Lately, I’ve been feeling kind of stagnant - like I’m not gaining any ground, or advancing in any tangible way. It’s been a combination of things making me feel like I’m not doing enough, the main two factors being the puppy we brought home a few months ago and have spent the bulk of our time and energy training, and the trainings I’ve committed to this year in order to add to my skillset and increase my offerings in my small business.
Just writing that down makes me laugh and shake my head a little bit, because it’s so clear - my life is chaos right now, and I’m beating myself up for lack of productivity and growth and income. It’s a reminder that, after spending years grinding away in the capitalist system we all live under, it’s really, really hard to stop - even when you’re your own boss.
And I have noticed that a lot over the last five years of running my own business - countless times when I have realized I’m really tired, really run down, really burnt out, and when I look around, there’s no one to blame for it but myself. I’m the boss now, and it’s amazing how easy it is to fall into the trap of treating yourself the same way all your worst bosses did.
I’m determined to knock that shit off.
Making a career out of teaching yoga and meditation is not an easy thing to do, it’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s honestly not for people who don’t have financial support OR the stamina to really hustle and potentially work several jobs for a while as you build up your business. I think it’s important to be honest and transparent about how tough it is to build any small business, but yoga is particularly challenging for a whole host of reasons, including the fact that most yoga studios still don’t pay teachers a living wage for their services, despite teachers undergoing extensive (and expensive) trainings to hone their craft over the course of time.
When I started my business, I set a goal to eventually replace the last salary I earned at a 9-5 job in a non-profit organization. Of course, I had no way of knowing that, less than a year into the launch of my new small business, there would be a global pandemic that would make in-person work nearly impossible. So, the growth of my business was even slower than I had expected or planned for. Now, things are moving along, and I’m able to increase my income a little bit each year, so I do have faith that, in the next few years, I’ll reach my original goal and replace the last salary that I had (hopefully even with adjusting for inflation).
I’ve definitely noticed in the years since the pandemic, watching my business grow is something that I nearly obsess over. I don’t quite reach the point of obsession, but I think about it a lot. I go over my financials a lot. I still keep track of how many people attend each class that I teach, so that I can track the growth of each of my studio classes. I read every review that I get, good and bad, and probably dwell a little too long on the bad ones. And I push myself - constantly - to do more, learn more, earn more, offer more, and succeed. MORE.
Somehow, even after quitting capitalism, success is still defined by having “more” than I had before.
And, in a year when I’ve set aside a lot of time to learn, it’s been tough to feel like I’m succeeding at doing and making “more” than I was doing before.
Even though that’s silly, because I am currently learning MORE things to then offer to people, to share with the world, to earn more money, to gain more clients, etc. So even if I’m not experiencing the MORE right now in this moment, everything I’m doing now that feels so slow and stagnant is actually paving the way for MORE to come my way, down the road.
Why is it so hard to just be where I am? Even after all these years of practicing and teaching yoga - a path that invites us to walk forward exactly as we are, without needing to change a thing - I am still constantly judging myself to prove my own worth, and assigning that worth through productivity.
No more. I may be halfway through this life, but I have half a life yet to live, and I solemnly swear I will not continue to live it like this.
So, no more of this “but I’m not doing enough this year” bullshit. I’m doing a LOT this year. I’m teaching ten studio classes a week in three studios, and supporting a fourth studio on an as-needed basis. I’m teaching vinyasa, hatha, yin, restorative, meditation, sound baths, and yoga nidra sessions - the culmination of somewhere around 800 hours of training over the course of the past five years. I’m training to offer conscious connected breathwork and reiki, and by the end of this year I’ll be regularly offering both in private and small group sessions. I am working on essays for this Substack, aiming to make it more consistent and prioritize it as an area of focus.
And this summer, I will spend a few months doing the bare minimum - on purpose. For me, in this season of life, that will look like reducing all offerings to just my weekly studio classes, taking some time off, and dedicating myself to slowing down through the hottest months of the year - the time when I personally tend to feel my least energized and inspired. This feels like a huge shift forward for me - honoring my natural rhythms and leaning in to work when it feels right, and resting when it does not.
I am doing everything, and I’m right where I’m meant to be. It feels like growth. It feels really, really good.
xo,
