With burnout at unprecedented levels who doesn't dream of stepping away from it all and embracing a career break. But can it solve the problem?
In early 2024, it looked like my career was in full flight. It had been one of my busiest years to date.
As a freelance comedian I created and filmed a web series and sold out a season at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. My life was even documented on Australian Story. But at the same time, the TV show I had worked on since 2020 had been axed. And I narrowly missed out on several jobs that would have sent me on my way to being a household name.
I caught myself slowly becoming jaded about the entertainment industry. After all, I've been performing since I was a teenager and more than 15 years later, I'm still waiting for my "big break".
I figured a change of scenery would do me good. I felt yearning to take control of my calendar, instead of waiting around for job prospects. I had always imagined myself living overseas at some point. I just couldn't figure out a suitable time to move, while working my butt off trying to get to the next level in my career.
With Australia's cost-of-living crisis firmly taking hold, I narrowed down my options.
- Stay put and pay a ridiculous amount for a kilo of capsicum, or
- Pay a ridiculous amount for capsicum, but do it in an exciting, new location.
There was an easy offer in front of me. Having already done long-distance with my boyfriend for about seven months, I decided to take the leap and join him where he lived: Hong Kong.
And so I opted for option two.
'I felt a huge sense of relief'
Anyone who has lived in the New York of Asia, knows this 24-hour city has a reputation for its excellent train system, great food and rude service.
Hong Kong is often listed among the world's most expensive cities. A cup of coffee is consistently above $10. Not to mention the time I thought I'd bought the "cheaper" option, an iced tea, but ended up paying $14 instead. I counselled myself not to be concerned. The plan was to work as hard as I did back in Australia, earn a decent local wage and move towards unlimited coffee and iced tea.
I packed two suitcases and held a farewell party for my friends, not knowing when I would be back.
During my first few weeks in Hong Kong, something happened that took me by surprise. The notifications on my phone suddenly ceased to exist. There were no more messages to catch up with friends. Even the scammers stopped ringing. "The grind" completely stopped.
In the silence, without the pressure to be anyone or do anything, I realised how burnt out I was. The last thing I felt like doing was networking, "hustling", or trying to "scale up" my business.
I didn't feel anxious, nor any sense of underachievement. Instead I felt a huge sense of relief.
Even though Hong Kong has almost 7000 people crammed into every square kilometre (Australia has 3.4), the city somehow became a place I could hide out for a while.
Aussies are more stressed and more tired
I certainly displayed the three dimensions of burnout described by the World Health Organisation: "Exhaustion, cynicism and reduced professional efficacy" and felt sure I could not be alone. In 2023, researchers from the University of Melbourne went as far as labelling Australia the "great burnout" country and while burnout rates are trending downwards globally, in Australia burnout is at a record high. The study found people who are distracted at work are more likely to experience burnout and loneliness. As a result, they are less productive.
Intersectional groups, such as people of colour and gender, age or socio-economically diverse individuals, felt even greater levels of burnout, lower wellbeing and a reduced sense of belonging. For instance, 65 per cent of women with a disability felt high levels of burnout.
Professor Mark Wooden from University of Melbourne has spent two decades studying economic and personal well-being in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey.
"Every year we'll ask a question about how time-stressed people are — and if anything, that's come down and improved," he says. "But interestingly enough, when you ask people about anxiety and feeling tired, that's gotten worse. It's been particularly severe amongst young people under 30."
According to Wooden, young workers are not necessarily working the hardest but they have greater fears and anxieties about housing and getting into the housing market. That anxiety is making them more tired than they should be.
It was time to 'lean in'
Six weeks after starting my new life in Hong Kong, I hadn't found any meaningful work. I thought I knew how to navigate lack of work routine having been a freelancer for seven years, and I was used to living pay cheque to pay cheque. As well as working in broadcasting, I am a qualified celebrant. But in Hong Kong, I couldn't land the same jobs I was qualified for back home. It dawned on me, that even though I had not planned for it, it was time to "lean in" to this period of non-activity and embrace it for what it really could be: a career break.
