Keep your yoga practice alive and well
There are times when we practice a lot, and times when practice falls by the wayside. As lockdowns lift and summer is on the horizon, the yoga practices we cultivate so carefully can start to take a back seat as other activities draw our attention and time. We know that with diligence and regularity, practice sustains and nourishes us, so how can we ensure we stick with good habits without letting them slip?
If you are one of those people who lives by the motto, ‘discipline is freedom’ maybe you don’t have an issue here. But if like me, it’s been a stop/start journey of many years to develop a consistent practice, these are a few ideas that might help:
Remember your motivation (why)
Have you ever thought about where your motivation for doing anything comes from? There is good evidence that when motivation is intrinsic (for the sake of our own enjoyment or satisfaction) rather than extrinsic (for external rewards like money or praise), those corresponding behaviours are easier to maintain. Intrinsic motivators are aligned to your values and beliefs, things that are personally meaningful to you. They feed a powerful internal drive to continue. Remind yourself, intentionally, of the reasons why you practice and if you’ve never contemplated the question, ‘why do I practice yoga?’, try asking it.
Hack your environment (where and how)
Managing your surroundings is a simple and powerful way of supporting sustainable behaviours. To give an example, one way to avoid eating unhealthy food is not to buy it! If it’s not in the house then it can’t be eaten when bored or tired. By not having the food there, willpower (of lack, thereof) becomes irrelevant. Your environment can be manipulated to boost the positive behaviours you want to maintain, just as it can minimise those you want to avoid.
Try placing things in plain sight that will cue you to action. Set your yoga clothes or mat out the night before you intend to practice. Make your practice space somewhere you love to be, perhaps with a beautiful candle or a plant. If you don’t have a dedicated space, objects like a favourite meditation cushion that travel with you from room to room (or on holiday) create a strong association with a familiar ritual.
Scale down and show up (how long)
Ambitious goals can help some people to stay motivated. However, whatever the big picture looks like for you, making something realistically achievable in the now is important. When building a habit, consistency trumps duration. Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘the hardest part is showing up’? The repetitive action of just showing up time after time helps to create a habit that lasts.
So, you told yourself you would meditate for 30 minutes every day? Maybe it started well but somehow lost your way with it. Try scaling down, but keep going. When building consistency, ten minutes is something, as is five minutes, as is a single minute. When you scale down, taking action becomes less of a chore and easier to achieve. So make it super-easy if necessary. Steps, however small, help you move in the right direction and naturally build into something bigger. A single MOMENT of daily mindfulness if we choose it, can have profound effects.
Add on (when)
Adding one habit to an existing one is another great tip. The brain loves association and quickly makes connections. For example, a morning or evening practice before or after brushing your teeth allows you to link your practice to something you do already. By connecting the two activities, the brain no longer needs to drum up the momentum to make a new decision, helping to bypass any part of the thinking mind that blocks the road to direct action.
Share (with whom)
Share with your loved ones why your practice is important to you, so they can support you. When we tell people about our endeavours, it helps us be accountable to others (not just to ourselves) and nicely gives us one less excuse to bail out. When we attend a regular class, we gain not only by learning and sharing but by keeping ourselves committed and consistent to a time and place. Over and above this, when we spend time with others who share our love for practice, we find a whole community of support and encouragement – a tribe of like-minded people that inspire us to keep growing.
Celebrate and enjoy
BJ Fogg, author of ‘Tiny habits’ says that positive emotions create habits and that enjoyment is key. If your practice isn’t already giving you that immediate happy feedback, we are less inclined to continue. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why a quiet meditation practice can be less tempting than a guaranteed endorphin-rich vinyasa flow. Rewards, however small, release a dose of the feel-good hormone dopamine which occurs when checking a text message or ticking something off a to-do list (my personal favourite). In a tangible way, allow yourself that satisfying sense of achievement. Maybe use a phone tracker, or an App to help. As it turns out, gold stars aren’t just for kids!
Don’t judge (be nice to yourself)
If that daily practice which you may have aspired to has gone out the window, don’t be hard on yourself. When we don’t achieve what we set out to do, we tend to look upon it as a failure. Can we change our perception of what failure actually is? ‘Failure’ provides ripe conditions for growth and is arguably a valuable part of anything worthwhile pursuing. If we view our efforts with compassion and become our very own cheerleaders, we can avoid that ‘all or nothing’ thinking that tempts us into giving up.
And remember, there are times when not practicing might be the right thing to do. When it is time, yoga will always be there, ready and waiting. Remember that you can begin again, anytime, many times over.
By definition, habits are automatic and effortless. They are behaviours that become so stable and engrained you no longer require any energy to sustain them. It takes time and repetition to build them.
Like the many tools of yoga itself, intentional repeated actions help us to go a long way so that eventually, hacks can become redundant. Maybe one day, you notice that all by itself, yoga stops becoming something you do but more like something you are, and an integrated part of your life. James Clear, author of ‘Atomic Habits’ says that behaviour change is identity change, stating ‘every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to be’. So be intentional, be specific and most importantly, keep going.
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