Do Your Actions Align With Your Goals?

Part 1: Clarity, Grief, and the Power of Small Changes

By Louis Armstrong | Armstrong Training

Louis Armstrong reflecting during a beach walk while discussing personal growth, grief, and self-development.

At the beginning of this year, I attended a five-day silent retreat hoping to reconnect with myself. What followed was a journey through grief, self-reflection, old habits, and the realization that motivation alone is not enough.

This is a story about structure, healing, and learning how to align your actions with the life you want to create.

Chapter 1: The Silent Retreat

At the beginning of this year, I decided to do something I had never done before.

I took part in a five-day silent retreat.

Going into January, I had one goal: reconnect with myself.

What I didn't expect was how much I had lost touch with the person I used to be.

For five days, there were no distractions. No constant notifications. No Netflix binge-watching. No music. No phone. No TV. No outside noise competing for my attention.

For the first time in a long time, I had space to think.

I read books for the first time in years.

Not one book. Multiple books.

Books that inspired me.

Books that challenged me.

Books that gave me hope.

Books that reminded me that growth is still possible no matter where you are in life.

I spent hours writing, journaling, reflecting, and answering questions I had been avoiding for years.

Somewhere during those five days, something unexpected happened.

I felt like I met myself again.

Not the forty-year-old version of me.

The eighteen-year-old version.

The kid who graduated high school with big dreams, endless optimism, and a belief that anything was possible.

Before life happened.

Before loss.

Before grief.

Before disappointments.

Before all the highs and lows that shape us into who we become.

For the first time in a long time, I could see him clearly.

And as I reflected on my life, my goals, my habits, and the future I wanted to create, I gained something that had been missing for a while.

Clarity.

I knew the coach I wanted to become.

I knew the man I wanted to become.

I knew the life I wanted to build.

I knew the habits I wanted to have.

I knew the values I wanted to live by.

And I knew something else.

If I wanted that future, things had to change.

Because eventually I had to ask myself a difficult question:

Do my actions align with my goals?

When I answered honestly, the answer was no.

I wanted more.

But I wasn't doing what someone who wanted more would do.

Chapter 2: When Motivation Met Real Life

Coming out of January, I had motivation and excitement.

I had new ideas.

I had values.

I had principles.

I had goals.

I had a vision.

But at the same time, I had a birthday coming up.

And this birthday was different.

It was my first birthday without my mom.

The closer it got, the heavier everything started to feel.

I could still hear her voice, but I knew there would be no phone call.

No hug.

No checking in.

No birthday message from the person who had been there for every birthday before.

And slowly, familiar feelings started to return.

Anxiety came back.

Depression got louder.

Motivation got drowned out.

Everything felt harder.

It felt like standing at the bottom of a staircase, knowing you needed to climb, but even the first step felt too far away.

And when life started to feel heavy, old habits came back.

Instead of building the healthy lifestyle I said I wanted, I started looking for distraction.

I drank.

I stayed out late.

I spent time in places and around people who helped me avoid what I was feeling.

At the time, it felt like comfort.

But looking back, I can see it for what it was.

I was seeking comfort instead of healing.

And the problem with that kind of comfort is that it usually does not move you forward.

It keeps you where you are.

Sometimes, it even moves you backward.

I started to feel stuck again.

Overwhelmed by finances.

Overwhelmed by the future.

Overwhelmed by familiar patterns of self-destruction.

Overwhelmed by the gap between the person I said I wanted to become and the choices I was making every day.

Nothing I was doing felt aligned with the vision I had coming out of January.

My goals said one thing.

My actions said something else.

And that is a hard thing to admit.

Because when you fall back into old patterns, they do not usually disappear overnight.

They feel familiar.

They feel safe.

Even when they hurt you.

Even when they leave you looking in the mirror knowing this is not what you intended.

This is not what you wanted.

But then comes the question:

How do you stop?

How do you turn it off?

Where is the light bulb moment?

Who is going to save you?

The answer is you.

At some point, you have to find the first step.

Because eventually, I had to learn something I will never forget:

Motivation was not enough.

Motivation is not enough.

