3 Step to Yoga Challenge Success
Have your ever participated in a yoga challenge? With summertime energies encouraging us to get moving, a yoga challenge may be exactly in line with the season to tap the elemental energies of love, creativity, and manifestation.
Over the years, I've come at yoga challenges from all angles:
as a yoga student, feeding an insatiable thirst for improvement;
as a broken heart, seeking a way to combat grief after a loss;
as a studio owner, seeking creative ways to keep a practice room full during cyclical seasonal slowdowns;
as the subject of a kinesiology research study, getting measured, weighed, and interviewed at regular intervals while committing to a set amount of power yoga classes within a set period of time;
and even as a hopeful Instagram follower, attempting to win a free yoga mat or pair of leggings for participating!
On the whole, I love yoga challenges, both the online variety and in-person! It was my own first experience with a yoga challenge over 20 years ago that catapulted me to enroll in my first yoga teacher training. I entered into my local studio's "60 Day Bikram Yoga Challenge," which required a 90 minute Bikram yoga class every day for 60 days, with the promise it would change my life. It certainly did.
My personal transformation with yoga challenges has been overwhelmingly positive, but I've also seen regrettable fallout from yoga challenges. Of the many students I've watched embark on a yoga challenge, half of them return with hearts on fire, inspired, transformed, and committed to yoga in a way they didn't foresee. The other half? Burned out, they never return at all.
Today's yoga blog shares three easy steps yogis of all levels can follow that will lead you toward success and away from burnout when that next yoga challenge comes along.
Step 1 Define the Yoga Challenge with Tangible Goals
To be a challenge, parameters must be set in order to know if we are on track or not. These parameters should be something outside of our regular yoga routine or comfort zone (other wise is it really a challenge?). Pretty much anything can be a yoga challenge:
A preset number of classes within a fixed period of time
Dedication to one particular yoga style or sequence to build endurance and expand knowledge of the style
Focus or command over one specific posture within a set amount of time
A commitment to trying something new on mat daily for a set number of days
A "Yogi's Choice" challenge
One of my teacher colleagues in England does an annual plank challenge where she guides her students to start slowly with basics so that they can safely and confidently work their way up to a 3 minute hold by the end of the challenge. Everyone posts on Instagram and it's a lot of fun to see people progress.
We did a "name your own challenge" or "yogi's choice challenge" at my studio years ago that were very successful. We set the time frame, then allowed the students to define their own personal practice challenge. Students wrote their goals on a studio community board and together we tracked their progress, which was also written on the public board for accountability.
Clearly defined parameters with tangible goals dial down on commitment. We all respond to seeing and feeling the rewards of our hard work. Even for broader challenges, like 30 classes in 30 days, for example, consider breaking the time down into smaller, more manageable goals. Setting weekly practice goal within those 30 days can help provide a measurable outcome beyond marking off class attendance.
Step 2 Make it Inclusive
Creating community support for yoga challenges is part of the fun. Whether the challenge is virtual or in-studio, pictures and hashtags are a fun way to share the journey, invite other people along, and find inspiration on those days you just aren't feeling it.
During challenges or anytime, I often enlist the help of a yoga buddy to keep me on target with my class attendance. Carpooling, walking to the studio together, or asking a friend to save us a spot is a prime way to ensure we show up. We all need accountability. And while we can pretty easily break commitments to ourselves without a second thought, we tend to be more mindful about breaking commitments we make to others.
Step 3 Lead from the Heart
As a challenge, we're stretching our bodies, minds, and souls beyond our everyday state of being. It's only natural that physical outcomes we didn't expect will arise. We may tighten up, get very sore, dehydrate, or experience greater bodily fatigue which makes us more prone to injury. None of these conditions should be blindly pressed through for the sake of the challenge. Doing so risks injury, burnout, and can associate our beloved practice with negative feelings.
The emotional cost of a yoga challenge is also very real. My best friend sobbed, uncontrollably and audibly, for every day of her 60 day challenge. She wasn't in physical pain. She wasn't even really sure why. But the tears opened and were unstoppable. Something needed purging and all she could do was allow it to flow as freely as possible.
The spiritual benefits of a yoga challenge are deeply personal. Postures are a tool to self mastery, a way to experience energy flow through our own bodies and connect us more deeply to the world around us. Every class and every posture does not have to be better and deeper than the one before in order to experience the transformative power of yoga.
In Closing
Yoga can increase flexibility, ease chronic pain, and alleviate stress and anxiety. It can open up new perspectives and help us release limiting patterns of thought and behavior. But remember, the postures are not the final destination; they are tools to access and awaken the spirit. When we solely focus on the physical benefits of yoga and ignore the inner spirit, we risk breaking down the body and depleting our energy. In these times, we've lost sight of the deeper power of a yoga practice and have veered off course.
Use a yoga challenge to nourish all aspects of self. Completing a challenge doesn't mean pushing to the physical limit each day on the mat despite the consequences. Simply commit to the time on the mat, to the breath at hand. Build up the muscle of making and keeping a commitment to yourself. Show up holistically with the intention to nurture the mind and soul as much as the physical form. Set goals or use intentions and affirmations at the top of your practice to help clarify what this means to you.
Yoga challenges are a great way to fire up a yoga practice, increase inspiration, generate energy, even strengthen bonds within our yoga communities. When approached mindfully, we can avoid burnout and channel that power to strengthen mind, body, and spirit.
Thanks for reading! Please share with anyone you know who would benefit from the content.
Namaste,
Lara
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