What we’ve learned from work-life balance expert Leni Bolt

June 20, 2023

Leni Bolt is a work-life expert, author, host of the Netflix series Queer Eye Germany, creator of the “Grow and Flow” podcast and was named by LinkedIn as a Top Voice of 2023. In addition to her podcast, Leni regularly publishes on LinkedIn, Instagram, her e-learning platform Kompaz and her own website posts surrounding the topic of work-life balance.

As a work-life expert, Leni Bolt gives advice on how we can harmoniously combine our professional and private lives. She’s realized that many people are dissatisfied with their current working situation, yet they don’t know what they should do to change it. In 2018, she suffered from burnout herself, and realized quite blatantly that she had to change something in her job and the way she was living. Now, five years later, she’s sharing her insights in work-life based content on various platforms, and we certainly have already learned a few things from her.

Self-care at the workplace

Self-care and mindfulness in the daily (work) routine – these are essential issues for Leni Bolt. Self-care is an important cornerstone of our physical and mental health. It’s about recognizing our own needs, valuing and pursuing them. Mindfulness is a focused awareness of the present, a conscious perception of what we’re feeling, allowing for deliberate and cognitive decisions. Self-care and mindfulness are therefore closely linked and contribute positively to our wellbeing. The world we’re living in is fast-paced and puts a lot of demands on us. Particularly, in regards to our work, it can be extremely difficult just to simply pause for a moment.

To that end, we’ve found the 5 following tips from Leni for including more self-care at the workplace inspiring:

take breaks
say no
ask for help
set your boundaries
reject the hustle culture

For those working remotely (where the distinction between work and private life often becomes blurred) Leni especially recommends creating a deliberate balance. So instead of simply shuttling back and forth from your desk to your couch, give yourself a genuine break by going out for a walk during your lunch hour or after you’ve finished your work.

Tools for combating stress at work

Many people experience negative stress in their day-to-day work. This stress can take on many forms – it might be created, for example, through a gossip-prone corporate culture or one burdened with bureaucracy, it might come from having to deal with ambiguous communication or managing an extremely heavy workload. Social isolation, constant worrying about deadlines, a lack of satisfaction, experiencing the imposter syndrome, having trouble concentrating, feelings of anxiety or indifference – these can all be indicators of too much stress, as Leni Bolt stated in an Instagram post. There’s no denying that being under stress for long periods of time is unhealthy and makes us feel miserable.

So why not try out the following 5 tips for reducing stress at the workplace right now?

develop a morning routine
have a clear plan for the day
take breaks regularly
ask for help
stay focused on the good stuff

It might take a little while for it all to come together, but you’re certainly off to a good start at giving yourself more time and space and lowering the amount of stress in your life.

Strengthening resilience

Resilience is – in essence – our durability, our robustness. How resilient we are determines how well we can cope with difficult situations without suffering lasting adverse affects. Often we encounter rough periods within our work; and unfortunately, these may persist for quite a long time. In order for us to successfully recover from such situations, we have to strengthen our resilience. Here are 5 tips which Leni Bolt shared on Instagram for doing just that: 1. prioritize friendships 2. don’t keep working after your working hours 3. get 7-8 hours of good sleep 4. give yourself healthy food and exercise 5. set aside more time for pursuing your hobbies. Leni added: “Resilience is not innate, however, it’s something we can learn how to develop – it takes time, patience and practice. It also requires allowing yourself to make mistakes and to learn from them, instead of letting mistakes discourage you.”

Work-life in companies

Leni is also involved at many different levels with showing companies how they can enable work-life strategies for their staff. An especially important aspect of Bolt’s commitment to work-life is her engagement for transgender people at the workplace. To commemorate the International Transgender Day of Visibility, Leni shared on LinkedIn what companies can do to support transgender people within their firms and reduce the discrimination which they face. Among the actions which can be taken: companies can provide employees with awareness-raising activities and workshops, implement the use of gender-neutral language and foster an inclusive workplace culture, plus they can offer supportive measures and assume responsibility as well. The subject of work-life balance has consistently been gaining importance in recent years, and is likely to occupy a more central role in our private and professional lives in the years to come. Even when the first steps are the hardest: Leni Bolt’s tips contain many ideas that we can readily integrate into our daily routines to increase our work-life balance for the long term.