Why I’m Committing to More Yoga This Year, and You Should, Too

By Hannah Moran
Studio Manager and Teacher, Inner Fire Yoga

I think we can all agree that 2020 did not go at all how any of us planned, but 2021 is here now (yay! 🥳)  and with it, opportunity to recommit to our health and wellbeing. This blog includes a personal reflection on my yoga practice in 2020, why I want to do better in 2021, and how I plan to do it.

Here’s the truth of the matter - I really struggled with my yoga practice in 2020. 

When our studios had to close in March 2020, I felt pretty defeated. I took about 3 weeks off from my yoga practice entirely, moping and whining about the lack of 105 degree heat in my apartment and telling myself the same story of hopelessness over and over again: “If I can’t have the heat, and the teacher that I want, and the in-person experience, and the studio space, it’s not even worth practicing at all.” I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one who felt this way...

“I remembered that yoga is not a place or a set of conditions - it’s a lifestyle, and it takes dedication no matter the circumstances.”

I’m here to publicly admit that I WAS WRONG. It absolutely is worth practicing anyway, even if you don’t have the “perfect” conditions for a yoga practice. While I didn’t practice as often as I would’ve liked to in 2020, whenever I did attend one of our virtual or outdoor classes I felt this amazing rush of hope. I remembered that yoga is not a place or a set of conditions - it’s a lifestyle, and it takes dedication no matter the circumstances.

Some of us used to practice every day at the studio. I always wanted to be one of those people, but when I really thought about whether or not that was realistic for me, I realized it just wasn’t. Between work, family commitments, chores, maintaining a social life, visiting my new baby niece as often as possible, taking care of my two dogs, sleeping 8 hours every night, and having a plethora of hobbies - participating in a 1-1.5 hour yoga class every day is just not in the cards for me.

So I thought to myself, what would be realistic for me? This is an important question for anyone to ask themselves. We often have lofty ideas of what an “ideal” yoga practice looks like, but in practice it may not be wise to shoot for the ideal. I came to the conclusion that, while frequency of practice does matter, what mattered more to me - and what was harder for me to accomplish, in fact - was committing to a routine: practicing regularly, on a schedule, and remaining dedicated to that routine.

Maintaining a routine was hard enough without a massive disruption like the Covid-19 pandemic. 2020 threw me more curveballs than ever before. It felt like the chaos would never end - as if I had no control over my own future. Yoga and mindfulness teaches us that in reality, the concept of “control” is an illusion. That’s why I think it’s going to be more important than ever in 2021 to recommit to a routine yoga and mindfulness practice. The goal is to be able to move through life with balance and ease, rather than resistance and fear.

“The goal is to be able to move through life with balance and ease, rather than resistance and fear.”

Now, I can’t speak for everyone, but what I can say from personal experience is this: those times in my life when I committed to practicing at least 3 to 4 times per week or more, I felt more peaceful, stronger physically and mentally, more productive at work, more emotionally resilient, and overall better-equipped to deal with the stresses of life (which don’t go away, unfortunately) than when I practiced less often.

Here’s my pledge to myself in 2021: I pledge to recommit to a frequent yoga practice and get back to a sustainable routine of yoga as a healthy habit in my life.

My first big question was, how do I get from point A to point B, if point A is not practicing very often, if at all, and point B is practicing at least 3-4 times per week? The conclusion I came to is this: I have to make it a part of my routine. Seems obvious, I know! But it was harder than it sounded. 

I know myself well enough to realize that discipline is not my strong suit. So I decided to seek out help. I did some research, read some books and blogs, meditated on it, and came up with a plan.

The first thing I realized is - it’s not as easy as booking the classes and showing up. It actually took a whole shift in my mindset to successfully implement and maintain a routine. Sustainability was key. I wanted this routine to last, rather than work for a couple of weeks and then slowly disappear from existence (which is not uncommon for me!).

I discovered a significant amount of peer-reviewed research on the psychology of building sustainable routines and healthy, long-term habits. If you’re one of those people who likes fact-based proof and hard data, like me, I encourage you to read some of this research for yourself (here are a few links for you folks: study #1, study #2, article). 

