Grab a pen and some paper, or download our Set & Smash Your Yoga Teaching Goals workbook.
Setting your goals is thinking big! Visualising, imagining the future, and knowing where you want to go. Because we can go anywhere! (We just can’t go everywhere, all at the same time!)
Smashing your yoga teaching goals is:
- the practical implementation
- about habit forming – designing your environment to help you
- about balancing discipline, with kindness.
Usually, people tend to disappear off down the disciplining-self route, they’re really hard on themselves, but its so important to integrate kindness and compassion towards ourselves (along with motivation and discipline!).
How to set, and smash, your yoga teaching goals
Keep this in mind throughout:
Progress not perfection
This will help you with the goal setting, it will help with the implementation plan… and it will also help you with your whole year; putting your goals in to practice. It won’t be perfect, but as long as there’s progress, that’s what matters!
Goals and Intentions
A goal is something that’s measurable, such as setting an amount, a number, for example: read one book a month. Meditate ten minutes every day. Run 10k, every week. Or, measurable by setting a deadline, for example, complete couch to 5k by August, read a certain book by March.
An intention is a quality that you will embrace, or embody, or master, for example; more honest, more patient, more calm when things are happening outside of my control.
Intrinsically, they’re the same, so let’s not get hung up on technicalities. You might be setting something that’s both a goal and an intention… How wonderful!
In an ideal world, your intentions will be cultivated on the way to smashing your goals…
Set Yours
To set goals and intentions that are true to you, you need to take a little time to focus. Find a quiet space, close your eyes or soften your gaze. Slow the breath down. Get comfortable, but sit (or stand) tall.
Take a few moments to settle in, and to focus on the breath.
And when you feel that the time is right, allow your mind to wander off to imagine how you see yourself teaching yoga in the future. The impact that you’ve dreamy of having. Think about where you do and don’t want to teach. And think about how your future feels… if you can. No need to force anything, just let what comes, come.
Then, grab your pen, and write down everything that could be construed as a goal, or an intention. Everything. Absolutely everything. Don’t think about the practicalities yet, we’ll get there. For now, we’re brain dumping – put everything down.
The Implementation Plan
Scan your list, your brain dump; what jumps out at you? What’s the most urgent / the most important / the most you goal that you’ve written? That’s the first goal we’ll work with. If in doubt, go with your gut.
With that goal in mind, have a think about how you’ll feel when this goal is reached… and with that inspiring feeling, consider, does your goal need to be more simple? Does anything need clarifying, so your future self with understand and remember the goal completely.
Now, write out the steps needed to achieve your goal. For example, if your goal is to read a book a month, you need to get a book, you need to carve time in your day to read, and you need to make sure that you and your book are in the same place, when it’s time to read.
Remember: progress not perfection. You don’t need a perfect list of steps, we’re just tuning the brain in to a practical, implementable way of thinking. Now, turn your brain to understanding what is the absolute first step needed towards the goal? The absolute first thing, to kick off the rest of the steps? And lastly, can you make that first step even smaller? Even more achievable? Even more simple?
Repeat the above with all the goals that you want to work towards.
Go small….
Rather than going all out with huge goals, that are hard / a nightmare / impossible to achieve and throwing the towel in, in the first week… Let’s instead make the steps up to the goal smaller, and therefore more manageable. If one of your goals is to set up your own class with 20 people week-in, week-out, how about making your goal simple: finding somewhere to teach this class.
Let’s revisit your first goal.
Look at the first step especially, but also all the steps that you noted down, and consider, can the steps:
- Be smaller?
- Be more trackable?
- Be easier!
- Be more attractive, or more enjoyable?
Then repeat, with all your other goals. Remember, we can do anything, we just can’t do everything!
How yoga can help
Trust
Remember that beautiful concept from yoga philosophy: non-attachment to the fruits of our actions, which, for me has been life-changing. You still do your best, but understand that the result, the consequence, the outcome, will roll out in the right way.
Karma yoga
If you need a refresher on karma yoga, you can find it, here >
Movement
Sometimes you just need to get out of your incessant head chatter hey? Get on your mat. Put this leg here, that leg there, arms up, remember to breathe… Get out of the chatter and focus on the movement of the body!
Tracking and rewarding
Remember: It won’t be linear! Some days will be easy, some will be hard. Some will be satisyfing, others will feel empty.
Resolve to not miss two days on the bounce. Here, at this early point in our journey, make a plan for the hard days that you can do.
Pick key milestones and pick rewards for those milestones, and stick to them! You deserve the reward! No need to be hard on yourself. (Promise)
We have a goal tracking workbook, ready for you to use. Wants yours?
Above all, best of luck to you. Progress, not perfection is a great thing to have in mind, that, and to be kind to yourself.
With love,
Holly