Written by: Bronwen Sciortino, Senior Level Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Your life is crazy, out of control busy and has been for quite some time now. But it feels like that’s the same for everyone at the moment… so you just have to get on with it and do the best you can.
And sure: when life’s like that, some things go off the rails – your health and wellbeing at the forefront of that list. But that’s just normal… right?
When you do get a minute spare, you likely jump into social media to succumb to the guilty pleasure of mindless scrolling. But only because it gives you a few sacred minutes when you don’t have to think, and you can get lost in what’s happening in someone else’s world.
Then – before you know it – you’ve deep-dived into a world where there are millions of people all happily telling you the things that are wrong with your life and all the things you need to be doing to get it back on track.
But do they really know what they’re talking about?
The most important thing to note here is that you have no way of knowing whether they do in fact know what they’re talking about. Nor, for that matter, do you know whether what they’re sharing and selling in the world relates to you.
Technology advances rapidly and that means so many wonderful and, in some cases, life-saving products and services are available at our fingertips. But those products and services also come with an aspect to them that we need to be cognizant of and educate ourselves about.
We used to rely on word-of-mouth to give us an idea of whether a product or service was good quality and/or whether it really worked.
Then, when we first started operating in the online world, we found products and services through websites … and there we would find testimonials that were sort of the ‘online version’ of word-of-mouth. Then the world shifted again, and we moved to social media platforms for our purchases. Suddenly we had the testimonials but we were also taught to look at the number of followers and the number of testimonials as ‘social proof’ of the quality and effectiveness of the product or service.
Unfortunately, there are now so many ways to ‘beat the system’ and create fake social proof that there’s no real way to determine whether the social proof is real or made up… and that leaves us being unable to determine whether what we’re seeing is actually any good for us.
So, why do we listen to them?
Ultimately, most of today’s marketing tactics are based around hitting what’s known as ‘trigger points’ or ‘pain points’. This means that the marketing will play on your emotions and almost force you to experience the emotion that’s causing you an issue in your life.
We’re already tired and exhausted – because who isn’t, living in this crazy whirlwind of a life? When we’re tired, however, it’s much harder to make informed, conscious and connected decisions. Ultimately, we want an ‘out’ – we want something that will take us away from the stress, exhaustion and wild ride … even if it’s just for a little while.
And in our tired state we lose the ability to reason and to think things through specifically for our circumstances. This especially happens when we start to wonder whether we’ll miss out – ever heard the term ‘Fear of Missing Out’, or FOMO? – if we don’t do what everyone else seems to be doing and having so much success with.
This is especially true when we get caught in what’s known as a ‘re-marketing sales funnel’ – this is where people use technology to constantly put their products and services under our noses when we click on something to have a look and don’t buy instantly. Even if we move on in the first instance, the re-marketing is like the annoying person who won’t leave you alone until you say ‘Yes’.
So, what do we do? We give in and ignore everything we know about things not always being real in the online world. We hit that ‘buy’ button in the hope that it might just be the thing that makes a difference.
What can you do instead?
The number one thing you can do is to understand how the marketing mindset works. Understand that it’s almost always about triggering you to go to a state that you want to move away from quickly … so that you won’t think too hard about whether or not you need to buy the thing that’s being sold.
The second thing you can do is to start to notice your reactions to things:
What emotions are you feeling when you’re being triggered?
Where does this take your thoughts?
What mindset are you in when you buy something to ‘make the marketing go away’?
And instead of doing these things, start to understand the things that are impacting your life right now. What causes you angst? Where does your stress come from? How could you make one or two things a little bit simpler?
Start to focus on these actions and you might just find that you’ve got your own answers… and that they’re right for you no matter how stressed or exhausted you are.
If you want some help getting started, there are also loads of tips and more information in the articles and videos in my free email series. Simply click here to start you on your way.
Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker and an internationally renowned author. You can follow her at her website; Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
Bronwen Sciortino, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
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 developed a whole new way of living – one that teaches you to challenge the status quo and include the power of questions in everyday life.
Gaining international critical acclaim and 5-star awards for her books and online 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.
