionally realistic
• How time away can prevent burnout and create memories that last a lifetime

Work isn’t meant to consume our best years. Mini-retirements give us the chance to pause, reset, and live fully now, not decades from now. For professionals facing constant demands, Jillian’s story offers both hope and a roadmap.

About Our Guest:

Jillian Johnsrud never expected to retire early, so she chose to retire often. By 40, she had taken more than a dozen mini-retirements, traveling to 27 countries, living abroad, adopting four kids, investing in real estate, and touring the U.S. in a camper. She is the author of Retire Often and host of the Retire Often Podcast.

Website: jillianjohnsrud.com

Facebook  |  LinkedIn  |  Instagram

Book: Retire Often

Transcript

Are you a busy parent? Do you feel like you're being pulled in multiple directions all at once? Are you exhausted and overwhelmed? Meet my mom. Her name is Santi Tanikella. She's a pediatrician, expert in mind body medicine, and a life coach. She can help you break free from guilt and overwhelm, so that you can enjoy the life that you've worked so hard to create.

She can also teach you how to support your family in a more holistic way.

 Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the I Am Well MD podcast. Today, we have a special guest, Jillian Johnsrud. Jillian Johnsrud never expected to be able to retire early, so she hatched a plan to retire, often inspired by the idea of sabbatical years.

She set out to sprinkle retirements throughout her life. By the age of 40, she had taken over a dozen mini retirements. These allowed her to pursue dreams like living abroad, traveling to 27 countries, adopting four kids, plus having two biological kids, investing in real estate and touring the US in a camper.

Jillian has taught, coached, and wrote about many retirements for almost a decade. She hosts The Retire Often Podcast, and I feel super lucky to be able to bring her onto our podcast. So Jillian, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. So I have to ask, first off, what is a mini retirement?

This sounds like such a novel concept. 

I think there's a lot of different names that people use. Sometimes people call it a sabbatical or a gap year, a career break. A micro retirement. I define it by three different characteristics. One a month or longer. I think a month is like the minimum effective dose.

The second one, stepping away from your nine to five or your primary career. And then the third is to use the time to focus on something that matters to you. Amazing. 

So this really sounds like something that everybody needs. Yes. Everybody needs a break. Yeah. And I find that sometimes the week, like having a week off can be refreshing.

Mm-hmm. But 

then you go back into the grind and it's as if that week just evaporated. Right. Yeah. Like the gains from that week evaporate really quick. 

Mm-hmm. 

So how did you come upon the idea of mini retirements? You mentioned sabbaticals. 

Mm-hmm. 

But then it seems like you kind of further developed this idea.

Tell me more about that. 

So , I liked the idea of a sabbatical year. You know, me and my spouse at the time when we were in college, like we had $55,000 of debt and we went into low earning careers. So it wasn't like, yes, financial independence will be coming forthright, but I had these goals,

Ideas and these dreams that I really did wanna pursue that it would be tough to do alongside of a nine to five job. So the idea of taking a little career break, taking three months or a year to step away and to focus on this other stuff was really exciting. You know, there's things in life with an expiration date and there's some things that we can't just set on a shelf and wait till we're 65 and it still be there for us. For me that was traveling with my kids when they were young in a camper and, um, you know, doing a career pivot.

There were all these goals that, you know, if we waited till we were 65, the opportunity might've passed us by. So the idea of being able to step away and to pursue some of these things while we had the opportunity was really exciting and it felt a lot more accessible to me than perhaps early retirement, which just seemed kinda like a pipe dream.

Yeah, I can imagine that. I remember that phase of being in a lot of debt early on and yeah. The feeling of just being on a treadmill and sometimes I still feel like that, yeah, I do. Um mm-hmm. You know, feel like the treadmills never stops. And especially as you add more and more children to the mix and mm-hmm.

You know, everybody's timelines for specific things and everybody's schedules, it feels like an impossible thing to be able to just kind of put a stop to it or mm-hmm. Put a pause on it. I remember, in medical school, this was probably the first time I faced major burnout. Yeah. And it was between my first and second year of medical school.

Mm-hmm. A lot of my, , colleagues had considered doing a gap year, like mm-hmm. A gap year between college and medical school or college and their PhD or they took semesters off, you know? Mm-hmm. And so similarly, I was like, well, I want to, I wanna have some time off. I really don't wanna take a year off of medical school because I feel like getting the momentum to, and the motivation to want to go back is gonna be hard.

Yeah. So I ended up taking a summer away to be able to go to India and travel and hike in the Himalayas and visit children in small villages and provide medical care. And it was the most rewarding time of medical school.

Yeah. Because I got to do something that I would not have otherwise gotten to do. I got to gain this whole new perspective on medicine and healthcare and wellness. And it really set the foundation for me in a very fundamental way on how I was gonna practice. Mm-hmm. There was a lot of strength to be able to just step back, pivot, and then return, 

yeah.