And motivation will never be enough to create lasting change.

Chapter 3: Small Changes

At some point, I realized I needed something to help support the weight of everything I was carrying.

Because I was carrying a lot.

And the truth is, we all carry a lot.

Pain.

Loss.

Stress.

Trauma.

Fear.

Responsibilities.

Expectations.

Life has a way of piling things on top of us until the load feels so heavy that we don't know how to move forward.

Sometimes it feels hard to breathe.

Hard to think.

Hard to take the next step.

And when motivation disappears, what do you do then?

For me, the answer wasn't one big life-changing moment.

It wasn't a motivational speech.

It wasn't a book.

It wasn't even Pilates.

Those things helped, but they weren't the answer.

The answer was small changes.

Small changes that slowly became structure.

And that structure gave me something to stand on.

It started with a calendar.

Not the calendar on my phone.

A real calendar hanging on the wall.

There was something satisfying about physically walking up to it with a pen and marking off the day.

A check mark meant I showed up.

A check mark meant I kept my promises.

A check mark meant I took care of myself.

Some days got an X.

Most people focus on the X's.

I started focusing on the checks.

Because over time, I noticed something.

The checks started to outnumber the X's.

And when that happens, you start building confidence.

Not because your life is perfect.

But because you can see yourself becoming consistent.

You start keeping promises to yourself.

And once I started focusing on today, something shifted.

I stopped worrying so much about tomorrow.

I stopped worrying so much about six months from now.

I stopped trying to solve my entire life at once.

Instead, I started asking a simpler question:

What do I need to do today?

Tomorrow could take care of itself.

My job was to win today.

Then another change happened.

I finally signed up for Pilates.

For years, I was one of those people who said, "One day."

One day when work slows down.

One day when life settles down.

One day when I have more time.

One day when I have more money.

But the truth is, one day is not guaranteed.

And for many people, one day never comes.

So I signed up.

Then I added hot yoga.

Not because I wanted another workout.

Because I wanted stillness.

I wanted peace.

I wanted to learn how to slow down.

I wanted to breathe.

I wanted to be present.

Then I started changing my mornings.

Every morning began with hot lemon water.

Then I would step outside.

No music.

No distractions.

Just fresh air.

The sound of birds.

The wind moving through the trees.

The world waking up around me.

Those moments became part of my foundation.

I want to make something clear.

The goal wasn't to stay busy.

The goal wasn't to fill every hour of my day so I didn't have to think, feel, or deal with what I was going through.

In fact, that was part of the problem.

For a long time, I used distraction as a coping mechanism.

I stayed busy.

I stayed entertained.

I stayed occupied.

But none of those things helped me heal.

The structure I was building wasn't designed to help me avoid my emotions.

It was designed to help me face them.

Pilates didn't eliminate grief.

The walks didn't eliminate anxiety.

The hot lemon water didn't magically solve my problems.

However, what those things did provide was something equally important: stability.

They gave me a foundation strong enough to carry difficult emotions without letting those emotions dictate my decisions.

There is a difference between distraction and structure.

Distraction helps you avoid what you're feeling.

Structure helps you move through what you're feeling.

One keeps you stuck.

The other helps you grow.

None of these changes were dramatic.

I didn't decide to work out seven days a week.

I didn't completely reinvent my life overnight.

I didn't try to change everything at once.

I made changes that felt small enough to repeat.

And something interesting started happening.

The structure started spreading.

Organizing my mornings made me want to organize my room.

Organizing my room made me want to organize my calendar.

Organizing my calendar made me want to organize my business.

Creating structure in my business created structure in my workouts.

Creating structure in my workouts created structure in my life.

Everything became connected.

I stopped waiting to wake up one day and magically become the person I wanted to be.

Instead, I started building that person one decision at a time.

One habit at a time.

One day at a time.

Because when motivation fails, you need something stronger.

You need something solid.

You need a foundation.

You need structure.

And eventually, that structure becomes something your old habits can no longer compete with.

Because now you have something new to stand on.

Something healthier.

Something stronger.

Something worth protecting.

I started to trust myself again.

To be continued...