Oh, it’s a busy, jam-packed day full of things I love to do, things which excite me and a few things which, frankly, I approach with a bit of dread, the things which are the chores of my daily life. And I start to wonder how it is I can be healthy today. After all I’m busy and slightly stressed and if I stop for a moment I can add half a dozen things to my “to-do” list without effort. How exactly am I supposed to be sure I’m eating healthy, sustaining food and complete my 6-mile run on my triathlon training schedule?

Today, I need to slow down.

Seems counterintuitive what with all the things on my schedule, right? It’s a challenging position for me. To get more done I need to move faster, right? Well, that’s one way to look at it. Another is that I need to take a moment to breathe and think. If I act from a place of chaos, I’ll make decisions based on chaos. Those decisions will come from fear and habit rather than from intention. And if I take just a moment, I can usually find a way to make the choice which I will celebrate rather than regret later.

True confession: I often suffer from all-or-nothing thinking. If I eat a cookie before dinner then, well, my whole day of healthy eating has been shot to hell. That, my friends, is not true. And the good news is that I get to make a new choice immediately. If I cut a workout short or alter it or heck even skip it, that does not mean I won’t finish my half Ironman in April. Happiness is not found in perfection. It’s found in the journey. And I not only get a new start each day, I get a chance to start over in each moment. For real. It’s about the little things.

So what can I do this minute to connect myself today’s value of healthy living? Can I stand up and stretch? Take the stairs to my next meeting? Grab a piece of fruit for my afternoon snack? Add some vegetables to my dinner plan? Go for a short run around the block?

As my schedule looks crazy and overwhelming this morning, I’ll take a moment to pause. I’ll step away from my coffee (for a moment) for a bit of yoga and I’ll be confident that I can make good decisions the rest of the day. But the rest of the day comes later. If I focus on what I’m doing right now, I’ll not only end up getting more accomplished, I’ll likely end up making those healthy decisions I always intended to make.