Have you already abandoned your New Year’s resolutions? Did you even have any?
Anyone can learn to switch off. It’s not that hard. Even ten minutes a day helps reduce the risk of burnout and increase quality of life. At inspiranten, we take the time we need to produce our best work and to foster productive communication, and that includes taking the ‘time to unwind’.

Do these New Year resolutions seem familiar? They are Germany’s top five, says consumer group Stiftung Warentest?

  1. Avoid or reduce stress (57 percent)
  2. Make more time for friends and family (54 percent)
  3. Get more exercise or do more sport (52 percent)
  4. Take more time for myself (47 percent)
  5. Eat healthier (47 percent)

One thing is clear: New Year Resolutions are easily made. While people do mean them quite seriously, they are quickly abandoned and even more quickly forgotten. Next year, maybe. Or maybe not.

For many years, inspiranten have been actively working for companies’ internal communications and human resources divisions. Our goal: valuable, respectful work, shaped to every individual, whether for executives or the people who work for them. We reduce everyday work stress for our clients and begin to make changes in internal company processes, and we do it with our characteristic good humour and a constant focus on the demands that our clients really face.

inspiranten take the time needed for better work and more productive internal communications.

Just a few years ago, if someone said they were ‘scaling down’ their workload, people would have reacted with pity. These days, the decision to reorganise one’s priorities, to pay more attention to private life, is far more likely to be greeted with respect. Not long ago, downshifting’ – shifting down a couple of gears – was frowned on. Success meant professional success, and professional success could only mean having responsibility for a large and increasing number of colleagues and subordinates. But these days, we know a lot more about another, less pleasant word: burnout.

But it is possible to learn some easy, quick techniques – no more than ten minutes a day – to learn how to switch off, reducing the risk of burnout and maintaining real quality of life.

Just ask Wibke Regenberg, a business coach who concentrates on personal and professional development for top executives, with a particular focus on stress, conflict management, self-guidance and burnout prevention. At the beginning of the year, we were strongly convinced by her latest talk ‘Burnout!? Me!? I don’t have TIME for burnout!’

Regenberg presented her LESA® model, which includes seven ‘life pillars’ and a strong base on which to base our lives. She explained how each one of these areas of life can be strengthened as a way of warding off the risk of burnout. One key step in this direction is to learn to love oneself.

If you look in the mirror in the morning and see a stressed face full of worry lines, consciously take the ‘time to unwind’.

You can find more information to help towards a balanced life on her website www.wibke-regenberg.com.