What I learned about choice from an all you can eat buffet!

Hello friends!

I’m just back from holiday in Mallorca. It was awesome to go a bit slower for a week and have a break from nursery runs!

One of the things we tried to make it easier with a toddler was that we went half board at a big hotel for the first time.

So we got our breakfast and dinner in the restaurant there.

And what a place! Food was pretty decent but what I thought was most fascinating is how everyone reacted to such an onslaught of food.

And with SO much choice....here's what I learned.

Too much choice can be overwhelming

We talked up having pancakes, waffles, chocolate, pineapple, melon, all the food to my two year old daughter Pearl before we got there. But when she was looking around, she was overwhelmed. So what did she do?

She defaulted to the norm. Stuck to her ways.

Weetabix every morning.

No trying new things, no trying things that I knew she liked.

Or a lot of people went the other away and piled completely crazy combos on their plate like chicken curry, pulled pork, pizza and churros. (Real story)

Overwhelm of choice can lead to you just making the same choices or some crazy choices.

Willpower is fickle

I tend to rate my willpower. I reckon I’ve worked that mental muscle hard.

But in the face of 14 meals with unlimited choice. I had 3 plates of breakfast most days, dessert most days.

It was almost impossible to resist.

Don’t get me wrong, I was on holiday so I wasn’t worrying too much about it.

But the piles of food on people’s plates you could easily see that willpower was crumbling everywhere.

Everyone was giving into their basic human needs.

It made me think of when I’m working with clients to ease off their phone usage.

It’s really difficult to use willpower when the phone is in your pocket with notifications pinging every two minutes.

You have to physically remove yourself from that environment….put the phone somewhere else.

And the same with a buffet….don’t want to overeat? Don’t go to a buffet!

We tend to overrate our willpower massively.

Come up with a strategy

The one thing that really worked for me at the buffet…..and in any scenario when I have too many choices is to come up with a strategy. A plan for what I wanted to achieve.

What I wanted is to have a tasty meal, try something new and not be absolutely stuffed at the end of it.

So my strategy for dinner was to pick a main dish and build around it. Fish one night, Steak another, Chicken another. Then get some sides that matched it….and allow something rogue on there that I hadn’t tried before.

I restricted my choices. So instead of choosing from everything, my plan was to pick one thing which then wiped out lots of choices that wouldn’t go with that main.

It made the FOMO less and the result was that I had a great meal every night (albeit slightly bigger than my Gousto 400 cal dinners!)

So there you go….who thought you could write a whole newsletter on a buffet on holiday?

Hope you find this valuable!

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Steve