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Get in Front and Bento Box Your Life

August 2026

At the Front - Tony Robbins and Mona Lisa

I usually love to sit at the back. Whether it’s in a classroom, workshop, movie theatre, bus, car, train or plane, my favourite place is to be behind everyone else (in a previous article, I mentioned this seating preference as one of my quirky 100% yeses).

However, I’m aware that there are benefits to moving towards the front at times. For example, someone at uni told me that she always aimed to be in the first five rows of any tutorial or lecture she attended. Why? Because research had shown a correlation between seating and grades. Apparently, students who sit in the first five rows are more likely to get High Distinctions at university than those who position themselves further behind. I’d also heard at a motivational seminar that people with greater self-esteem arrange to sit closer to the front of an airplane when buying tickets, compared to other customers who tolerate sitting at the back. And being at the front – especially for something like a live show or performance – allows you to be closer to the action and experience it more vividly. 

The thing is, it can be difficult to go right up to the front, especially if a lot of other people are around.

For instance, several years ago I was at a Tony Robbins event in Sydney called Unleash the Power Within (UPW), where another participant encouraged me to approach the front stage on the last day; we’d only met recently, having partnered together in an earlier exercise as part of the seminar. We were in a crowd of literally thousands of people during the final moments of that event, and it didn’t seem possible to reach the front. Yet, I was willing to go along with what seemed to be his goal to approach Tony, and which soon became mine as well – because I do enjoy a good challenge!

This other participant urged me forward, and bit by bit we got closer to the stage. No pushing or shoving was needed. We just moved gradually through little gaps as they opened up between people ahead of us. Eventually we were able to join a line of people standing right below the edge of the stage. I saw others reaching their hands up towards the ceiling. In the elation of the moment, with upbeat music playing loudly and everyone dancing around, I raised my arms too.

Not long afterwards, Tony Robbins approached the section of the stage that I was standing beneath, bent down and held his hands out to the audience. He soon reached me, placed my hand in his as he had done with many others, and gave it a little squeeze.

I remembered this experience years later while visiting the Louvre in 2018. If you’ve ever seen the famous Mona Lisa painting there, you’ll know that it’s quite small compared to other artworks on display. It’s also insanely popular in terms of members of the public wanting to view it up close. I was with my husband who said there was no point even joining the large group of people that had clustered around the portrait, as it wasn’t big enough to see clearly from the back, and there was no way we’d ever get to the front.

Well, in case you missed it the first time, I do enjoy a good challenge!

My husband’s pessimism gave me hope. If others were thinking in a similar way, then getting to the front could be easier than it looked. No matter how tightly knit a crowd may be, there is always some movement. So, just like at UPW, I moved forward by taking advantage of the small gaps that emerged between people as they shuffled within the crowd. Again, no pushing or other type of force was necessary. Within minutes, I was at the front of the line where there was a barricade rope to prevent anyone from getting too close. I took a quick selfie as proof to show my husband that I’d achieved the seemingly impossible, then made my way out.

Friends later joked that the photo of me standing in front of the Mona Lisa looked fake, or at least made it appear as though no one else was nearby. But no, the place was chock-a-block. I had simply managed to get out in front.

Get in Front

Many of us don’t just have limiting beliefs about whether we can get ahead (literally and figuratively) in various external situations. Our doubts about whether we can do something like get out in front of a crowd can reflect what we think is doable in our inner world. 

Imagine how great it would be to get out in front of our own neurotic thoughts, scattered ideas, and fears each morning, to focus on what’s uplifting and important to us. Wouldn’t it be awesome to start the day on a good foot, by getting in front of all the distractions, demands from others, and endless responsibilities to ensure that we prioritise the things that really matter? 

It is possible, and the first step is to believe it can be done.

Work of Art

Last week, I listened to a lecture by Dr Wayne Dyer in which he mentioned the idea of making life a work of art. What would it mean to playfully and consciously lead our life as though it were a work of art? From how we approach our work and hobbies, to preparing meals, choosing our clothing style, our home furnishings, to creating our own unique lifestyle and daily routines?

