The benefits of creating a short daily yoga practice will go a long way in maintaining and improving your physical and mental health. All that is needed is 15 to 20 minutes daily as part of your self care routine. We all know this! So what holds us back? The answer should be ” nothing ” but our minds are so good at tricking us into believing that we have more important issues at hand, like “just need to send off an email first”, or “I need that 10 minutes extra of sleep today” -sound familiar to you?
The author, James Clear has written a superb book called Atomic Habits. In this book, he distils most fundamental information about habit formation, so you can accomplish more by focusing on less. For example, if you can get 1% better for each day of the year, you will end up 37 times better by the time you are done. Conversely if you get 1% worse each day for the year, you will decline down to almost zero. – makes you think doesn’t it ?
So what are the barriers to you cultivating your daily practice? Is not having a dedicated space to practice a barrier for you ? is time a barrier? is your mindset a barrier? Exploring and reflecting will go a long way in identifying what is holding you back. And now, can you think of ways to improve on the situation? If the environment is the obstacle, what can you do to improve on this? For example, do you need to create a dedicated space for your yoga mat and daily practice that is visible to you and serves as a visual cue to step into your practice for the day. Having your yoga mat and yoga props set up in a warm and inviting space can be visually pleasing to the eye. If it is a time barrier, can you commit to a 5 minute yoga and movement practice daily instead of 20 minutes. Each day you step onto your yoga mat for 5 minutes you will be building up your daily practice. How about setting a daily reminder on your phone for your practice. What time of day will you dedicate to this practice? And what will the alarm tone sound like ? something inviting and soothing or screeching and blaring, making you want to run in the opposite direction.
Perhaps one of the barriers you face is not knowing what your practice should look like? there is no right or wrong here, movement of any sort is sooooo good for the mind and body. Mindset is key to a positive experience. Reminding yourself that you are aiming for progress and not perfection helps to calm the critical mind that what you are doing is not good enough. I will say that again – aim for PROGRESS not PERFECTION.
There are plenty of fabulous free tools to use for guidance on a quick yoga practice. If you are feeling stuck use a free platform like google to search for inspiration. Once you have chosen the video, ask yourself “am I enjoying this practice ?” and rate your answer out of 10. If it is less than 8 out of 10 ask yourself “why?” – is it too hard or too boring boring ? is the instructor not appealing to you ? once you have answered these questions for yourself , you will know the next step e.g find a different video, choose a different instructor, find a different platform.
So now that we have unpacked a few practical ways to get you going with your home yoga and movement practice, ask yourself again – “how motivated am I to achieving my goal of a daily practice? ” ( or however many days a week you select ) AND how committed am I to this goal ? Again if you rate your answer out of 10 and it comes back as less than 8, then perhaps you need to go back to refining what your practice should look like in order to be fully committed and motivated.
Spending a little bit of time on the creating your daily practice routine and what it will look like for you will stand you in good stead. Write it down, make a contract with yourself and make it SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Bound ) – Research shows that this way we are 80% more likely to achieve our goals.
I trust these practical steps to cultivating your home Yoga practice will impact your life in positive ways!
Good Luck , Have FUN and See you on the Mat!
From my heart to yours
Alex
