The effects of a sabbatical: a retrospective by Ludovica Brachinger-Franke

Ludovica, since October you are back from the sabbatical. What is it you remember most of this time?
It was just beautiful! Six months full of creating, experiencing, living, and enjoying – with all this freedom to decide anew and spontaneously each day, how you want to spend the time. Without all the structures and the pressure, which so often belong to the work of a consultant. I really enjoyed what I miss most during my work – being in Nature, fresh air, sunshine and having my daily work-out.

A lot has been said about the positive effects of such a sabbatical. Which are the effects you realize now in your daily work?
Work-life-balance and health care –for me this has become such an important subject during the last years – and I have learned a lot in those months. I took part in some seminars and learned the most via my own body.
And this learning and those experiences they are now part of what we use in our own meetings and what we teach others. For example, by using body-movement and exercises for relaxation and for bringing back the energies.
In our office there a now a lot of small dump-bells, which everyone can use in the short breaks. And it is fun to see my colleagues stretching and moving….
And this is also quite typical for us: we learn, we experiment with ourselves and then our knowledge and the evaluated experience finds its place in the work with our customers. And there is also a trace in the academy from my sabbatical: a new seminar, called “Fit for Success”

And how is it for you personally?
The regeneration during the sabbatical has brought me a lot of power and energy for my work, and much more quiet, thoughtfulness and being relaxed while working. During the coming last decade of my work, I want to focus on what reflects my competency and my passion best.
And there is the effect that I deal with my family, my work even more diligent and enjoy them even more. I learn more and more to really understand the value of all the different segments of my life. And it means an incredible richness to attend to my work and my family with both my heart and my mind fully!

What would you recommend when one of your colleagues will go into the sabbatical soon?
One advice, which I would have given myself before the sabbatical as I see it now, is: Stop planning!
I don’t know, if that fits for my colleagues, but for me this has been the biggest challenge and the strongest pleasure at the same time: To organize my time without the preset of Outlook!

It was Karin Pressa who asked the questions.