Something that I didn't consider doing when I was in college. Not quite to this extreme, so, yeah. Tell me a little bit about some of the mini retirements that you have done. Sounds like you've had quite a few adventures. 

Yeah, we've done, um, over a dozen of 'em now, and I kind of group 'em into three different categories.

There's ones that can be more personal focused, whether that's travel or recovering from burnout or just kind of like pursuing hobbies. You know, we did a 10 week trip to 10 national parks with our kiddos when they were little in a popup camper. So last year I took a month off to learn tango, which was really fun.

I took a month off to do like a deep dive therapy program in my twenties, which was like incredible. It felt like a full house renovation. To just go in and like rewire everything. And then it really set a different trajectory for me for my personal growth going into my thirties.

But then there's career ones that we've done. I took a year off and it's when I started writing and that was actually 10 years ago. Uh, exactly. And now I have a book coming out. And there's ones that have been helpful financially. And so I think we usually think about the personal side ones, but these can be a big advantage to us financially.

Two of the many retirements we took my spouse at the time and I bought real estate and renovated and ended up with the rentals and that massively increased our kind of financial trajectory. But like you were talking about, you can also do ones that. Are beneficial to you professionally. Some people use the time for a career pivot or for extra education or certifications or like in your case, just exploring a different way of kind of showing up in your career.

And it's something that I know oftentimes medical professionals are like it depending on your specialty. You're like, well, I need so many hours, or I need to maintain my certification. But for a lot of people practicing medicine just in a very different way or in a different part of the world or in a very different context, can really help prevent.

Or mitigate that burnout because it feels lighter, it feels interesting. It feels engaging. It feels so different. You know, if you do maybe family medicine in California and then even if you go to like South Dakota and you work on maybe like in-home services on the reservation, you know, you're doing it in such a different modality that it can really be educational but also invigorating.

I absolutely agree. Yeah. And that was kind of what this did for me was, yeah, you know, some of these hikes were like four hours. Mm-hmm. The population I saw was totally different than what I would see in the US, and where I was doing my training, like I was doing my training in Philadelphia.

So yes, very different population. Yeah. And. Not only that, it wasn't just traditional allopathic medicine, it was different modalities of medicine. So I learned a little bit of Ayurvedic medicine, a little bit of naturopathy, a little bit of reiki, so on and so forth. And so that really supplemented it added color to what I felt was a very black and white medical system here in the US.

Mm-hmm. But circling back to mini retirements, the second time I took a break was between jobs and I took about five months off and it was when I started to really focus on this business, right? Creating a podcast, learning how to do a podcast, mm-hmm. Coaching and having clients and.

Being able to be present and helpful to society in a totally different way. 

Mm-hmm. 

All while healing myself. Because I was in a place of burnout too, and I was tired and I hadn't gotten to spend time with my kids in the way that I wanted to. So really being able to kind of hit the reset button, look objectively at all the things that I had in my life up until that point, the things that I was ready to say goodbye to, and the things that I was ready to keep was really, yeah, really pivotal to me.

Because it also created some space for me to be able to accept new things into my life that wouldn't have otherwise been there. So you mentioned this a little bit in your book, "Retire Often," right? The idea of what happens when a big tree dies. I love that analogy, that when a big tree dies, it makes room for other younger trees to grow up and become even stronger.

Yeah. It's a principle of nature in that nature's always kind of at capacity, it's always full. And it's very much like our lives. Our lives are always full. They're full with something. And if you remove something, in this case work, it opens up that space, that light, that nutrients, that water for new things to grow.

And it's really important when you're thinking about a career pivot. 'cause a lot of people don't wanna make a pivot until they know what they're pivoting to. But if your life is completely full, if you are at your max, how do you even imagine? What you could do next. How do you even have the creativity to envision that, let alone start working towards that or networking or building it because you are at capacity.

And so for a lot of people, they need this little mini retirement one to recover from burnout 'cause they're probably burned out. But also to create the space to see what could even grow. And I know a lot of people in the medical profession, they need the space to reimagine.

It's really tough in the medical profession because you have put a lot of time into it, a lot of money. And it's usually better paying than completely switching careers. Like if you can leverage some of that expertise, some of that knowledge.

But you know, she was super burned out and took a year off and then found another job where she also still had to be a doctor, but it was a very different way of practicing medicine. It was a very different context. And so while it was like a tiny pay decrease, the work life balance was massively different.

The emotional cost of it was massive. The administrative cost of it was massively different. Sometimes people think that a mini retirement, would set them back financially. But for a lot of people, if you're in a high earning profession, you being able to stay in that profession, to thrive in that type of profession and do well in it for an extra two years, five years, maybe 10 years, will have an a much more enormous impact on your finances than the cost of taking

three months or a year off. Like, I mean, I'm kind of a numbers geek. So if you think about, even if you know the idea that your money will probably double in the stock market every seven to 10 years. So if you had to retire from medicine at 50, 'cause it was like, I have to retire or it's gonna kill me, like I'm gonna die of a heart attack versus 60.

