You're eating a gooey meatball sub in your car. One of those tomato sauce-heavy meatballs slips right out the end and lands on your white blouse, rolls down slowly and lands in your lap.

Your initial reaction is to curse, then pluck the meatball off your shirt. You might as well dump the whole sub on your shirt and let it marinate in the sauce, right? It's ruined. Or, do you chalk it up to crumby luck, spot treat your blouse and carry on with your day?

This is the fine line between your thoughts and your actions. When it comes to your health, are you an all or nothing person? 

You make a wellness plan, whether it's nutrition, fitness, mental health or otherwise. You vow to stick to it, then become discouraged and overwhelmed when you miss a day, indulge in your favourite things, criticize yourself, or talk yourself out of an early workout. Do you throw everything away and go back to your comfort zone, or do you let yourself bask in comfort food on the occasion your body is asking for it then lace up your sneakers and get back on board?

We, as humans, are not perfect. We slip up, we make poor choices and we also know the direction we should be going to best serve ourselves. And sometimes, we take the wrong path because we had a stressful day, didn't sleep well, just want a big greasy burger, skip leg day or lounge in bed all afternoon.

The most important thing you can do when trying to change habits that will benefit your life and your health is to not beat yourself up when you veer off from a prescribed plan you made with your practitioner or with yourself. Understanding your personal barriers and go-to tendencies is important for you to recognize so you can develop a preventative plan.

Allowing forgiveness and wiggle room as you move forward will get you to your goal faster than being ridgid will. I take that back. Rigidity will probably get you to your goal faster, but it may not be sustainable. Speed doesn't allow time for habits to be instilled on a more permanent level.

Creating regimens and habits takes time. Nutrition, fitness and making bigger life changes to support your wellness doesn't happen overnight. You didn't get to where you're at overnight either.

There was a habit formed with repetition and before you knew it, health and wellness issues cropped up and you wondered how you got there in the first place.

Changing the relationship you have with food and fuelling for the right reasons, committing to getting up at 6 a.m. daily to workout and truly know the benefits of doing so, plus rewiring your brain to think in a forward-focused mindframe is possible.