I’ve always wanted to get into yoga. For years, I kept putting it as one of my New Year’s resolutions only to find myself pushing it off to another year.
For the past few years, I’ve tried doing yoga with videos on YouTube and going to live yoga classes infrequently, but I never got into it. My poor flexibility made it really difficult and became a source of demotivation. “I thought yoga was supposed to be easy,” I would think to myself. My packed college schedule didn’t help either.
This year I decided to give it, once again, another shot. With the pandemic going on and the extra free time, I told myself this would be the year.
I am now happy to say that I am one of those people who does yoga.
At the beginning of January, I came across the YouTube channel, “Yoga with Adriene” and heard great things about it. She has a couple of 30-day yoga challenge series and I decided to give them a try.
The 30-day challenge was a great way to ease into forming a habit to do yoga. Unlike random yoga videos, these videos gave me a goal and something to anticipate every day. And the beauty of it is that even though it is a 30-day yoga challenge, it is self-paced so it is completely up to you how frequently you do it.
Forming a habit is not easy. One of the biggest obstacles is the gap between expectation and reality. Oftentimes, we idealize the best version of ourselves and make it a goal to become that person overnight. Habits don’t happen overnight.
When you want to make yoga a habit, you have to set realistic goals and learn what works best for you. Instead of jumping right into “I want to do yoga every day,” try “I want to practice yoga 4 times a week.” This way, you won’t easily beat yourself up when you miss a day of that habit and be demotivated easily. If you didn’t meet your goal, simply adjust it. Once you become more comfortable, slowly add on to your goal to allow the habit to stick.
The “Yoga with Adriene” 30-day challenge series is a great resource for beginners. I have terrible flexibility and am often intimidated by even the simplest of yoga movements or poses.
One of the things I love about this program is that it starts off with the basics — simple stretches, different breathing techniques and short meditations. Adriene incorporated various breathing techniques to allow us to learn how to control our breathing.
I’m not saying this is easy. Even though it starts off simple, I still struggled (and am still struggling.) Practicing yoga, like learning a new language, takes time and practice. Day by day, you’ll find it slightly easier and slowly find the joy and peace of practicing yoga. In just two months, I’ve been starting to notice myself getting more flexible than before.
What used to be a “chore” now became something I look forward to, something I crave. Yoga became this relaxing and mindless activity for me to escape my responsibilities (in a good way) and stress and focus on myself.
I still have a long way to go in my yoga journey, and I am excited for all that is in store for me.
Collegiettes, if you are looking to get into yoga, get on your yoga mat and try the 30-day yoga challenge with “Yoga with Adriene.”