That might be the difference between retiring with a million and a half or 3 million. Like it can make a huge difference. And it might just be a couple mini retirements that are able to extend your career that much. 

Those are all really good points. On the topic of money, I imagine that some of the people listening to this podcast are probably like, "look man, I can't even, I can't even afford to take two weeks off, let alone have a month off," you know?

So what is some of the advice that you would give to somebody who feels like they might not have the funds to be able to do a mini retirement feasibly? 

Well, I think the first thing is to think about what the actual cost is. So I encourage people, let's say you have to replace the cost of that you normally earn, which if you can negotiate this off paid,

a hundred percent try to do that. But if that's not feasible and you know you're gonna have to cover the cost, so you have that cost. And then I really try to encourage people, depending on where you're at in your financial journey, at the most, spend an additional 50% of your monthly take- home pay per month on your mini retirement.

If you are early in your financial journey, front load the affordable options, front load the things that just don't cost a lot of money. Like I took a month off to learn Tango. I gave myself a thousand dollars Tango budget. Like, it was an amazing month and I still love tango so much. But it doesn't have to be super expensive.

There's a lot of ways you can reduce that cost. When we did that 10 week trip to 10 national parks, it was not expensive, like sleeping in a national park in a pop-up camper, that we pulled with our minivan, like not a super expensive trip. So if you're early in your financial journey, front load the affordable stuff. The around the world cruise, you can do that when you're 70, the more expensive things actually usually pair well with later in age when you're 60 or 70 or 80 if you want like an all- inclusive resort in the Caribbean. If you want a round the world cruise, if you want a really expensive hotel in Paris, like you can enjoy that at 70. Don't do that at 35.

Do the popup camper road trip at 35 because at 70 you're like, yeah, I'm not doing a popup camper anymore. So front load that, and then on the math side, if I have a chapter in the book of what if you took a month off every other year, how much additional would you have to save? And it's six and half percent.

You just have to save an additional six and a half percent. One of the discouraging things about traditional retirement, it's just really long ways away. So, like the point between I'm going to not do this thing to save money and then enjoy that money later is a long loop, where if you're gonna take a mini retirement next year or in two years, yeah

you're skipping out on like your Chipotle burrito bowl that you have every Friday now, but it just means because next year you're gonna be in Mexico on the beach, eating street tacos, like you're trading one for the other. Yeah, no, that's a 

great point. Yeah. Like whatever that bigger goal is, yes, we can save a few dollars per day or per week to be able to meet that bigger goal. I feel like that's a really great way to go and even just having these gentle reminders around the house, like the post-it note over your mirror to say like, "can't wait to go to Spain!

Spain 2026!" Yeah. Right. Like, it might just be that, just enough motivation to kind of like, okay, we're not gonna get that extra massage today. Yeah, yeah. We're not gonna get the mani-peti that we planned for, or we're not gonna go buy the Ferrari, 

whatever. 

It's, but 

it gives purpose to whether you are, I don't even say like avoiding an expense or, withholding it from you.

You're just transferring it to a date very shortly in the future, but it gives more meaning to that. Or if you're deciding to take on extra work. I had clients who were really struggling financially, but she was really burned out and needed a mini retirement. And so we started looking through their budget and doing kind of this mindful money review at the end of the month of like, where did the money go?

Knowing what we know now, like, did it give as much joy as we expected? Did it provide more joy, less joy? And one of the things they noticed, they were like, we spent $700 last month on wine. They're like, and we don't drink that much. They're like, "how did this happen?" But they went out to dinner like once or twice a week and they got kind of a nice bottle of wine once or twice a week, which "including Tip was like a hundred bucks a bottle.

Yeah. So. Even once a week, well, okay, that's 400 of twice a week, then that's 800 a month. And then they would buy a couple nice bottles for home. And I was like, okay, well it's your money. Like this is non pejorative. There's no judgment. You can spend it however you want, but do you want that more or do you wanna be able to take this time off and recover from burnout more? Like we get to choose which one we value more and which one's more important to us right now, and allocate your money in that direction.

If you're in a high earning profession or even not a high earning profession, you can kind of start to look at taking on additional work or earning extra money in that context. One of the tools I encourage people to do is to kind of have a, like an a la carte menu for what your mini retirement is gonna cost.

Like break down what all of those expenses are. Like, okay, you're gonna go to Paris. How much are you gonna spend on museums? How much are you gonna spend on airfare, on hotels? And just list out all those costs separately, because then you can say, "oh, actually, like I could take on one extra shift maybe three times a month that would bring in an extra $2,000.

Oh, that covers actually all of our food when we're in Paris. Hmm. Like, I didn't, I wasn't super excited about those extra shifts. But yeah, if it covers all of our food this month, like, okay, I'll do that this month and the next month, oh, that covers all of our hotel costs. Okay, sure. For the hotel in Paris,

then I'll take on these couple extra shifts." So you can decide whether it makes more sense to increase that income a little bit, taking on these extra things or reduce some of those expenses. 

