by Gemma Fieldsend
January carries a strange duality.
For some, it is energising; a clean page, a sense of possibility. For others, it arrives heavy with expectations, comparisons, and pressure to “start strong,” even when you feel anything but.
In a profession built on vigilance, precision, and foresight, January often magnifies an unspoken tension: the expectation to perform at a high level while quietly absorbing ever-increasing pressure.
In the Intellectual Property (IP) world, where pace, accuracy, and productivity are valued currency, the New Year amplifies the unspoken rules we place on ourselves:
Be better.
Be faster.
Be more resilient.
Set bigger goals.
Achieve more.
And yet, beneath all of those expectations is something very human: the wish to do well, to contribute, and to not let others down.
Whether you work in private practice, in-house, academia, or policy, the cognitive and emotional demands of IP work are uniquely intense.
It’s no wonder we end up carrying more than we realise.
But what if this January, you made a different kind of commitment?
Not a resolution to do more, but permission to be more human.
Permission to Pause
Permission to rest.
Permission to choose compassion over pressure.
Permission to be kind to yourself in a way that sustains you rather than drains you.
Permission to acknowledge that you’re not a machine.
Permission to have limits because limits don’t diminish your value; they reveal your humanity.
This is not softness.
This is sustainability.
Research reinforces what many in high-stakes professions intuitively feel.
Dong et al. (2024) offer a systematic review of nearly 1,000 studies showing that psychological safety and a healthy psychosocial climate have foundational effects on wellbeing, team functioning, and performance.
Additional studies deepen this picture:
• Teams with high psychological safety demonstrate stronger innovation, engagement, and problem-solving capacity (Jin & Peng, 2024; CIPD, 2024).
• Workplaces lacking psychological safety experience higher burnout, emotional exhaustion, and reduced accuracy, particularly in demanding professional environments (de Lisser, 2024).
• A chronically activated threat response common in fast-paced legal and technical fields reduces the brain’s ability to learn, collaborate, and think creatively (Dong et al., 2024).
The myth is that pressure sharpens performance indefinitely.
The evidence shows the opposite: sustained pressure narrows thinking and increases risk.
In other words: your nervous system is not optional equipment.
It directly shapes the quality of your thinking.
A calm system is capable of clarity.
A spacious mind is capable of creativity.
A rested body is capable of excellent work.
And importantly, you don’t earn rest.
You simply need it the same way everyone else does.
Why This Matters for the IP Community
IP professionals operate in environments where:
• cognitive load is high
• timelines are tight
• errors have consequences
• clients rely on both expertise and judgment
• innovation and precision must co-exist
When the stakes are high, the human cost can be hidden. Many IP professionals carry a quiet weight: the fear of making a mistake, of missing something, of not being enough.
For an IP professional, “pausing” might look like stepping back before filing to re-read claims with fresh eyes, or choosing to delay a response by a day rather than pushing through mental fatigue small pauses that often prevent costly errors.
Psychological safety creates space for that weight to be shared or simply acknowledged.
This makes psychological safety, and the permission to pause, not a luxury but a necessity.
Research in leadership also shows that inclusive leadership behaviours actively cultivate psychological safety, which in turn supports engagement and reduces stress responses (Ngubane, 2025).
Because when your brain is in survival mode trying to protect you from overload or criticism it has less capacity for the deep thinking, strategic reasoning, and creative insight the IP field depends on.
Performance doesn’t improve by pushing harder.
It improves by cultivating conditions where people can think well.
Pausing is not stepping back from excellence; it is stepping toward it.
A Different Kind of New Year Question
Instead of asking:
“What should I fix about myself?”
Consider asking:
“What would it look like to treat myself with the same compassion I offer others?”
This question holds humility at its centre, recognising that we are all doing our best with the resources we have.
For many people, that single shift opens the door to change that is meaningful, sustainable, and human not performative or punishing.
Because real resilience isn’t built through force.
It’s built through care.
Measurable Takeaways for the IP Community
Real change becomes real when it is both felt and measured. These practices can be adopted individually, modelled by leaders, or embedded across teams.
- Set a Weekly “Cognitive Recovery Minimum”
Target: 1–2 hours of protected, uninterrupted thinking or recovery time per week.
This might be quiet work, strategic reflection, deliberate rest, or simply stepping away from cognitive demand. Think of it as maintenance, not indulgence. - Use a 5-Minute Decompression Ritual Daily
Target: After one high-stakes task each day, pause for five minutes.
This helps regulate your nervous system and reduces fatigue-related errors. Five minutes of compassion is more effective than fifty minutes of strain. - Limit Back-to-Back Meetings to Two Consecutive Hours
Target: No more than two hours of nonstop meetings, with at least a 10-minute break between sessions.
Focus improves. Mistakes decline. Thinking deepens. - Celebrate One “Pause That Helped” Each Month
Target: Share one moment where pausing improved clarity or decision-making.
This normalises rest as a performance tool and strengthens psychological safety. Pausing is not weakness; it is wisdom.
January does not need to be a month of pressure.
It can be a month of possibility and permission a foundation of kindness that supports resilience all year long.
This January, notice where you pause and what improves because you did.
Here’s to a New Year where your humanity is not an obstacle to excellence, but the source of it.
References
CIPD. (2024). Trust and Psychological Safety: Scientific Summary. CIPD.
https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/evidence-reviews/2024-pdfs/8550-psychological-safety-scientific-summary.pdf
de Lisser, R. (2024). Psychological safety’s effects on emotional exhaustion and burnout. Health Affairs Scholar.
Dong, R. K., et al. (2024). Psychological safety and psychosocial safety climate in the workplace: a systematic review. Journal of Safety Research.
Jin, H., & Peng, Y. (2024). The impact of team psychological safety on employee innovative performance. PLOS ONE.
Ngubane, N. (2025). Leader competencies for building psychological safety. SA Journal of Business Management.
