When it comes to improving your health and longevity, there's one undeniable truth:
Action is the only way forward. It’s ultimately what you do that makes the difference.
You can gather all the knowledge in the world, undergo the best health tests and create the perfect plan, but none of that matters if you don’t act on it.
As ever, please talk to your doctor, or medical practitioner most familiar with your medical history before implementing any changes in diet, exercise or lifestyle; especially if you are under treatment.
Health tests - whether they are blood work, fitness assessments or genetic screenings - give you a snapshot of where you stand. Singapore now has plenty of good options. Tests can highlight areas of concern, identify risk factors and guide you toward better choices. But too often, people stop there. They gather information but fail to turn that knowledge into meaningful changes. It’s easy to get caught in the cycle of researching and planning without taking the next step: action.
Most people are not ready to take action, often with good reason.
Action requires motivation. You must be ready to make changes, and that readiness often comes after a moment of realisation - a wake-up call. A conversation with a doctor or seeing a loved one struggle with preventable health issues. It’s in these moments that motivation strikes. However, motivation alone isn’t enough. It ebbs and flows, which is why creating a system of habits and a supportive environment is key to long-term success. Learn more about finding your motivation here.
Being ready to change is just as important as having the motivation to do so. This means acknowledging that your current habits aren’t serving you and recognising that action is non-negotiable. Taking those first steps toward health doesn’t need to be complicated. It could be as simple as committing to 10 minutes of daily exercise, changing your diet one meal at a time or drinking more water.
Ensuring that the choice of action is in alignment with your health vision and values is essential for long-term success.
Once you start taking action, the results can snowball. As you see improvements - whether it’s more energy, better sleep, or improved test results - you’ll build momentum. But the opposite is also true: inaction leads to stagnation and your health may continue to decline. What keeps people from acting? Often, it’s fear of failure, uncertainty about where to start, or feeling overwhelmed by the amount of change needed. But taking action doesn’t mean making dramatic, unsustainable shifts overnight. Start small, develop consistency, build a foundation of health and keep moving forward.
And this is where many people fail. They are unable, for whatever reason, to build the foundations of health and consistency of habits - lifestyle - that will support them in the long-term. Diet, exercise, sleep and work-life balance are fundamental basics, these are where most people can take action first. And with these in place, you can layer other habits and health promoting activities on top. The danger is that some people try to take shortcuts to health, with the best of intentions but risking long-term failure. See what longevity guru Bryan Johnson or leading researchers like Luigi Fontana and others have to say, their position on these foundations are almost the same: build-up the basics before taking on advanced or esoteric protocols.
Ultimately, your health won’t improve unless you make it happen and put self-care first. Testing and knowledge are the foundation, but action is the catalyst for real change. So ask yourself: are you ready to stop planning and start doing? When you start doing, is it effective and targeted to your lifestyle? Your future health depends on the actions you take today.
Final Thoughts
The path to better health and longevity is different for everyone but I believe a combination of fostering motivation, building self-efficacy and leaning on support is key. It’s also important to align your health goals with your identity to create the conditions for long-term success. This is where we start with our clients, before working on specific plans to address their health goals.
Improving health is about finding motivation, prioritising self-care and taking action. If you want to take effective and targeted steps that fit into your unique lifestyle, The Whole Health Practice is here to help.
Whether your interest is healthspan and longevity, to beat chronic illness or to enhance your mental health and well-being, our consultations and programs deliver results that are tailored to your needs.
Our foundational Whole Health Consult identifies and prioritises the key factors - known and unknown - that affect health and wellbeing. It provides targeted recommendations tailored to you, the individual, and your unique lifestyle.
Stay Healthy,
Alastair
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Book a Whole Health Consult to assess, identify and prioritise key factors (known and unknown) that affect your health. And receive personalised recommendations on how to address them.
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Related Studies and Resources
Choudry M, Ganti L. Exploration of the Motivational Factors that Influence the Maintenance of Health. Health Psychol Res. 2024 Mar 24;12:115356. doi: 10.52965/001c.115356. PMID: 38533343; PMCID: PMC10963256.
Michaelsen MM, Esch T. Understanding health behavior change by motivation and reward mechanisms: a review of the literature. Front Behav Neurosci. 2023 Jun 19;17:1151918. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1151918. PMID: 37405131; PMCID: PMC10317209.
Michaelsen MM, Esch T. Motivation and reward mechanisms in health behavior change processes. Brain Res. 2021 Apr 15;1757:147309. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147309. Epub 2021 Jan 29. PMID: 33524377.
Duckworth AL, Gross JJ. Behavior Change. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 2020 Nov;161(Suppl):39-49. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.09.002. Epub 2020 Dec 10. PMID: 33716396; PMCID: PMC7946166.
Davidson KW, Scholz U. Understanding and predicting health behaviour change: a contemporary view through the lenses of meta-reviews. Health Psychol Rev. 2020 Mar;14(1):1-5. doi: 10.1080/17437199.2020.1719368. PMID: 31957549; PMCID: PMC7068962.
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