Awesome. All really good points. Now what if the boss says "no"? Mm-hmm. And then you end up having to kind of part ways, I imagine this happens sometimes for people who want to take a little bit extra time off.

Mm-hmm. More than a month. I feel like a month for most places, might be a little bit difficult to swing, but not impossible. But let's say you wanna do three months to six months, or even more, like a year. Mm-hmm. Are there ways to negotiate something like that with your employer? 

If you love your employer, if you want to go back to work there and you want between one and three months off, I would start by trying to negotiate that off.

And in my book I outline like a whole chapter of like, how do we craft that story? How do we have those conversations? Because how you frame up that conversation is really important. You want to put it in a good context, but if you're looking at one to three months, definitely start by trying to negotiate that off.

And I usually recommend that amount of time because that's typically what HR is used to letting people have for leave. And so they have the infrastructure behind the scenes to make that happen. If you want a longer mini retirement, usually that means separating from your employer, but that doesn't always

mean having to go look for a new employer. Like I actually had a client, she was a psychiatrist and her sister was a doctor. And I think because me and her sister had been working together, like sometimes ideas spread in groups. Mm-hmm. You know, you make good changes and then like people around you wanna make those same good changes.

Her sister was like, that's it. I'm quitting my job. Like I'm a doctor, I'm burned out. Like I just can't do this. And she just went in because she wasn't my client. She just went and was like, yeah, yeah. Peace out people. I'm done. I can't do this. I'm so sorry. I just, I need a year off and just fully expecting to quit.

And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How about, okay, we get it. You need a year off. That's cool. But would you just come back when, like after you're done with your time off, like, will you please, will you please come back? Wow. And there's a lot of professions and, or even if you're just really good at your job.

They don't wanna lose a good employee. And so if they know you have to leave for whatever reason for a year, it's not even that they hold exactly your job, they just want you back either in that role, in a different role, in some capacity. So behind the scenes logistics of it, sometimes you do separate from your employer for all sorts of HR reasons, with the understanding that as soon as you're ready, as soon as you're ready to come back to work, please let us know.

Please reapply because we would love to have you back. And I see that a lot in the medical profession because there can be very high- demand roles and if you're really good, they would rather have like someone that they know is really good than kind of gamble on a new person.

That's, yeah, that's certainly true for professions in which it's really hard to train somebody. Yeah. Or there's someone who's super- specialized. Mm-hmm. Or if you like, have a corporate executive job, right. Like the higher up you are in the corporate world, the harder it is to replace somebody and find someone of a similar skillset. I've never heard of somebody just walking out and then being asked to come back after a year. Like, to hear that has actually happened makes me mentally open so many doors.

Yeah. Oh wow. Not that I want to do that currently, but I know those moments at previous jobs that sentiment has certainly come up. I work with a lot of colleagues who have burnout and are just looking for relief, right?

I've also seen situations where people will try to make requests, requests are not heard, and ultimately they decide to quit. Mm-hmm. And the response is kind of like a more professional way of saying, "Hey, don't let the door hit you on the way out." Mm-hmm. You know, unfortunately those situations happen, too.

If that sort of situation were to arise unexpectedly when you go to try to negotiate for a mini retirement, how would you best handle that? 

I think one, it's good to know, like I always encourage people to negotiate it off because even if they say, no, you've learned some really good information about your employer.

You learned if they care about you, if they care about your happiness and wellbeing, if they're willing to make any accommodations for that. And if they're like, "yeah, we really don't care." Now you have factual information that you can take it. Keep in mind moving forward, like, how long do you really wanna stay with this employer, with this company?

But if you're planning on separating, there's two things I would look at doing. One, I go through in my book how to do like an exit negotiation, which I think a lot of people don't consider, but I always encourage people to do an exit negotiation, even if you're like, "yeah, I just want out of here." If for no other reason, even if you don't get any of your requests,

it gives you practice at negotiating, it gives you practice at these conversations in a place that you're leaving. So you might as well get as much practice as you can in this really important skillset, knowing that you bring that with you to your next professional chapter, your next job. And at no risk because you're leaving, you don't have to see these fools anyways.

So an exit negotiation is essentially looking at what are you willing to do to make this exit as easy as possible for your employer? And then, my magic words are, "in return I would appreciate," and what are those things that you would appreciate as you exit? You might give them three months notice, four months notice, you might help find the next person who would replace you,

you might wrap up certain projects, you might stay through certain seasons. You might be willing to be on call for a month or two after to handle certain aspects. There's a number of things that you might offer. And in return, I've seen people negotiate. They've actually negotiated raises.

To be fairly compensated before they left, for their bonuses to be paid out, to be fully vested, to be able, sometimes for people, it's just, I wanna do a four day work week. I wanna be off on Fridays until, you know, I'll stay for four months, but I'm going to not come in on Fridays. Or I want to work from home more often, or I don't wanna be on this project.