After unlocking all this thinking time, I began to connect the dots and realised I was not the only one wanting a mini-retirement. I had noticed a few of my friends with stable, high-paying jobs were tapping out of work. They had taken time off, ranging from six months to a year or more, due to a lack of work-life balance.
No doubt much of the current workforce would baulk at being able to afford this kind of privilege. But these individuals told me they had been driven to breaking point. Even though it seemed like the worst time to do it — their careers were peaking and cost of living had never been higher — my friends deemed it more important to preserve mental health and wellbeing.
These career breaks were being treated differently to things like gap years, maternity leave and long service leave. Career breaks don't seem to have a set time frame or defined output, and do not necessarily focus on travelling but self-care instead. Traditional leave usually comes with the knowledge that one will return to their stable job. Or in the case of a gap year, like the one I took after university at 21, I knew I would be applying for jobs and having to become a real adult once I got home.
It seems like even when we try to take time off these days, we can't help but think about work in one way or another.
Long walks, learning Mum's recipes and family time
One of my first friends to put the brakes on was Nhung, a 33-year-old project manager with a master's degree. She took five months off her well-paying construction job to tackle burnout from her work and personal life.
In our catch-ups, Nhung would update me on how the break gave her time to reset and upgrade her daily habits, health and mindset, and allowed her to get in touch with her creative side. She came out with a renewed sense of resilience and said she no longer felt overwhelmed by issues that cropped up at work and home.
Nhung's experience made me think I could really do with some extra resilience, especially when working in the arts.
I was fortunate enough to be able to stay at my partner's apartment in Hong Kong rent-free, and so gave myself permission to enjoy time off without guilt — something that is almost impossible for someone like me who was raised in a Chinese household.
School holidays were for doing extra homework to get ahead of your peers, reading the dictionary and doing chores. Some of the things my dad did "for fun" included keeping handwritten records of all our household expenses and taking photographs of our groceries (he was in the food import/export industry but often didn't know when to leave work behind).
You can imagine how jarring it was to allow myself to enjoy long walks along the waterfront in the middle of the day and do nothing but "stare at the dog", which became an in-joke for sitting around without doing anything productive.
I suppose that makes me a few years late to the "lying flat" trend, which emerged amongst young people in China in 2021 and went viral around the world. People were rejecting societal pressures and the "996" life (working 9am to 9pm, six days a week) and replacing it with minimalism and self-fulfilment.
While "doing nothing", I discovered ingredients for Asian cooking were much easier to find in Asia (who would have guessed?) and learning recipes from my mum was, in fact, a far more pleasant experience when you place 7000km of distance between us. Instead of my mum taking over in the kitchen whenever I asked her to show me how to make something, she sent me voice messages on WeChat along with detailed photos of the cooking methods. Recipes like her delicious, aromatically spiced lamb stew. Her quick and filling chicken, tofu and corn soup. And my most requested dish back home: poached chicken with ginger and shallot dipping sauce.
This whole time I thought of myself as a terrible cook in comparison to my mother but now I realise, like anything, it was just a skill that required time to perfect.
Without work commitments, I was able to make trips to Guangzhou to put in some face time with my extended family. On one occasion, I had to share a bunk bed with my cousin's eight-year-old kid, but it was worth it to spend all day speaking in my dialect (Taishanese) and to just hang out. One night I was waiting to fall asleep in my top bunk and I thought, "Wow. Let's be honest. When was I really going to make time for this?"
Wooden from the University of Melbourne says there are no reliable statistics on how many people take career breaks. But job mobility rates are an indicator of how people feel about their work. In August 2021, during COVID which sparked a Great Resignation, the monthly rate of US workers quitting their jobs reached 2.9 per cent. This was the highest rate since recording began in 2001, and equivalent to 47.8 million workers leaving or changing jobs
In Australia, the job mobility rate has fallen to pre-pandemic levels. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found 8 per cent (or 1.1 million people) changed their employer or business between February 2023 and February 2024. Australia's job mobility rate peaked in 2022 with 9.5 per cent (or 1.3 million people) changing jobs.
Wooden says even if people are keen to change jobs, they probably cannot afford the financial risk.
Redefining what a sense of achievement feels like
David Lescai, 40, is taking that risk. The senior professional is nine months into a career break. After working as a public servant for nearly a decade, the pandemic was Lescai's first experience without a stable job.
