Hey there incredible human! My name is Chloe and I'm an award-winning Certified Life Coach and writer with a background in psychology, based on the Mornington Peninsula (Victoria, Australia)
My mission (the quick version) to to help you get the most out of your one infinite life. I do this through writing articles, my weekly(ish) emails and The Infinite Collection, 1:1 coaching and guiding people through 28 days of gratitude.
I hope you find something here that makes your day (or life!) better than it was before.
At the beginning of the year I committed to a 31 day yoga challenge.
I had been wanting to make yoga a more regular part of my life for a long time — years even — but it just wasn’t happening.
So I decided that I was going to commit to doing a 31 day yoga challenge. So that’s what I did! And ever since then I’ve been practicing yoga every single day — and it’s now been over 7 months!
I’ve been getting asked a lot (particularly on Instagram) about how I’ve made this a habit in my life and how I’ve actually been doing it and questions about my daily practice.
So now that I’ve been doing this for over 7 months now, I thought that it’s time to share with you what has helped me to show up and do yoga every day for the past 213+ days (and counting!). Because it isn’t always easy, but it’s definitely been worth it!
Here are 4 things I’ve found to be really useful in making yoga a daily habit in my life — these things are relevant in creating any kind of habit in your life. Plus I’ve also got some insights into my yoga practice for you at the end 🙂
1. Make a commitment & devote to it.
As I mentioned above, I’d been wanting to have a more regular yoga practice for ages, but it just wasn’t happening because I wasn’t doing anything about it.
So if there’s something in your life you want to do more often or a habit you want to create, my best advice for you is this:
Do it with devotion.
Ask yourself: How can I fully immerse myself in what I want to do? How can I dedicate myself to doing this over the next week/month/year? How can I truly devote myself to this?
For me I’ve found that for me making the commitment to show up everyday has been easier than just aiming to “do more” yoga. And this has really worked for me.
For example, if you’re wanting to make reading a regular habit in your life you might choose to devote yourself by committing to reading a little everyday, or aiming to finish one book a week, or one book month.
If you’re want to do more of something start with devoting yourself to whatever it is for a realistic consistency over a set amount of time.
2. Start now!
I had been wanting to do yoga regularly for years, but I kept putting it off. I would tell myself that I would do it when I had recovered from my wrist injury, or when I had my licence and could get to regular classes easily, or when I had “more time”. But they were all just excuses that were helping me to put of doing what I really wanted to do.
You don’t have to wait until things are perfect to do more of what you want to do.
Start now! Do whatever you can right now.
Don’t wait until you have more time, just begin!
Start with where you are, with what you’ve got, with what you can do right now.
3. Treat it like an experiment.
My intention for my 31 day challenge was to just show up everyday. I didn’t put pressure on myself to do yoga for a certain length or time, or worry about what the classes would involve — I just focused on showing up and seeing what happened.
I committed to getting on the mat and starting the video each day — no matter what — and to just see what happened.
Even though the 31 days were a challenge, treating it like an experiment really took the pressure off a lot and really helped me to follow through with what I wanted to do.
I still take this approach now, 213+ days in…
3. Make it work for you.
I think that we can get really caught up on working against ourselves instead of with ourselves, which is why it’s important when you want to do something more or a create a new habit in your life to consider how you can actually make it work FOR you and your life.
I think that one of the best things you can do if you want to create a new habit is to work out how you can realistically fit it into your life and how you can do it in a way that works for you and your schedule. Because there’s no point basing this off what someone else does!
A couple of ways I make my yoga challenge work for me is that I choose to do online classes so I can do it easily from home.
And I also don’t put insane amount of pressure on myself to do a huge class every single day or spend hours doing yoga, instead my intention is to get on the mat every single day no matter what.
Sometimes it’s only 10 minutes on really fully days (or when I don’t feel well), and sometimes it’s way more than an hour. But this helps me to actually fit it into my daily life every day and make it work for me.
4. Dig deep and take empowered action!
The final — and perhaps most important thing — I have to share with you if you’re wanting to make something a habit in your life is to TAKE ACTION!
There have been so many times when I didn’t feel like showing up and could think of so many reasons excuses why I couldn’t — those were the days I had to dip deep and really get myself on the mat.
Now 213 days into my daily practice it’s become easy and quite effortless (most of the time) and I got here because for 213 days I’ve shown up every day and took action, even when I didn’t feel like it.
If you want to make something a regular habit in your life you need to show up and do it!
Here’s a little insight into my daily yoga practice based on the questions I’m often asked:
∞ I’ve found that committing to doing yoga every single day has actually made it easier than before. Because there’s no question about it I don’t need to decide if I’m going to do it that day or not, I know that every day I get on the mat so I just do it. Taking the decision making process out has been really powerful for me.
∞ My favourite online yoga class: Yoga with Adriene. I love being able to do online class on Youtube at home. It makes it so easy to do everyday (and whenever I want) and I really love Adriene’s approach. I’ve realised how much easier it is to commit to a regular practice when I resonate with the teacher.
∞ I often get asked about what challenge I did at the start of the year and it was the 31 day yoga revolution.
∞ On most days I start the day with yoga and then do another practice later on in the day (often in the afternoon or at night before going to bed). I often do a little here and there throughout the day, like in-between clients and writing sessions. But really I just try to fit it in whenever I can on each day.
∞ Each day I tune into how I’m feeling and what I feel like I need that day then choose an online class to guide me or do a self- guided practice based on what I feel I need that day.
∞ Some days I find myself doing long classes or doing yoga multiple times throughout the day, but some days when I am not feeling the best I tend to go for something short or something catered to how I’m feeling (like if I have a tension headache/migraine I do this class). For me it’s all about meeting myself where I’m at that day.
So, if there’s something you want to make a habit in your life — I hope that these 4 tips can help you to actually do the thing you want to do 🙂
Do you have any tips on how to commit to doing what you want to do? Share them in the comments below!
PS. If you enjoyed this post you might also like: Just take the first step, Stop (over)thinking. Start doing, or What if you just showed up?
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