Like I'll stay for four months, but I'm exiting this project and I'm just gonna focus on wrapping up these other ones that I enjoy. So there's a lot of ways that you could maybe enjoy the time that you have there a little bit better as it prepares you for your mini retirement. And the second thing I would focus on is that networking to get your next job, whether you want to come back into your career in six months or a year or two years, starting that networking.

Figuring out how are you going to keep in touch with colleagues and people in your profession when you're not showing up at your job. And putting some thought into that. One of the things that can be helpful, especially in medical fields, if you need a certain number of training hours or licensing hours or whatever, is still attending professional events, still attending some conferences, things where you get

that credentialing, but also those networking opportunities and the ability to say, "yeah, I'm off doing this cool thing, but super excited about my career and excited about opportunities of when I come back," and you get to chat with a whole bunch of people in your professional field. So that can be like a double bonus.

I agree. Networking, I think is key. Whether you are planning to stay employed with your current employer or if you're planning to part ways in the future- 

mm-hmm. 

The way I think of it is you are going to have colleagues all your life. Yes. Right? You're gonna have- Well, again, most professions.

Yeah. You're gonna have colleagues your whole life. Who do you want to learn from, right? Mm-hmm. Who do you want to kind of pull ideas from? And the added benefit of building friendships, right? This is not all just professional. Mm-hmm. We're looking to see where there are other kindred spirits within our own fields.

Because great things happen when you put minds together. Mm-hmm. Excellent. 

One of the cool stories from one of my clients, she had been kind of an executive, in a corporate setting, her whole career in a certain industry. And she had mentored a lot of other young women as they were growing up in this career trajectory.

And so when she retired in her fifties and decided to do mini retirements, a lot of women in their fifties are nervous about stepping away from their career because of agism and feeling like I won't have any opportunity to go back into my field. But because she had mentored so many successful, bright rising stars in her career, a lot of those women had gone on to work at other companies, had gone on to own other companies, to start other companies, and she

consistently got calls from these women like, "Hey, we have this problem. I've got this logistical issue. I've got this like supply chain issue. Like you are the only one I know that can fix this. Like, you were my mentor. Will you please come in? Will you please come into my company for 10 weeks or for six months and help me fix this issue

while we find the right person?" And she ended up doing tons of consulting because of that networking, through that relationship building, through that, investing in other people's careers. So I think to your point of finding people who are like-minded, investing in those relationships, investing in the people coming up, because at some point you might want to step away, you might wanna do different things.

And these are the people that are gonna say, "oh, actually, now that you're free, could you come and help me in my business, in my project, in my practice, you know, for six months or a year."

It's such a great problem to have, right? When you leave the workforce thinking that, right?

Like, okay, this is it! And then people come outta the woodwork to just find out where you are, what you're doing, and whether or not you're able to help them with a specific problem. I feel like A. such an honor. It's such an honor to even be thought of in that way to be considered for this particular problem, but B, like, wow, did they really remember me after all these years?

Yeah. How wonderful. How wonderful. So, you kind of talk a little bit about seasons of life in your book. Mm-hmm. Right? Like young age and not worrying about being uncomfortable, not worrying about food situations as much, right? Mm-hmm. Like being able and willing to rough it when you're younger versus when you're older.

A lot of the people listening to the podcast are women who mm-hmm have children or are planning to have children, or their family members, really. Mm-hmm. And so this is something that came up for me when I had my first child, is I was a junior attending. Like I had just gone into practice.

Mm-hmm. I was in private practice at the time and I was only two years in and I got pregnant. I was so thrilled to be pregnant, always wanted to be a mom. So this is like living the dream and I didn't quite understand what it would feel like to go back to work after having my first child. 

Mm-hmm.

And 

in my residency program, right, like we go to medical school, we go to residency, and then we graduate from residency and we go on to the workforce 

mm-hmm as a 

full fledge attending. During residency, what I had seen was a lot of women having their babies and one month later they'd come back to work.

And 

that was the expectation that was set in that period of our lives. I remember thinking, I can do this. I got this. Mm-hmm. And I laugh because I'm just like, how stupid? It was such an unreasonable expectation. But I did it. I came back to work after a month.

My patient's parents thought that I was still pregnant. So many of them were like, Dr. Tanikella, when are you having your baby? And I was like, "I had my baby last month." And they were like, "why are you here?" Like, the alarm rising in their voice, like, "why are you here?"

In my mind, I was telling myself I'm dedicated, I am worthy of this job. Mm-hmm. I am trying to fill a hole that was created by my absence in the past month and, in my head, I had all these reasons and I remember thinking, these seem like small reasons in comparison to a newborn baby.

And so in those moments I just shrugged my shoulders and I was like, "well, I'm here!" And I just continued the work that I set out to do. I continued to care for my pediatric patients and, you know, it says so much about what we think the expectations are for ourselves.

Mm-hmm. 

And whether or not they're actually true, whether or not they're actually accurate. What I'm hearing from you in this conversation, and what I've taken away from the book is, at least ask at least try. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like, and if you get shot down, you've at least tried.