After eight years of back-to-back fixed-date government contracts, Lescai lost his job. With nothing to replace it he took casual jobs: one at a friend's winery and another delivering chocolates and desserts to people's doorsteps, to "make their day". The change of pace made him re-evaluate his priorities.
"It proved I didn't need much to live or thrive," Lescai says.
After missing out on two full-time roles Lescai says he was forced to reflect on exactly what he was working towards.
"When you're young, it's great to gather experience but it comes to a point where you ask, 'Where is this experience leading to?'" he says.
Lescai began to wonder: "So why am I doing this?"
"If there's no [permanent] contract, they'll just replace you really quickly," he says. "They're not going to miss you."
But leaving work has also left Lescai with a few dilemmas he has yet to resolve. He has had to re-evaluate where he gets his sense of achievement, if not from work. His active lifestyle has been his biggest source of happiness. He has picked up padel and plays twice a week ("it's like tennis had a baby with squash"). He goes running with a couple of different groups and has completed two marathons. Lescai found his energy levels improved from not working nine or more hours each day. His family and friends get to enjoy him at his best.
Having the ultimate flexibility in his social schedule does have limits. Lescai admits: "there are only so many brunches you can have."
Lescai's goal for his career hiatus is to emerge having found the perfect role for him. He calls it his "unicorn job", where passion meets profitability.
Trying everything and 'failing at everything'
Unlike generations before them, many millennials and Gen Zs are searching for jobs and hobbies that align with their "Ikigai" — the oft-referenced Japanese concept about finding purpose in life, combining passions, talent and a feeling of fulfilment.
Wooden says completing higher education plays a big part in people's expectations from work. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2024, 33 per cent of people aged 15-74 held a bachelor's degree or above.
"[Higher education] teaches us not to settle for less but not everyone can have jobs that fulfil our expectations if so many people are highly educated. Some will, no doubt, be left disappointed," Wooden says.
For Rachel Madin, 27, a career break was unpredictable and put her in some truly mind-boggling situations in Australia and overseas.
Her first job out of high school in 2016 was as a medical receptionist. She continued working part-time, while completing her bachelor's degree in Mandarin Chinese and film studies. After graduation, Madin found it extremely difficult to find work in the fields she had studied, so she kept her receptionist job.
"I found it started to become really draining. I started questioning all my life choices,'" she says.
At the time, Madin was learning to play in the gamelan, a traditional Indonesian percussion orchestra. She left her job and took up an arts and culture scholarship to study music in West Sumatra.
"I made so many friends. I was learning Bahasa Indonesian, so I engaged with my passion again The eruption of Mount Marapi cut the exchange short, leaving Madin with a "mental breakdown". Not ready to jump back into work, Madin started an Instagram account about crocheting, to fulfil her artistic side. In a matter of days she gained 10,000 followers, and then 35,000.
"I made it, I'm an artist. I can be a full-time crochet influencer!" she rejoiced.
The high was short-lived, as the pressure to post caused her to burn out, yet again. Looking back Madin says the career break taught her to stop beating herself up about "failing".
"I've decided in life, I need to stop saying, 'I should be doing this or that'. I'm just going to explore whatever I'm curious about next," she says.
Career 'break-ers' likely to face criticism
Lescai knows his younger self would have been judgemental of anyone taking an extended work break. Recently, one of his friends reacted in complete disbelief at his rejection of the nine-to-five life.
Madeleine Dore, podcast host and author of I Didn't Do the Thing Today says we can be quick to recognise when someone else might need a break, but rarely give ourselves the same permission.
"Allowing ourselves to just 'be' can provide the space for important things like clarity, desire, and insight to emerge," she believes.
After trying so many alternatives, Madin returned to medical reception work at a separate clinic, where she continues to work today. But her parents often ask what she is doing with her life.
"I think what keeps pulling me back to medical reception is it's the only job where I feel like I'm making a difference, she says. "I get to interact with people and help them solve problems. It gives you a sense of purpose."
Madin learnt a valuable lesson from her time overseas.
