The full programme

Your 12‑month
journey with Pausa

From the first kick-off call to the celebration with families — everything that happens, when it happens, and why it is designed this way.

12 months · full programme Up to 12 leaders per cohort Three annual biomarker assessment CSRD S1-14 compatible
Month 0
Day zero
Kick-off call
Live · 60 min

The programme starts before the first assessment. This call sets the container — expectations, pacing, group agreements, and the one question that will define the next 12 months. Every participant commits aloud to a specific time window for the pre-work. That public commitment triples follow-through.

"What would it look and feel like if, two years from now, your wellbeing was genuinely where it should be?" — each participant writes, privately, before anything begins.
📋
Programme orientation
Full 12-month map, logistics, and expectations shared with the group
🤝
Group agreements
Confidentiality, participation norms, and mutual accountability baseline
🎯
Individual vision
Each person's private north star for the programme — referenced at Month 12
🗓️
Pre-work commitments
Each person names the exact time window for completing the Vitality Check
Weeks 1–2
Before the retreat
Pre-work & assessment
Async · ~45 min

Before the group meets in person, every participant completes the Pausa Vitality Check independently — 40 questions across four dimensions of leader wellbeing: Physical Health, Mental Health, Emotional Health, and Purpose & Values. Separately, biomarker appointments are scheduled through our certified clinical laboratory partner. No data is shared within the group before the retreat.

📊
Pausa Vitality Check
40-item questionnaire across 4 dimensions. Scoring: Green 3.8–5.0, Amber 3.0–3.8, Red 1.0–2.9
🩸
Pausa Lab appointment
110+ markers across 11 body systems. Blood, urine, saliva. Clinician-reviewed within 5 working days
📓
5-day wellbeing diary
Each person tracks energy, sleep, and focus at three daily checkpoints. Private. Goes only to the facilitator

All data goes directly to the facilitator — nothing is shared before the retreat begins.

Month 1
Retreat venue — Lisbon countryside
The centrepiece
The Reset
Immersive · 3 days

Two nights and three full days in nature, 30 minutes from Lisbon. The Reset is the beginning, not the product — it is the immersive container where the pre-work becomes visible, the group meets itself honestly, and the behaviours for the next 11 months are co-designed. Science-based protocols throughout: sleep, movement, nutrition, digital detox, and structured silence. Each element is designed, not decorative.

Day 1
Afternoon
Arrival & The Map
Each participant receives their individual Vitality Check results privately before the group session begins. In the room: the facilitator presents aggregate patterns without attribution. Group patterns become visible for the first time. What surprised you?
Day 1
Evening
Lab results walkthrough
Individual biomarker consultations with a clinician. Each participant understands what their markers mean for performance — not just health. No data shared with the group or the organisation.
Day 2
Morning
The Drivers
Each person identifies the specific drains on their wellbeing — submitted independently before this session. The facilitator surfaces shared patterns. Science context for 2–3 of the most common drains in the room.
Day 2
Afternoon
Behavioural design — The Design
Two micro-behaviours co-designed per person, anchored to existing daily moments. Must be doable on the worst day of the month. The Pausa Vitality Card built live and delivered within 24 hours — includes a 30-day tracker.
Day 2
Evening
Unstructured time
Dinner, nature, movement — not scheduled. The space between sessions is designed as carefully as the sessions themselves.
Day 3
Morning
Commitments & Handover
Each person revisits the Day 0 vision. Has anything shifted? Behavioural commitments made in front of the group. The DIY Framework handed over — everything needed to continue without Pausa. The Reset closes with completeness.
🗺️
Group wellbeing map
Aggregate patterns across the four dimensions — for the People lead
🃏
Pausa Vitality Card
Personal micro-behaviour card with 30-day tracker — one per participant
📁
CSRD documentation
ESRS S1-aligned psychosocial risk evidence package — audit-ready
🧰
DIY Framework
Everything the team needs to sustain practice independently
Months 2–5
Community integration
Monthly gatherings
Live · monthly

The real change happens in months 2–12, not during the retreat. Each month, the cohort gathers offline — part check-in, part accountability, part shared experience. The format rotates: sometimes active, sometimes cultural, always intentional. The social bond is itself a health pillar.

