Spring Cleaning

I was talking to a yoga student yesterday. She's having trouble finishing up her master's thesis. In fact, she has no motivation to finish whatsoever after having "downgraded" from the Ph.D. program.

My thoughts were that she's got to do something to shift her paradigm. I'm in some of the same places professionally; I work as a scientist for the state but want to own my yoga/wellness studio. It's always complicated. I have family to consider and therefore feel a bit like I'm in professional purgatory; I can't leave my job, because my husband is still working toward his dream ... and I'm the stable force financially. But, when you make small changes to your goals, big things open up for you. That's just physics.

So, I suggested that my student start taking a regular 6 a.m. yoga class. I found that when I was exclusively an Ashtanga practioner, which requires 6 days a week of regular 6 a.m. mysore (self-led) classes, I was much more productive. When vinyasa and family came into my life ... that discipline fell apart. Strangely, that's when professional inertia set in. Coincidence? I think not.

I'm going to challenge myself to the same goal that I challenged her to achieve. Sure, I teach a 6 a.m. class once a week, but the other days I sleep in a couple of hours. My spring cleaning challenge to myself is to charge it Ashtanga style. Six days a week, I'll get up early and do my yoga. I'll take Saturdays or moon days off. I'm still planning on doing my group practice in the afternoons with my favorite master teachers. We'll just see what happens.

I thought this HuffPo article had some neat commentary on the subject of goal-setting.