There’s an art to getting the most out of a buffet.

First, you assess the size of your plate. Sometimes you get a big, generous plate; some even have edges that curve upward for extra filling capacity. Other times you get a dinky little plate, barely enough to hold a couple of meatballs and a cocktail shrimp.

Once you know the size of your plate, you cruise the offerings and see
what you’d like to fill your plate with, and what you can skip. If you
just start scooping up from start to finish, even with the smallest
portions you’ll run out of room, and possibly missing out on your
favorite foods.

You also want to know how often you can go back through the line. Is it a
one-time, all-you-can-eat, pile-it-high kind of affair, or a bountiful
feast you can return to again and again?

The Buffet Line of Your Life
I’m probably not telling you anything new (unless you’ve never been to
a buffet). But you may not have realized that you can follow these same
principles with your time and energy to create a joyful, satisfying life.
Instead, so many of us do the opposite. We don’t assess the size of our
“plate” and take on more than we can chew. We load up on whatever comes
our way, with no room left for the things we really love. We gorge
ourselves on a plate that’s overflowing with mediocrity — resulting in
stress, frustration, and tummy aches.

So what to do? Let’s go back to the front of our proverbial buffet line,
and reassess what you have available and what you have to work with.

What Size is Your Plate?
Look carefully at your plate. You can think of its diameter as the total
amount of time you have at your disposal. This amount will vary depending
on your particular business or career, family life, financial state, social
commitments, etc. Whether small or large, the absolute limits of your free
time are critical to know before “filling your plate.”

Another dimension to your plate’s capacity is its depth. Is it shallow
and flat, or deep and curved? This is comparable to the amount of energy
you have. Your energy level is affected by many factors as well, such as
your genetic makeup, your age, your health, your outlook on life, to name a
few.

Note that there’s a relationship between your plate’s diameter and its
depth. You may have a lot of things competing for your time (small plate),
but you are strong and healthy and energetic (deep dish), so you may be
able to put a lot on your plate. Conversely, while you may not have many
commitments taking up your time, you may have physical or other challenges
that decrease how much you can realistically pile on.

Pick Out Your Favorite Items
Now that you understand your capacity, let’s move to what’s available
to you. Cruise through the buffet line of your life. What would you ideally
like to be spending more time on? What’s most important to you? Here’s
an enlightening exercise:

1. Take a piece of paper and make three separate columns.

2. In column A, list all the things you spend time and energy on in your
life. Be thorough. Don’t leave anything out.

3. In column B, rate how important each commitment is to you, on a scale
from one to ten.

4. In column C, rate how much of your time or energy you spend on that
item.

Pay attention to discrepancies between what you want to be doing and
what you are doing. These are clues to how you load yourself up and where
you might need to readjust.

One Time Through?
Once you’ve perused all the items on your life’s buffet, think about
which are routine or mundane, and which are “once-in-a-lifetime”
experiences. Are you missing your child’s milestone events to work late
yet again on an unsatisfying project? Or are you passing up a critical
promotion opportunity because you’d rather get together with your
friends? Ultimately, we only get so many trips through the “buffet
line,” so if you want to feel more content with your life overall,
deliberately choose those morsels that are most satisfying to you, both
during the meal and after it’s over.

Strategies for Success
This all sounds easy enough on paper or even in a buffet line, but what if
you’ve already overloaded your very small plate? The key is awareness,
commitment, and patience.

- Be aware of what you are saying yes to, all the time. Evaluate it
against your list of what you really want on your plate and see how well it
aligns. Say ‘no’ where you can. Even once.

- Be willing to commit to doing one thing each day (or week or month) that
shifts your plate from what you feel you have to be doing to what you want
to be doing. Delegate, automate, ask for help, remember to say no.

- Be patient with yourself. You might have a lifelong habit of rushing
through your buffet line, piling your plate high, and feeling obligated to
consume everything long after you have desire (or room) left.The wonderful
thing about a buffet is that, really, you’re in control. You may not be
able to command the size of your plate, but you can always choose what goes
on it.

So what will go on your plate today?

If you ask the average person today if they have balance in their life you’re likely to get a snort, a laugh, or a blank stare. Balance? Ha! That’s because few of us ever experience what balance feels like, or recognize the profound effect balance (or lack of it) has on our health, productivity, and overall happiness.

Balance means different things to different people, but lack of it has some universal effects. Think about when your car tires get out of alignment: certain areas wear faster than others, and the tires become weak, threadbare, and sometimes blow out. When our lives get out of alignment, we get stressed, angry, sick, and despondent. Like your tires, extreme lack of balance also ends in blowout: job burnout, soured relationships, estranged children, health crises.

So how do you fit one more task (finding balance) into an already bloated schedule? Well, regaining balance is both very easy and very hard. Easy in that it requires nothing more than asking yourself where things are out of alignment, and listening to the answer. Deep inside, you already know where things are out of balance. The hard part is accepting the answer and taking action on it. We can get addicted to the high-speed wobble, or feel like we’ll somehow let the world down if we don’t keep up the frantic pace. The reality is, regaining balance leads to more time, energy, vitality, and enthusiasm. With all that, you won’t let anyone down!

Here are a few ways to inch your way back into balance:

Know your priorities. And honor them. List your values in order of highest priority, then live your life accordingly. If you say your top values are family, health, and community, staying late at the office every night, eating fast food, and driving like a maniac will quickly put you out of balance with your values.

Be state aware. Check in with your physical, mental, and emotional state regularly. Pain or discomfort in any area indicates that something is out of balance.

“Yes” also means “No.” When you say “yes” to one thing, recognize what you’re also saying “no” to. Volunteering on yet another committee means less time to work on your house, play with your children, or read a novel in your hammock. Go back to your priorities to confirm where your “yes-es” should cluster.

Schedule downtime, every day. I know this sounds like asking the impossible. However, scheduling just 30-45 minutes of quiet, nourishing, YOU time daily will more than make up for itself in renewed energy for tackling everyone else’s needs the rest of the day.

Ask for help. It’s all the rage to be superhuman these days, juggling career, family, hobbies, and social networks single-handedly. It’s also unrealistic and unnecessary. Not only does asking for help move you back into balance, you’ll forge stronger bonds with loved ones as you allow them to see your human side!

Ride the wave. Sometimes life just hits you sideways, despite every effort to maintain balance. When that happens, think of yourself riding a wave. Relax, take a few deep breaths, and imagine floating on top of the wave as it passes, instead of getting sucked under it. Because it will pass. It always does.

Staying in alignment requires both awareness and practice. But if you pay attention to balance, you’ll find that:

1. You have a clearer sense of the real priorities in your life.
2. You give yourself permission to let go of the things that don’t serve you.
3. You have more time and energy to do the things you want to do.
4. You’re more available for everyone and everything around you.
5. You have more fun!

So, what’s your first step for getting back into balance?