Yep. And I think that's such an important point here is, you know, sometimes we need to step away. Because there's a health issue. Mm-hmm. Sometimes it's having a baby or a life change, or the death of a loved one. Mm-hmm. Whatever the reason might be. You know, there's also those periods of time where we need to step away for our mental health.

There's times where we need to step away because we want to implant joy into our lives again, where we feel like it's been lost. Whatever the reason might be is, if we start to perceive this to be the new norm, this idea of being able to take time away for ourselves, then others are gonna follow and it won't be, it won't feel as stressful when we start to ask.

  📍  Life can feel like a constant balancing act, work deadlines, family responsibilities, and everything in between.

It's really easy to get stuck in go mode without ever stopping to ask, "what do I really want?" Imagine if you could set boundaries with confidence, say no without guilt, and start doing more of the things that light you up. That's what life coaching is all about, helping you get clear on what matters most and giving you the tools to make it happen.

Your life is unique, your journey's unique, and your solutions should be too. If you're ready to stop surviving and start living with intention, let's talk. Visit me at iamwellmd.com and click on the link to contact me. Send me a little message and we'll get you started with an introductory call. I hope to see you soon.

 

  

My hope, even if people are like, 'cause I know how tough it can be when you're like stuck in a other people's expectations and your imagination, has been limited by that. And my hope is that even if people aren't like, yeah, I'm gonna do mini retirement next month, if they read the book and it starts to shift something, it kind of starts to unlock something and they see actually maybe there's a different possibility.

Maybe if this happens, I could pivot this way and I could take advantage of this opportunity. Or actually I'm gonna move across the country. What if instead of starting a week later, what if I started three months later? And you start to do the financial moves and you start to think about your career in this new, in this new expectation of it's not gonna be one thing for 40 years, but I'm gonna have lots of opportunities for breaks and for rest.

And to pivot a little bit, because then if you start to just very subtly move in that direction, when something comes along, when something happens, you know, for you, instead of going back in a month, maybe if you would've read this book five years before, you'd be like, or three months. Like I could do a month or maybe three months.

And you're more prepared. Not just financially, but emotionally and psychologically life can look a lot of different ways. Our career can look a lot of different ways and we can tell ourselves different stories about what that means. You know, you had a story of like the most dedicated, the most motivated, the most committed to their careers, come back in a month.

That's one story. And maybe that's true for some people, but it doesn't have to be our story. We can tell our story in a very different way of my career is incredibly important to me and I'm super passionate about it. And because I'm so passionate about it, I'm gonna give all of the time and attention and focus I need to my baby to where I feel like that we've assured all of that up.

And so that when I come back, I come back a hundred percent and I come back excited to what I can bring to my profession. Not, I don't come back torn of like, I'm here, but I kind of wish I was there. You know, I'm here working with patients and like I'm really sad that, you know, my baby's napping with someone else right now.

But it's true. We can expand many mom do that definition. Yeah. Yeah. Motherhood's one of the few times where I always encourage people, like, give yourself permission to change your mind. Because I think as women, we do typically know ourselves and we know our minds really well, but I have found that the moment where we're most willing to reimagine something is right after we have a baby.

And I've seen a lot of women who are very career focused and they have a baby and they're like. Nope. This little baby, this is my jam now. And I've seen a lot of women who are like, I absolutely wanna be a stay at home mom. Like I've always wanted this. And then they're in that postpartum and they're like, Ooh, this is rough.

God, I miss working. Like, and so just like create the flexibility to change your mind if you want to tune in with yourself, to check in with yourself and to live out what feels most important, what feels most urgent, what feels most pressing in that moment. And to give yourself what you need, whether that's a little bit longer of a maternity leave or going back to work when you assumed, I'm gonna stay home and I'm gonna homeschool and I'm gonna make jam.

And I hundred percent thought that sourdough was my new life. And then you're like, oh, I don't know. I don't think so. I miss a paycheck. 

And then there's the middle ground I remember being a medical student and one of my mentors that I really looked up to had a baby.

Mm-hmm. And I talked to her about like, how are you working that out? Like, just kinda logistically. And she was like, well, I work full-time. I was like, okay. Yeah. Because full-time physicians work, some of them 60 to 80 hours a week. And so I was thinking that's just not sustainable when you're having kids.

And so I had asked her about part-time and she was like, that is majorly frowned upon in our field. 

Mm-hmm. You know? 

Now that was like early two thousands. Since then, there have been a lot of shifts in the medical culture. A lot of people now are more willing to have part-time physicians. 

Mm-hmm. 

And it's ironic because part-time still feels like full-time for many physicians.

Yeah. But it's more tolerable than 80 hours or 60 hours a week. Right. And so, you know, bringing it home to other professions, right. Like is part-time something that's feasible or what other accommodations can be made so that you're not always dreading going into work the following day. Right.

There might be some accommodations that you didn't even think about that maybe your boss is already aware of   and what it takes is an honest conversation.    It's so great to really be able to explore the possibilities of what's out there at work and how to reintegrate our lives around that.