For those of you who just want to get through this blog (you still with me? haha) and start putting in the work, here are five tips I put together based on what I’ve read and experienced myself:

1. Set realistic goals.

I often find myself wanting to shoot for the stars and get from point A to point B right away. It’s part of our perpetual search for immediate gratification as human beings. But if you are, for example, working 60 hours a week with 3 kids at home and trying to learn to play the guitar and reading a book every week and taking your dog for a walk every day and so on and so forth, maybe trying to do 6 classes every week right away is a bit ambitious… By setting your expectations for yourself that high right out of the gate, you’re probably setting yourself up for failure.

Here’s my suggestion: however many classes you’re doing each week right now, set a preliminary goal of adding 1 to that number. For example, if your yoga practice is nonexistent, try just 1 class per week for a couple weeks. If you’re doing about 1 class per week, try bumping it up to 2. Slowly add another weekly class into the mix and work your way up to wherever you want to be.

2. Hold yourself accountable.

Accountability is important, and it’s hard to do alone. One way I like to give myself that immediate gratification is a simple, old-fashioned sticker chart. You can make your own chart to customize your goals, or just use a regular old calendar. Put a sticker up every time you practice. The visual representation of your success will give you warm fuzzies every time you look at it and encourage you to keep on keepin’ on!

Inner Fire Yoga holds challenges like this about four times every year, in fact, so I like to just use the charts provided at the studios (or right now, the virtual Google Sheet). Our current challenge is 4x/week for 10 weeks - sign up now in our virtual sticker chart 🌟

You can also recruit friends to help you out. I’ve asked my husband to check in with me periodically to ask me about my yoga practice, and I find it helps immensely. It’s easy to tell myself that it’s okay if I skipped my yoga class, but it’s much harder to tell that to someone else. 

Can you think of a friend, family member, roommate, spouse, or partner who you can trust to help hold you accountable? Ask them to help you out! Or better yet - get them to commit to a lifestyle change with you :) Yoga is better with friends, after all!

3. Book your classes in advance.

I’ve found that if I leave booking to the last minute, the chances of flaking out increase significantly. I’ve found the most success booking my classes 3-4 at a time to map out my week. It’s much easier to make it a priority when it’s already in my calendar.

Fortunately, this is super easy to do with the Inner Fire Yoga app. If you don’t have it, I would highly recommend downloading it immediately. You’ll get the ability to add your classes to your calendar, which a lot of people find helps them stick to their commitments. You’ll also get the option to receive confirmation emails and reminders from us when your class is coming up so you don’t forget!

4. Stick to a schedule, but don’t be a slave to it.

Sticking to a weekly schedule has helped me fall into a routine faster and more effectively. I played around for a while taking all sorts of classes until I found the ones that worked best for me, and then decided to make those specific classes a part of my routine.

Schedules are good. Routines are good. That’s what this whole blog is about. However… I’d be remiss not to mention that it’s okay to break your routine. It happens to me ALL the time. Like I said - discipline is not my strong suit 😂 If that happens - nay, WHEN that happens (because human nature) - remember to forgive yourself. It’s so easy to become defeated, especially early on in the routine-forming process, when things don’t go as planned. But hey, we survived 2020, right? If that doesn’t prove how resilient we are, then I don’t know what does. Just pick yourself up, get back on the horse, and try again.

5. If you start to feel bored, mix it up!

Again - routine is the name of the game, here. However, routines should always have enough flexibility built in so that there’s room to evolve over time. For example - I once took only Inner Fire Flow 75’s for about 5 weeks straight, but by class number 15 I was sorely craving some Yin, or a Hot 90, or a Power Flow class. I got myself into Dar’s Friday 12:30 Yin class one week and instantly decided I would work it into my routine. It really helped me to balance the yang of the Inner Fire Flow sequence with some more mellow, meditative yin work. I also ended up replacing one of my weekly Inner Fire Flows with a Hot 60 and found myself loving the balance created by that variety of classes.

If you experience the same thing, allow yourself to chase those whims! This will keep the routine feeling fresh so that you don’t get bored, not to mention it’ll make us all more well-rounded yogis.

With these five tips, plus whatever other tips you come up with yourself along the way, I bet you’ll find that a frequent yoga practice is not as difficult to achieve as you may have thought. 

Have you found other tips and tricks that help you stick to a routine of frequent yoga? Share with us in the comments below!

So what do you say? Will you join me and pledge to recommit to your yoga practice in 2021? Book some classes now and start working towards your goals!

Hope to see you on the mat soon, Yogis :) Namaste.