"The cohort who stays physically together stays behaviourally together. Every gathering reinforces that the commitments made at the retreat are not aspirational — they are real."

Activities rotate each month — the cohort shapes the calendar together:

Football game 🏄 Surfing clinic 🏓 Padel 🎭 Theater / cinema 🌿 Forest bathing 🍳 Cooking class 🎲 Board game night 🏃 Running clinic 🚴 Cycling 🔥 BBQ & fire 🧖 Sauna session 🥗 Shared lunch ♟️ Chess / games 🌊 Open water swim 🧘 Movement practice 🎸 Music / jazz evening
Behavioural check-in
20-min structured review: what held, what didn't, one adjustment
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Accountability pairing
Each person paired with a different group member each month
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Quarterly summary
Completion rates and behavioural themes shared with your People lead — no individual data
Month 6
Halfway checkpoint
Mid-point assessment
Full day · live

At the six-month mark, the programme pauses to take stock. A second biomarker check-up reveals what has changed physiologically. A repeat Vitality Check surfaces shifts across all four dimensions. And the Mirror Check — a structured honest conversation with the group — shows what has become visible that was invisible at the start. This is not an evaluation. It is a recalibration.

Physical Health
Mental Health
Emotional Health
Purpose & Values
🩸
Pausa Lab — Round 2
Second full biomarker panel. Delta from Month 0. Clinician consultation included
📊
Vitality Check — Round 2
Repeat 40-item assessment. Measurable delta across all four dimensions vs. baseline
🪞
Mirror Check
Structured facilitated session: what has changed, what hasn't, what the second half needs
📋
6-month progress report
Board-ready summary: aggregate scores, delta, behavioural completion — for HR and leadership
Months 7–11
Second half
Monthly gatherings continue
Live · monthly

After the mid-point recalibration, the second half of the programme deepens. The behaviours co-designed at the Reset are now embedded — the gatherings focus more on compounding and less on establishing. The social cohesion built in months 2–5 begins to show in team dynamics outside the programme.

🏄 Surfing 🍕 Pizza & board games 🚴 Cycling route 🌿 Forest bathing 🎭 Live performance 🏃 Group run 🧖 Sauna & cold plunge 🍳 Cooking together Football 🌊 Ocean swim 🥗 Lunch outdoors 🧘 Movement & breath
What the cohort builds in the second half is not commitment — it is identity. "This is who we are now."
📈
Completion tracking
Monthly behavioural adherence rates — visible to participant, aggregated for organisation
🔗
Deepened peer bonds
By month 9–11, most cohorts self-organise gatherings outside the programme structure
Month 12
Celebration — families welcome
The finish line is a beginning
Celebration & renewal
Full day · families welcome

The 12-month programme closes with a full celebration — participants bring their families. The final Vitality Check and biomarker results are delivered. The Day 0 vision is revisited together. What was written in that first private moment — where are you now? The celebration is real because the work was real.

Morning
Final assessment delivery
Third Vitality Check results and final biomarker panel delivered. Full 12-month delta shown — from Day 0 baseline to now. Individual consultations. Board-ready outcomes report.
Midday
Day 0 revisited
Each person reads what they wrote at the kick-off — the picture of their future Tuesday. A structured honest conversation: what happened, what changed, what didn't, and why. Witnessed by the group.
Afternoon
Celebration — families join
A shared meal and afternoon with families present. The group that spent a year building healthy habits together introduces that world to the people closest to them. Informal, warm, and deliberately unhurried.
Closing
What comes next
The programme ends. The community does not. Participants are offered Year 2 — a lighter touch, community-only format that sustains what was built. The cohort decides together.
🏆
12-month outcomes report
Full delta across all four dimensions. Biomarker comparison. Behavioural completion. CSRD S1-14 evidence package — board-ready and audit-ready
🧬
Final Pausa Lab panel
Third full-body biomarker check-up. What 12 months of intentional behaviour change shows in the body
🌐
Community membership
Permanent access to the Pausa alumni network — the cohort that continues beyond the programme
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Year 2 option
A lighter-touch continuation for groups who want to sustain the practice without starting over