Work does take up a lot of our mental space and a lot of our physical time.   So, being able to rebalance things in a way that feels authentic

like, isn't that what we're all seeking right now? You know, so there's the notion of mini retirements for one month to a year or even more. And then there's, you know, what can we do day to day mm-hmm. So we're not like waiting a year or two until we take our mini retirement? Like we're angry, anxious, and worried the whole way.

Yeah.

Can we remove some of those pain points in order to make our work situations enjoyable while we are working our way towards our mini retirement? 

And that's one of the great things about mini retirements is that the pro and con is that it can be logistically challenging on the work front, you know, who's gonna cover this?

How is this gonna work? What are all the logistics of this? But the pro of that is that once you figure out all the logistics of that, oftentimes in preparation for you leaving or upon your return, you've reorganized and restructured your work in a way that you can actually now have much better work-life balance.

Let's say you were working 70 hours a week and you had to make some tweaks and you had to make some adjustments, and some things had to shift a little bit for you to be able to step away for a month. But maybe you come back instead of working sixty hours a week, you're like, "oh, actually, now that we've moved some of the stuff around, I guess I could do this in like 45, huh?"

Like, now I either, I have this time and this bandwidth. Like maybe you own your own practice and you're like, now I could expand into these other areas because I have this bandwidth. I had a client who owned physical therapy at location and in kind of reorganizing her business then she was like, oh, like I think I could open a second location.

I think I could expand, like now I have more bandwidth to do this because I'm not the only one seeing all of these clients all the time. Like I've learned to delegate and to simplify a little bit. I have better systems and better processes in my practice. Or you come back and you're like, oh, I got like an extra 10 hours a week.

Like, maybe I wanna start doing yoga in the mornings. Maybe I wanna take my kids to soccer practice. Maybe I wanna start like cooking healthy lunches for myself. Whatever that is, I've seen people come back to a better work life balance or come back and scale up their business and scale up their professional life.

Some of the things you said there reminded me how important it is to just be intentional about what you would like to bring more of into your life. Mm-hmm. So you mentioned yoga and exercise and good food and everything. Attending to your needs makes the rest of your life flow so much smoother.

Yeah. And it sounds so basic, yet we forget. Or we put everything else first because we feel that they're inherently more important than us, but they're not. 

Mm-hmm. 

Right. Yeah. We are also important. Mm-hmm. And we should take care of our needs first simply because who else is gonna do it for us?

Yeah. So being able to kind of, in this way negotiate mentally, right? Like, what are the things that I absolutely have to have in my life? What are the things that I don't care as much about? What are the things that I absolutely don't want? Right? Yeah. And then really intentionally either

working out your job situation, working out your life situation, making sure you have hired help, whether that's at work or at home

mm-hmm 

to be able to make it such that your needs are met. You know, I think that's really key because otherwise we're just all doing everything all the time and 

mm-hmm.

That's not fun when you're just running like that, 

Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it takes extra time to get all that set up, which I've seen a lot of people use their mini retirements just to get caught up on life and to do those things that it takes more time upfront, like. Even hiring a house cleaner, like it saves you time, but it's more time upfront.

Like you have to like, talk to people and interview people and make phone calls and have 'em in your house and show 'em around. And like, it's a time- cost investment upfront, but you can use your mini retirement to invest in that stuff to close some of the metaphorical open tabs on your computer, you know?

Okay. We got our life insurance squared away. We got our will written, like we've figured out new insurance for our house. We got all of our closets cleaned out, like we fixed the stupid sink in the bathroom.

And so you can go back to work having lined some of the stuff up, and just not feel like you're about to drown all the time. Feel like it's manageable, feel like you're heads above water, and you can enjoy being at work and you can enjoy being at home. I think sometimes we underestimate almost that cognitive load of, I'm gonna spend the whole weekend getting caught up on stuff, or I'm gonna spend the whole weekend relaxing.

Both of them are bad choices. Like either way I'm gonna feel guilty because I'm doing the wrong thing because I need to be doing both of them, but I only have time to get caught up or to relax. I don't have time for both. 

I was gonna say for those people who feel guilty about doing one or the other or both.

Yeah, right. 

This is where being intentional or even scheduled is important. Not that everything needs to be in a schedule per se, but if you say, okay, from this time to this time, I'm gonna get X, Y, and Z done. And from this time and to this time I'm gonna go out to the movies with my kids.

Then there's no reason actually to feel guilty because we're accomplishing both. We're getting the stuff done that we've said we would get done, and we're also planning for enjoyment. Like this is the reward for all of us for having cleaned up the playroom, right? This is the reward for all of us for having cooked and cleaned all the dishes, right?

And then there's gonna be times where you're just so exhausted that you're like, I can't do anything. I have to rest. In which case it's like, you know, when you feel that guilt creeping up, it's, listen, if you need to rest, you need to rest. Yeah. If this were my best friend, I wouldn't guilt them.

