Give yourself more of the things that work: we’re all unique individuals, so what works for me isn’t going to be the same as the things that work for others. Find the things that support you and give you energy and then find a way to give yourself more of them. The more aligned you are with who you truly are and the more you top up your energy tanks, the more you’ll spend time aligned with what’s important in your life. And that’s always a good thing!
As a part of my series about “How to Slow Down To Do More” I had the pleasure to interview Bronwen Sciortino.
Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question: ‘What if there’s a better way to live?’
Embarking on a journey to answer this question, Bronwen uncovered a simple system to challenge the status quo and use the power of questions to purposefully direct life.
Gaining international critical acclaim and 5-star awards for her books and programs, Bronwen spends every day teaching people that there is an easy, practical and simple pathway to creating a healthy, happy AND highly successful life.
Sourced globally for media comment as an expert and working with corporate programs, conference platforms, retreats, professional mentoring and in the online environment, Bronwen teaches people how easy it is to live life very differently.
Thank you so much for doing this interview with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this specific career path?
I grew up in Tasmania, a stunning island nestled at the bottom of Australia. As a kid, I thrived in the great outdoors, relishing in sports of all kinds and spending time with my beloved animals.
After earning my Economics degree at university, I found myself at a crossroads, unsure of my next move. Without a clear direction, I ventured into the financial services sector, launching a nearly two-decade career in the corporate side of financial planning and funds management. Despite achieving success, I didn’t realise that being in the wrong industry fueled my perfectionist tendencies.
I pushed myself relentlessly until I hit rock bottom, my life shattering into a million pieces. Recovery was a grueling journey, forcing me to confront my deepest fears and rebuild myself from the ground up. It took two intense years of effort to even begin to cope with life’s basics, followed by another year to find stability.
Nowadays, I dedicate my time to empowering people worldwide to design the lives they desire. I teach them the power of setting clear goals and crafting simple, actionable steps to achieve them. I believe in keeping life uncomplicated and embracing simplicity as the path to happiness, health, and success.
According to a 2006 Pew Research Report report, 26% of women and 21% of men feel that they are “always rushed”. Has it always been this way? Can you give a few reasons regarding what you think causes this prevalent feeling of being rushed?
Never before have we been so connected to the world but disconnected from life at the same time. Technological advances mean that we’re constantly being provided with upgrades to the way we communicate with people, but with that comes the 24/7 connection conundrum that increases the demands on our time.
Cost of living pressures see us all trying to do more, with less money and fewer people. There’s also no longer any separation from the different parts of our lives, with home, friends, community and work all overlapping and demanding our attention no matter the time of night or day.
With social media platforms playing such a significant role in life, we’re forced into a pressure cooker environment where we feel like we need to be more visible than ever and we have to compete in a virtual world that constantly shows everyone how brilliantly people are doing in their lives.
The reality is this: all of this goes together to create a whirlwind that sucks us in, chews us up, throws us around and then spits us out. Wash, rinse and repeat — day-in, day-out. We’re constantly rushing to keep up, fit everything in and never let anyone down.
This has become such a phenomenon in life that it’s earned its own name and is now referred to as ‘rushing syndrome’.
Based on your experience or research can you explain why being rushed can harm our productivity, health, and happiness?
The feeling of being rushed causes the ‘fight or flight response’ to be activated within our body. When we’re rushed, it can feel like we’re holding our breath, tensing our muscles and barely holding on until we get everything done.
The problem with this is that we never get everything done — there’s always someone or something adding to our ‘to-do’ list and often it feels like the pile of ‘stuff’ is never going to be under control.
The longer we allow our ‘fight or flight’ response to be switched on, the more stress is added to our system. When this runs unchecked we put ourselves on a path that guarantees a destination of burnout, breakdown, disease and mental health conditions.
We’re constantly overwhelmed which immediately impacts our ability to be productive, and there’s no time to even think about happiness because there’s simply too much else to get done.
Before we know it, we can no longer cope and we look up to find ourselves seriously unwell, completely miserable and with serious work on our hands to return ourselves to a state of good health.
On the flip side, can you give examples of how we can do more, and how our lives would improve if we could slow down?
When you deliberately and consciously choose to slow down, it gives you the opportunity to see what it is that makes your life feel like it’s crazy and out of control.
Taking the time to get to know yourself and understand who you are provides you with immediate feedback on the areas of your life that aren’t a match for the things that are important to you. For example, when I stepped back and had a look at who I was it was immediately obvious to me that the financial services industry was a complete mismatch and that working within it was literally killing me. That’s not to say that that industry is bad or wrong; rather, that it was simply a mismatch for me.
Today, because the way I spend my days and the work that I do is aligned with who I AM, I have more energy, more connection and more motivation flowing through my veins … and that means that I get so much more done in way less time than ever before. I can get into the flow of my work more easily and am significantly more productive. Self-care, self-compassion, service and happiness are the cornerstones of everything I do, and my days are set up based on these things.
I have more time and can give in much more significant ways than ever before, because I took the time to slow things down, review the alignment of who I AM and what I AM doing — and that simple activity has created time and space that I never knew existed.
We all live in a world with many deadlines and incessant demands for our time and attention. That inevitably makes us feel rushed. Can you share with our readers five strategies that you use to “slow down to do more”? Can you please give a story or example for each?
