Your healing program is in full force. You've got it all mapped out. Healthy foods, daily walks, refreshing of dusty personal relationships, forgiving the past, moving forward with courage and compassion. So goes day one.

Day two: something happens.

Your dog loses his breakfast on the new carpet. The mail comes late. Your third cousin sends a disturbing email to the whole family. Bored teenagers spray-paint your privacy fence. It rains.

Come on, doesn't that stuff happen to you? Of course! It happens to everyone. But there are times when the distraction provides just the fuel you were hoping for. Perhaps you take it personally, or maybe it makes you mad. Either way, it drains you of your energy and resolve.

You're exhausted. And you now have the perfect excuse to skip your walk, prop yourself up with a big bag of cheese puffs, and call off the whole thing. At least for today.

Or not. Your choice. You could just take a big breath and follow the plan.

That little choice point is the most powerful moment of your life. And it happens over and over again.

Here's the all-important question. Do you notice that moment of pure power? Or does it slide right by? The process of consistently distinguishing those choice points is one of the most powerful skills that most of us will ever develop. We might call it heightened awareness.

When a person runs their life on auto-pilot, choice-point moments usually go unnoticed. Although they'd planned on ordering a salad, somehow the waitperson delivers a cheeseburger and fries to their spot at the table. Of course they don't want to be rude. They eat it.

How did the cheeseburger get there? Who ordered it?

Who knows?

Here's a simple little trick for making those moments easier to identify: Schedule them. Write them in your day planner. Pre-screen them in your mind.

In the case of a restaurant food choice, you might write out your expected meal in your planner. On your way to the restaurant, picture yourself looking at the menu, making the healthy choice, smiling at the waitperson as you order, and relishing the meal that arrives at your place. Imagine the sense of satisfaction you'll have as you leave the restaurant, knowing that you kept your word to yourself and followed your plan.

It really doesn't matter that the person you were meeting arrived a few minutes late, you didn't get to sit by the window, or that the waitperson was wearing your least favorite color. What matters is that you get to feel good.

As a wellness coach, this is one of the skills my participants play around with as they go through a healthy living project. Noticing the choice-point moment. Of course it's natural that once a person ups their awareness skills, the nature of their choices tends to change. Just a side effect. But in this case, it's a side effect that most people really like!