My Sustainable PACE “When I’m overwhelmed, Sustainable PACE is my anchor”

Student: Rebecca Stoneman

Location: Gold Coast, Australia

Occupation: Full-time project manager in public health

foundher program: Sustainable PACE and Sustain.Ability

When Rebecca Stoneman stumbled across foundher on Instagram, she was frustrated, tired and overwhelmed with a perpetual to-do list at work and home.

“I felt like I was in a constant feeling of overwhelm. I kept thinking, ‘There must be a better way’,” she recalls.

Having tried countless methodologies for managing her time and projects, Rebecca was looking for a holistic solution that would really stick. So, foundher’s unique approach to productivity, with its emphasis on being and doing, caught Rebecca’s attention. Excited to discover a new rhythm for work and life, she enrolled in Sustainable PACE, our signature eight-week program designed to transform your productivity from the ground up. 

Changing the game

Rebecca admits that the first step of the Sustainable PACE course took her by surprise. The early weeks of the program invite personal reflection on your unconscious beliefs around time, productivity and workload while asking you to keep a Doing Diary to monitor how you really spend each hour. 

This process, while sometimes uncomfortable, continually unlocks breakthroughs for our students because it shows them the facts about their everyday habits in black and white, in direct contrast with their inner narrative about where their time is going. 

Although resistant to it at first, Rebecca says that the reflection tasks “made me realise how effective it is to get clarity. I could see how much I was bouncing around the day.”

The Doing Diary highlighted to Rebecca that she wasn’t factoring herself into her day. Leaning into PACE’s morning and evening routines at home, she also began blocking out half an hour in her work calendar each morning and afternoon for a check-in with herself. 

“That was a game-changer,” Rebecca shares. “It had immediate results at work. It allowed me to stop and recalibrate for the day ahead.”

Enforcing that boundary at work was challenging, Rebecca admits, but the work she was doing in PACE empowered her to stick with it. 

“It’s really hard to put those boundaries in for yourself,” Rebecca explains. “But I was in PACE and I wanted it to work, so I blocked that half hour out at either end of the day and said no, this is ‘me time’. That was so empowering. I think it gives you momentum to keep moving forward and sticking to the boundaries.”

Flexible framework

Rebecca acknowledges that she has a tendency to be rigid with routines and productivity methods, which can leave her feeling like her systems have failed if they don’t suit every situation. PACE – and Elana’s gentle guidance – helped Rebecca embrace experimentation and flexibility. 

“I would have these unrealistic to-do lists, and of course, not get through them by the end of the day, and then feel annoyed and frustrated with myself,” she explains. “Now, I’m checking myself and saying it’s not about getting it all done – there has to be me at the centre of all that doing. I have structure and a framework, but I also have flexibility. And I know it’s OK to bend.”

One huge benefit of Rebecca’s new-found experimental mindset? She was able to challenge her deeply held beliefs to land an exciting new job.

A colleague recently suggested to Rebecca that she apply for a position in a field that her friend felt matched her strengths, but that Rebecca hadn’t previously considered. 

“I had always felt I did not have the skillset for such roles and ordinarily would not apply,” Rebecca explains. “But then I thought to myself, ‘How do I know I do not have the skills? I’ve not done it before, so how do I know that?’ I just decided to say ‘yes’ and apply, and I am beyond grateful and excited that I did.”

Because the Sustainable PACE Method isn’t only focused on what you’re doing, but who you’re being, it challenges you to reconsider the stories you might be holding about everything – including the kind of roles you think you’re capable of – to experiment in designing a life you truly love. After practising this in PACE, Rebecca was able to effectively apply it to a real-life situation, with incredible results. She recognised the story, challenged her beliefs, applied for the role and won a job she would have otherwise considered out of reach.

“I think doing PACE has subconsciously made me more open to just doing and just trying and just being willing, and not running the stories,” Rebecca says.

Grounding time

After spending eight weeks in the bubble of Sustainable PACE, which includes weekly group coaching with Elana, Rebecca was feeling more calm and in control of her time. She had found a staggering 11 hours in the week for herself and was reaping the rewards of regular planning sessions. But she wasn’t ready to give up her Friday morning masterclasses and the support that comes with being in a small, like-minded community. So, Sustain.Ability, our ongoing mentorship program for PACE graduates, was the perfect transition. 

The Sustain.Ability group meets twice a month for masterclasses, quarterly and annual planning sessions and group discussion, supported by workbooks, journaling prompts, regular reflection surveys and recommended reading lists. 

The content of Sustain.Ability builds on the foundational tools and concepts that students learn in PACE with sessions that dive deeper into modern leadership skills, decision-making in complexity and emotional intelligence, while supporting the group to keep up their sustainable rhythm.

“The content is so on-point and targeted,” Rebecca says. “Elana is really clever in how she can hit the mark in making a big concept succinct. I love that she is all about neuroscience and psychology, and then brings the day-to-day application of it to us.”

This regular, scheduled time to work on personal and professional development and reinforce the Sustainable PACE Framework is not only meeting a key goal for Rebecca, who highly values learning and growth, it’s given her the confidence to step into her new role. 

“I feel that I’m going to be able to work at that higher level because I have a new structure and framework, and a new way of being and thinking to fall back on,” Rebecca explains. “I feel that having PACE and Sustain.Ability behind me – it’s like it has my back. They’re my foundations, my grounding, my anchor. If I go into overwhelm, straightaway, my mind goes to PACE.”

And that’s exactly how PACE is designed to support you. You won’t leave this program completely unflappable, never to be overwhelmed again – life doesn’t work that way. But with the Sustainable PACE Framework to lean on, you’ll have multiple tools to help you navigate a path forward. 

Planning for success

Reflecting on her PACE experience, Rebecca says one of the key takeaways was learning that to-do lists don’t work. Like many productivity tools, the simple to-do list is simply no longer fit for purpose in our complex world.

“What I learned from Elana is that to-do lists have to be scheduled to stop the overwhelm. Overwhelm occurs when I have a big to-do list and I keep adding to it without any thought about what’s already on my list. That’s where 90-day planning comes in. I plot my non-negotiable tasks into my calendar to be done on a particular day, and the nice-to-haves are plotted in around that in a sustainable and practical way,” Rebecca explains. 

Rebecca is now using a full suite of daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly planning sessions to counter that all-consuming sense of overwhelm she was grappling with before PACE. 

“I’m putting all those sessions in my calendar, and I’m blocking them out, and I’m relishing them. It’s a relief having them to fall back on,” she says. “I still have that sense of ‘there’s so much to do’. But as soon as I start to feel that way, I think about Sustain.Ability or PACE, and then I feel OK. They’ve helped me reframe.

“My biggest takeaways from PACE are to stop running stories; just experiment; and use 90-day planning to schedule in your to-do list,” she adds.

With those tools in her kit, Rebecca’s success rhythm is unstoppable. 

Want to learn how to beat overwhelm and develop your own Sustainable PACE? Click the button below to find out more!