well I'm not at all clear from your post WHAT exactly you think your problem is...
but as a big picture exercise...
how about this?
try pushing up all the faders to zero, and then without ANY processing.. try to push things around into a good balance.
the idea being to get a sense of how the musical elements interact rather than focusing on things as isolated "sounds"
do a mix like that.
then perhaps do the opposite... push things back to all zero in a line, and then "mix' ONLY by adding EQ to things, without altering any levels.
allow yourself to push the lead vocal up perhaps but nothing else.
of course depending on how things are recorded, this may be more or less successful as a real mix.,
but the idea is to THINK about what changing level versus changing EQ gets you... much better than thinking of each sound as an individual thing to be tweaked in isolation.
or,
why not allow yourself only a set time... say 1/2 hour?, to do a quick mix and print it.
listen to it tomorrow and see how you did; what you'd change, what you DID like about it, etc.
or,
put a really heavy, perhaps 20:1, compressor on the stereo buss and mix through it, like it's already pumping away on the radio.
Force yourself to mix that way just as if it IS on the radio.. make the drums punchy enough and the vocal cut through enough and so on, but naturally, it's on the radio, it cannot sound as good as a 'pristine' audiophile mix (thank god).
now take the compressor off and print the result.
how's THAT sound tomorrow?
it seems to me the idea is to shake up your habits if you feel you are getting too fixated.. and any of these might be a way to start that process.
hope this helps.
ps Steely Dan blows