Yeah, 

right. I would say, oh, you look really tired. You need rest, can I get you some tea? Like, what? How can I help you? Right? Like, you'd be so much kinder to your friend than you would be to yourself, so why can't we show ourselves that level of kindness? So, Jillian, as we kind of, wrap up the podcast.

Mm-hmm. You know, I created this podcast with the intent to heal ourselves. Mm-hmm. To heal our children's children and to heal their children. 

Hmm. 

So do you have any last words of advice that you'd like to share with our audience? 

I think when we think about our children and our children's children, I think we have to be really intentional about what we're modeling in, what role our work and our career plays in our lives, and what a career looks like because we've taken this model from our parents and our grandparents and our great-grandparents, that we're gonna work in one profession in one company for 40 years, and then we're gonna get a pension, and we're gonna retire at 65, and we're gonna be really comfortable.

Except doesn't work anymore. That's not our current economy. And so for us to just replicate what already is not working, it's just gonna pass that burden onto our kids then to reimagine. Where, I think it's much more of a gift if we're like, okay, we're the ones that are gonna reimagine what our working career looks like.

We're the ones who are gonna reimagine what a work-life balance looks like in demanding careers, in nonstop careers. How do we function? How do we survive in our careers, in this economy? And if we model that so that we're not passing on the thing that already doesn't work, and instead we're setting the example of, you know what, we can work really hard for five years and then we can take three months off and we can work really hard for two years and we can take a month off and then we can work really hard for three years and then we can take three months off and we're gonna be present in your lives and we're gonna be present for ourselves, and we're gonna be present for our biggest goals and our values and our dreams, alongside long, productive, meaningful careers.

I love 

this. 

One of the things that comes to mind is, when you talked about the generations before us, is how much they identified with their career. Yeah. Right? Like, they felt like the career was them,   and they were their career. Mm-hmm. And I feel like we're now starting to make this separation between this is my career and this is me.

Who I am is way more three dimensional than what just my career is. And while I feel honored to be in this career, 

mm-hmm. 

While I feel like I bring a lot of gifts to the table here, I also feel like I bring my gifts everywhere I go. Right. Yeah. So being able to tease apart these things that used to be inseparable  

right, is something that I feel like is a gift that I would wanna pass on to my kids as well. Because let's say you get fired. Instead of it being a devastating, sort of critical slash to your identity. Right? Yeah. This now becomes an opportunity for us to kind of reflect and see where we wanna go next.

Right. Yeah. It may mean less than what the generations before made it mean.

I was just gonna say, and if you've practiced mini retirements, you see getting laid off as, oh, well now's the perfect opportunity to pivot back to those travel plans I had or to pivot back to that hobby that I was engaged in, or to pivot back to that schedule that I really worked at during one of those mini retirements that was so fun for me and my kids.

Like, it's not a loss, it's an addition. It's the, okay, I was in a really busy working season and now I get to be in a personal development season or in a financial improvement season. And then we'll pivot back to the career again. I think especially in professions where we tend to very, I won't even say over- identify, but very strongly identify with our work,

it can be a difficult transition to step away from that. And so mini retirements are like a very bite-sized, little practice round. It's a little practiced opportunity to build out that identity, to build out that meaning and purpose outside of your job. Because I tell people who love their work, they're passionate about their work, they're very strongly identified with their work.

Like that's great, but you need to figure out how to build that outside of your work, that identity, that passion, that purpose. 'cause you only have two options. You can either figure out how to build that outside of your work or you can die at your desk. That's it. So 

morbid actually. 

So we can start practicing to build it out now, or you can wait till you're 70.

And I mean, there's a reason that a lot of people die shortly after retirement 'cause they never practiced figuring this stuff out during their career. And that's a real sad fate to, to give so much to your career until you're 67 or 72, and then postpone all of these dreams and all of these goals for this golden retirement.

And then you get there and you're so untethered because you never built out these other parts of your life that you die two years later, like, and you don't get to enjoy all that stuff. Mm-hmm. So I think many retirements are, they are a practice- round for building out these other parts of our lives so that when you do either want to retire fully or you're forced to retire fully for whatever reason, that can also be a great season of your life.

Fully agree. 

And that's it. The icing on the cake, right? Mm-hmm. Is not having to wait. Yeah. For what seems like forever and a half Yeah to enjoy life, right? We can have these beautiful moments that fill our lives with meaning and purpose and great stories that we tell our children and our grandchildren down the line.

That not every adventure is when we're in our sixties and seventies. Yeah. Some of those adventures happened in our thirties and yeah. You know, so beautiful. So Jillian has written the book, Retire Often, and I encourage everybody to run out and get it. Jillian, where can people find you? 

The book's pretty much everywhere, but everything else that I do and offer is retireoften.com, including a very unhinged newsletter. So if you like random, unhinged things, uh, that is there. And then on social media, I'm at Jillian Johnsrud. 

Thank you so much again for being on the podcast.

This is great. Thanks so much for having 

me.

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