A huge part of creating the life we want is to decide in advance what activities to make time for each day, week, month, or year. Ideally, these things will be satisfying for us to engage in, as well as conducive to becoming the best possible version of ourselves.

I like to picture the time we have as similar to a bento box, with our regularly chosen activities as being the different types of food placed inside. Bento boxes are often very lovely to behold. They are sometimes simple and elegant, sometimes decorated with ornate patterns and colours. The food itself is displayed beautifully, each type placed in a separate compartment. Talk about a work of art, just to hold a meal! This metaphor of a bento box allows us to picture how to create a fun schedule and make space for meaningful activities on a regular basis.

Structure

A bento box can be considered a container, not a cage, offering structure to allow things to stay in place. Nothing is hidden or squished or spilled out on top of each other.

It’s true that too much rigidity with a to-do list or schedule can do more harm than good, but without any structure, what we end up with is mess. Our bodies thrive on routine, whether it’s a predictable bedtime or knowing when we’ll be eating lunch. It’s also healthy to set times for other things in addition to our basic bodily needs, including creativity, intuitive development, or nourishing our emotional wellbeing.

Part of the beauty of a bento box is that it clearly displays all the yummy items we will be eating. By choosing what to include in our bento box of daily life, we know that we’ll get to each thing eventually. No need to hope they will get done, or worry about forgetting them, because if they’re placed in that box in advance, it’s inevitable that they’ll be seen and remembered.

We don’t have to gorge ourselves if we notice that we are full. There’s always the choice to do a little bit of a specific task each day. If a bento box includes a compartment for lotus chips, for example, on one day we might choose to have just a few of them, while on another day we might want more. If we use this as an analogy for something like physical training, we might want to do a full one-hour workout on a particular morning, but if our energy is low, the option is there to do just five minutes, maybe less. Doing at least a little bit every day will allow it to feel easier and automatic after a while (it’s worth remembering that for many things, committing to one minute a day is all we need to make it a habit).

Ironically, it can be easier to be spontaneous when there’s some sort of routine in place that we can work around, like a template for the day. Once it’s in place, there’s a choice to be creative with it. There’s less decision fatigue, less brain power sucked into working out what we’ll be doing next, and how to fit everything in.

Bento Box Your Life

What’s in your daily bento box? If you are a musician, you may have a section of each evening devoted to playing your instrument. If you’re longing to spend more time reading classical literature or sci-fi stories, it could be wonderful to set aside half an hour to settle down with an interesting novel. If you’re reading this, then you probably value spirituality and intuition, in which case there’s benefit to carving out time each day to meditate and quiet your mind, as well as to engage in other spiritual practices.

Some things are best taken care of in a certain order. To revisit the analogy of food, salad is usually better to consume before snack-like foods or sweet treats. If we eat dessert first, we probably won’t have the same appetite for a main savoury meal afterwards. Similarly, there are certain activities that are always easy to do, such as checking our phone, whereas other things are unlikely to get done if we leave them too late, even if they’re very important to us (for more on this, see my article on Flow).

Beware of the habit to let other time-sucking tasks encroach upon your bento box. For example, checking email first thing in the morning is a perfect way to feel emotionally off kilter before the day has even really begun. What if there’s something in that inbox that’s labelled urgent? The temptation will be there to action it straight away, or to at least keep thinking about it after you’ve found what the message is about. That’s going to affect your ability to get centred, have a relaxed breakfast, or enjoy a conversation with loved ones before they head off to school or work.

You can add all the things you want to your bento box, then put them out in front of the less-important to-do tasks. If there’s too much for one box, you may dream up different boxes to use less frequently. For example, you could schedule a massage as a luxurious addition to your monthly or quarterly bento box of life, but it doesn’t have to be there for your daily or weekly boxes.

If any of this sounds appealing, then bento box your life! Create compartments – that is, time and space – to devote yourself to the things that are of most value to you. You can write it down as a list of tasks to “eat” every day, or create an acronym so you can remember everything, or even draw it so you have a visual representation of all the items you wish to prioritise on a regular basis. You can literally make it a work of art.

If you would like any intuitive guidance on how to create your own ideal bento box for life, you are welcome to book a one-on-one consultation with me here.

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