It’s Thursday night and you’re halfway out the door to yoga, when suddenly: “Mom! I have a project due tomorrow — I need help!” Sound familiar? At some point we’ve all had to miss an opportunity to do something for ourselves because of a school-project emergency, a rescheduled appointment or a last-minute work crisis. And with so much on our proverbial plates, self-care often becomes a juggling act where the gap between establishing health goals and taking concrete steps for tangible results feels insurmountably vast. This disconnect between what we want to do and what we actually do even has a name: the Intention-Behavior Gap.
But how does someone turn healthy intentions into healthy behaviors? That’s the problem Alicia Duffy faced as she was trying to control her hypertension and high blood pressure and guard against type 2 diabetes. She remembers needing to establish a system of accountability for herself — and that’s when she turned to Teladoc Health, a virtual healthcare provider that facilitates partnerships between patients and personal-care coaches to help users stay on track in their efforts for a healthier lifestyle.
Duffy’s story
For long stretches, improvement toward her health goals just didn’t come. “I was on several different diets,” Duffy remembers. “I was on medication for hypertension and high blood pressure. I tried to stay active, but long commutes for work didn’t always allow for that. Every time I'd go to my doctor, I just received a long lecture about all the ways I wasn’t staying healthy.”
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Duffy stood alone in front of the mirror on her first day working from home and saw a face she didn’t recognize: “My face was puffy. My eyes were puffy. I realized how physically unhealthy I was.” Not long afterward, her boss forwarded their team a flier for Teladoc Health. Yearning to make a lasting change to her lifestyle, she decided to sign up for the virtual coaching program. Within a week, she received a scale and a blood-pressure monitor in the mail, and shortly thereafter an invitation for one-on-one coaching sessions with her matched coach, Chana.
During her first session, Duffy burst into tears. “I just started crying, because I was trying so many things,” she says. “I was confused. I looked terrible. I felt terrible. I didn’t know what else to do.” The emotions poured out, and Chana — cool, composed and reassuring — listened calmly before chiming in. “So, let’s start with breakfast,” she said.
Duffy remembers this as a profound inflection point. “She didn’t give me a long lecture. She didn’t give me a list of 10 steps toward better health,” she recalls. “She just said, ‘Let’s start at the beginning. Let’s talk about breakfast and focus on trying to eat just a little better. What are some healthy options for breakfast that you actually see yourself eating?” This decisive, actionable, collaboration-focused response instilled a confidence in Duffy that made her realize she not only could get healthier, but would.
Finding a way to healthy
Having now worked with Chana for more than three years, Duffy reports her health has never been better. She’s lost weight, adjusted her nutritional routine and made a host of other substantial lifestyle changes that help her achieve the results she wants. Perhaps most important, she says these changes feel sustainable for her to continue practicing into the future.
One of the reasons why Duffy had trouble adopting these behaviors on her own is that without Chana’s help, she wasn’t able to visualize how to close the gap between her intentions and results and act on them in a real-world way. “Behavior change is a very personal process — different people have different barriers,” says behavioral scientist Anne-Kathrin Eiselt, Ph.D., who is based in the Washington, D.C., area. These include — but are not limited to — lack of financial resources and community support; negative beliefs or lack of trust in one’s own abilities; common thinking patterns like all-or-nothing thinking; and our genetic predisposition to certain medical conditions. But regardless of the specific barriers we might be facing, Eiselt emphasizes, an important facet of successful behavior change is reframing and shifting our mindset so we prioritize small changes that bring us joy over mammoth overhauls that provoke fear.
For example, you might work a short five-minute walk into your daily routine, because you enjoy the breeze but aren’t quite ready for more intensive exercise. Because you enjoy the act of being outdoors, your five minutes of walking quickly becomes 10, and then 10 turns into 15. “When you accomplish small goals, you get a boost of motivation from the dopamine response in our brains. Capitalizing on that rush can help bridge the gaps in your motivation,” says Eiselt.
Bridging the gap
Finding someone to help you make your healthy intentions a reality can be as simple as finding a health coach, which is where telehealth comes in. Companies like Teladoc Health strive to play a crucial role in bridging this gap, taking a patient-centric approach to chronic-condition management that empowers individuals to take control of their well-being and make long-lasting improvements. As Melissa Narcisi-Petges, a chronic-condition coach at Teladoc Health, puts it, “you are the expert in your own world. We’re here to work alongside you.” At Teladoc Health, patients build a personal rapport with their team of doctors, health coaches, nutritionists and therapists, who are able to provide in-the-moment support using live data from devices sent to their home (such as the scale and blood-pressure monitor Duffy was given at the beginning of her journey). Teladoc Health also offers access to its Virtual Learning Library, full of educational resources patients can browse at their own pace and convenience.
“We live in a culture that desires fast results, and I think people often feel pressured for drastic changes — which leads to drastically unsustainable results,” says Narcisi-Petges. Eiselt agrees: “Everyone goes through phases of not feeling motivated. It’s perfectly normal. Sometimes having someone there to remind you of the big picture is all you need.” Showing yourself grace as you embark on your journey to better health and finding a support team is crucial to living a healthier lifestyle, both physically and mentally.
