Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been interested and involved in a lot of different things. Those things span a broad spectrum of both work and personal interests and sometimes include things that are antagonistic to each other (for example, wanting to build a business and also wanting to spend quantity and quality time with my family).

As an admitted chronic “overcommit’er” and over-achiever, on more than one occasion I have found myself asking “in making a life, how can I get all this stuff done and still have a life?!?” Maybe you have as well. As it turns out, knowing what is “Just Enough” is part of the secret.

What is “just enough?” According to Nash and Stevenson, “just enough” is the amount you need to accomplish in one area or thing and achieve a specific sense of satisfaction before moving on to the next thing. Recognizing what is “just enough” will allow you to achieve a balanced slate of wins in a sustainable way that contributes, over time, to your picture of enduring success.

By regularly assessing the picture of success you are creating using your Kaleidoscope strategy , you’ll have the perspective you need to make critical decisions about “what’s best next?“. It allows you to identify where the gaps are within your four components of success, know which are are full, and recognize those in which you have “just enough”.  Being able to identify the gaps isn’t too difficult if you take time to reflect and become aware.  However, it takes a paradigm shift to accept that “just enough”, not full,  is really the functional sweet spot.

In order to analyze your picture of success from a Kaleidoscope perspective, Nash and Stevenson suggest asking yourself the following four questions:

• Are some of the four component chambers empty?
• Are others too full?
• Where am I devoting most of my time?
• Is that in line with the goals I want to achieve?

By answering these questions from a big-picture perspective first, you can then focus on a given activity in order to determine what’s “just enough” for you in a given category at a given time.  You can then move on to something else, knowing you’ll come back to to get “more” later.  Just exactly how you do that is called “Switch and Link” and the topic of next week’s post.

Of course the big assumption here….and it’s a big one…..is that you’ve already taken the time and done the heavy mental lifting to reflect, contemplate and construct your own picture of enduring success.  If you don’t know or don’t have an idea of what enduring success looks like for you, then you probably won’t know what “Just Enough” looks like for you either.

At this point, what’s your “best next step”?  What’s working and/or what’s not?  Drop a comment and share the wealth. Lord knows we need all we can get when it comes to this topic!