There will always be demands on our time. Technological advances have made this even more true, but just because there is a demand made of you, it doesn’t mean that you have to give it attention or create action in response. Here are five strategies you can use to slow down and start to make choices that are right for your life:
- Take the time to know yourself: knowing who you are means you know what’s important to you, and when you know that it makes it easier to see the areas of your life that are taking over and creating stress.
- Create space for mindfulness: mindfulness is so much more than sitting still and trying to make your mind go blank for five minutes. It’s about creating a conscious connection with yourself that can give you real-time feedback about what’s working, what’s impacting and ways that you might like to try things to move forwards.
- Get curious about your life: drop the judgement and criticism (of yourself and others) and instead get curious about the characteristics of the situation you see in front of yourself. How are you feeling, thinking and reacting in the moment? Is that working for you? How could you experience that differently so that your experience in the moment is full of ease and grace?
- Deliberately ‘unravel’: deliberately choose to let go of the struggle to hold onto everything tightly so you don’t ‘drop the ball’. Instead, adopt a stance of curiosity and notice the different threads of all the things you have going on. Choose one and deliberately pull on one of the threads to see where it goes. Become the observer and be ‘interested’ in what you unravel so that you can let go of the things that are holding you back.
- Give yourself more of the things that work: we’re all unique individuals, so what works for me isn’t going to be the same as the things that work for others. Find the things that support you and give you energy and then find a way to give yourself more of them. The more aligned you are with who you truly are and the more you top up your energy tanks, the more you’ll spend time aligned with what’s important in your life. And that’s always a good thing!
How do you define “mindfulness”? Can you give an example or story?
Mindfulness for me is all about connection to self. When we deliberately and consciously create time and space for connection to ourselves we gain clarity about what is going on in the moment, but we also gain greater insights in moments throughout the day that show us our reactions, thoughts and behaviors that may be creating blocks in our life.
It’s a way of being that allows us to be curious about ourselves and our lives. Mindfulness allows us to drop the judgement and criticism (of ourselves and others) and simply observe what is happening and who we become in different moments in time.
We see things with different eyes, experience things from a different place in our soul and find it easier to allow others to be who they want to be without us needing to fix the world all the time.
Can you give examples of how people can integrate mindfulness into their everyday lives?
There were a couple of things that I did to help me to integrate mindfulness into my life. The first was to create time and space each morning to meditate and provide my mind with different neural pathways that allow me to step outside the everyday ‘norm’.
Opening neural pathways encourages the mind to think in different patterns and this sets the intention of thinking ‘outside the square’ from the start of the day.
The second thing was to become ‘interested’ in everything I see. I use the phrase ‘that’s interesting’ a lot now and that allows me to shut down the judgement pathway that society teaches us is the only way for us to learn.
We learn when we’re interested in what we see and hear. Our ‘Ah-Ha’ moments don’t come when we’re judging ourselves or others, they come when we see things in a different and unusual way. It’s so much easier for us to grow and develop when we can integrate our learnings with ease and grace.
Do you have any mindfulness tools that you find most helpful at work?
The main tool I use is the electronic calendar on my computer or my phone.
Mindfulness is a habit. You make a choice to create a habit, but for most habits to be established it takes attention, commitment and action.
So, I use the reminder function on my electronic calendar to create time to take action and to prompt me when the time arrives.
This supports me in creating the habit and also reminds me of the importance of giving the action time in my day.
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources that inspire you to use mindfulness tools or practices?
My favourite book for mindfulness is ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle.
The power of this book is in the way that it reminds us that the only reality in our lives is in this very moment. What happened yesterday is gone, what comes tomorrow is unknown, the only real thing is what we are doing and who we are being right now.
Whatever we do can only be created by consciously making a decision in this moment. We co-create what happens in our lives by making choices in each and every minute.
That’s the very essence of mindfulness.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
‘Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it …’ (Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now).
I love this quote because it reminds me to constantly strive to sit in the role of observer. It reminds me to deliberately and consciously pull the threads and see where they lead me. It reminds me to unravel the things that keep me locked in tight, and to release the things that keep me wound up in a ball that creates stress, unhappiness and pain.
When I choose to play the role of observer in every moment, I get to see that there are multiple solutions and a multitude of opportunities — and, importantly, too many perspectives to be ever able to take them all in. That creates abundance in life and it all stems from a simple choice to be prepared to look at who you are and what’s happening for you each and every minute.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would strongly encourage everyone to adopt a loving perspective on the world.
Society would have us believe that comparing, judging, and criticising others is the best method to determine how successful our own lives are.
We’ve been taught that competition is the primary motivation in life and that our sole objective should be to succeed at any costs, no matter the detriment to ourselves or others around us.
But, if instead we could see that everything we experience in life is simply a projection that is helping to point us towards the next step on OUR journey, perhaps there wouldn’t be a need for arguments, disagreements, war or greed, and then maybe our current way of thinking about life could end.
We would just align ourselves with what is in flow for us and let go of the things that don’t matter to us.
And at the same time, we’d be able to be happy for one other’s accomplishments and use that as inspiration as we work towards our own. We would shift from a state of scarcity and competition for resources to one of abundance for all.
Thank you so much for these insights! This was so inspiring!
Bronwen Sciortino of sheIQ Life On How To Slow Down To Do More was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.