"In Indonesia," she says, "people rarely ask, 'What do you do for work?' whereas here, it's usually the first thing people ask. They want to scope out how successful you are. I didn't find a healthy balance until I stepped away from work."
Daizy Maan is a high achiever who describes herself as "a victim of ambition".
She first entered the workforce at 14 and became financially independent at 16 and moved out of home. Now 30, Maan has worked 17 different jobs, ranging from hospitality to call centres. She was working at an unsustainable pace, which led to take two years off work at the age of 28.
"Every year I would burnout around November. I'd get mildly depressed, and I'd take six weeks to go meditate in the Himalayas. There's no internet there," she says.
The Himalayan trips were a temporary solution, as Maan would return refreshed but about three months later, she would repeat the cycle of descending into burnout once again.
The money question
While taking a career break sounds like a fantastic idea, letting go of a steady income is understandably daunting for many.
Maan says she had saved so much from her job and was "strategic" by living in an affordable area. She calculated she could even take four years off work before her money ran out. She made a deliberate choice not to buy a house, believing "a house is the biggest stress and a self-fulfilling cycle of mortgage, job and work."
Lescai believes one of the main reasons he has been able to afford so much time off is because he makes sure to spend within his capacity. "I cut down on areas where I splurge, like social drinks and buying rounds," he says. When he goes out these days, he aims to spend a maximum of $50. Lescai still has plans to buy a house one day and has no intention of wiping out his bank balance completely.
Looking back on her year off, Madin says she was lucky.
"I was in such a privileged position to take a career break. I had savings from all my years in medical reception and the scholarship program was paid for," she says.
Another advantage was not having to pay rent or a mortgage, as she lives with family. Her boyfriend has also been incredibly supportive, she says.
For me, not paying rent was certainly a benefit. My only expenses were groceries, occasional takeaway meals and perhaps one ludicrously expensive coffee per week. Things I would normally splurge on back home like clothes, make-up and some forms of entertainment were just too unaffordable for me to even consider.
Yet despite being thrifty, I still did a fair bit of damage to my bank account. After spending six months overseas, my accounting program tells me my income is down over 80 per cent compared to this time last year. While I lost income, I gained wisdom.
The magic of bathing pigeons
If you are taking a career break Madeleine Dore advises giving yourself space to experiment, to make mistakes, and to redefine what a day well spent truly means. Pay attention to personal growth and wellbeing — like sleeping well, learning something new, spending time with people you love and practising kindness — rather than external measures of success.
I found it most satisfying to do the things I hoped I would get around to doing "some day", such as reconnecting with my culture, learning languages through immersion and shaking off my impostor syndrome around cooking. My dad had spent almost a decade living in Hong Kong from the age of eight, and walking through the same streets as he once did made me understand my family on a deeper level.
My career break ended up being one of the most chaotic and uncertain years of my life. I learned to ground myself through daily routines — no matter how small and insignificant they may appear. Enjoying coffee at home in the morning and taking a walk to the shops. Doing the dishes while watching pigeons take a bath in the neighbour's gutters. Making a meal and not having to eat it at my desk.
I was able to enjoy stand-up comedy again. When I did get on stage it was purely for the love of the game rather than striving for financial gain or commercial success.
A message from the universe: it's time
As more job enquiries from Australia started coming through, and incompatibilities began showing up in my relationship, it became harder to justify staying in a place where I was not working. The universe was sending me a clear message: it was time to go home.
I could not have imagined I would come away from this period of my life appreciating the underrated power of "doing nothing". I say that half-jokingly because I do believe humans cannot help but find meaning and purpose within "the nothing". To quote from the book Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life: "Life is not a problem to be solved. Just remember to have something that keeps you busy doing what you love while being surrounded by the people who love you."
Since Madin returned to work, she has found new hobbies like stained glassmaking and she recently started a masters in primary school teaching.
"I still crochet a lot," she says. "I walk the dog. I kind of do nothing. It's nice."
On a Monday, when her boss at the medical centre asks what she did over the weekend, Madin is constantly baffled. "I don't know. I couldn't tell you," she says.
Instead, she radiates a quiet contentment — even if she claims to have ended up exactly where she started.
Credits
Words: Annie Louey
Illustrations: Emma Machan
Editor: Catherine Taylor
