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5 Ways to Create a Yoga Habit

By Hannah Butler

Sometimes it is difficult to make yoga a daily part of my life. You need to read 10 books on the subject of yoga before you try committing to anything resembling regular yoga practice. Sure, you can try some poses, and use yoga DVDs to include a variety of yoga poses, but you still have trouble staying motivated in a consistent way.

You have to go through periods of time to practice yoga daily for a couple of weeks and then you’ll think of some reason why you don’t want to practice that day.

After much pondering about how to effect the changes you want, you have to realize that you need to satisfy two requirements for ongoing yoga practice. One, you needed to set a habit. Two, variety is crucial for maintaining interest and accommodating my changing skills and needs. The following are some things to and maintain a yoga habit.

yoga habit

Yoga Trial Period

It takes longer than a week or two to create a new habit with lasting results, but not much! Can you commit to 30 days of yoga practice? If you can only commit to 15 minutes each day, fine, go with that. If you can practice for 45 minutes, great! The important thing is that you choose a length of time that you’re willing and able to commit to.

The great thing about giving regular yoga practice a 30-day trial is that you can do anything for 30 days! If you don’t like it, you’re free to stop or adjust your yoga program at the end of the 30-day trial period.

If 30 days of daily yoga seems intimidating, why not commit to 5 of 7 days each week for a month? This way you’re leaving some leeway to accommodate your busy lifestyle. You can practice yoga for about 45 minutes Monday through Friday. Some weeks you may skip Friday, but practice yoga on Sunday. Some weeks you can get a chance to practice every day of the week.

Time

Whether you’ve got kids, a hectic job or both of those plus fifty-six other obligations that make consistent yoga practice seem difficult, at best, there’s no good excuse for denying yourself quality me time — meaning a period of time each day just for you.

Morning is the time of the day you set aside for yourself. The house is quiet and you look forward to your morning yoga practice. You put on some comfortable clothes and head downstairs, pausing for a drink of water or juice. You select some music or a yoga DVD and settle in for a rejuvenating yoga session.

If you have to get creative with making daily time for yourself a priority, get creative! You can start getting up an hour and a half earlier. You spend 45 minutes doing yoga then you sort of reward yourself with 45 minutes of reading, surfing the net or whatever sounds like fun.

Setting aside time to unwind or be inspired by simple joys or curiosity is one of the most effective things you do on a regular basis that make you feel excited about your life and the day at hand. Even if you only have an extra hour each day, taking time for yourself on a regular basis is rejuvenating because it helps you listen to your intuition rather than reacting to habitual patterns you’ve outgrown. Taking 30 minutes to do something fun and creative, such as paint or write, keeps us open to being creative with our lives, receptive to how our tastes and needs change from day to day.

Avoid Burn Out

Whether you put together your own yoga routine from poses you add to your program as you go along, or use instructional yoga DVDs, when you start feeling bored with your yoga practice, it’s time to change something! This means being more mindful during practice and/or changing things up with some new yoga poses.

You should try to reevaluate your yoga program every month or so, but not formally so much as you just make sure to change something the second you don’t feel excited about doing yoga. Variety is the spice of life! You should find that keeping your routine varied results in greater consistency in my practice, which in turn makes practicing more and more advances poses of mindfulness that much more challenging and enjoyable.

Visual Stimulation

You can find that keeping notes of your program schedule (however loosely planned) on a piece of paper or in a yoga journal helps you make the visual connection with commitment to personal health and vitality.

Yoga DVDs are a great way to pick up some new asanas. Even if you prefer to go through your own program at your own pace, yoga DVDs are nice to have on hand for when you want to try something different or just want someone to guide you through a session you might not keep if you had to summon the willpower on your own. After all, we all have those days, why not prepare for them?

Ready… Set.. Commit

Write it down, say it out loud. Better yet, do both. Writing your goal on a piece of paper makes the commitment to yourself that much more real. It’s a very simple, yet effective way of manifesting your desired result. Even if it feels silly, saying your goal out loud has even greater influence for many people.

One of the best things we can do for our self-confidence is honoring commitments we make to ourselves. It doesn’t matter if a goal requires a minimal amount of effort, simply by making goals and following through we build a solid vision of our power to creatively impact our lives. So don’t worry about setting lofty fitness goals, start with simple goals and watch for self-determinism thrive.

About the Author

Hannah Butler works as an English teacher. Besides, she likes sharing her experience in the form of articles. In this case, she has her own section on WriteMyPaper4Me website. In the future she is going to start writing a blog in order to describe her working methods to others.

Disclaimer:

The above guest post is published based on the premise that it will be helpful and informative. The opinions made within it are those of the author and not of sunnyray.org. The links you may find within this post do not necessarily imply our recommendation or endorsement of the views expressed within them.



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