The pressure of needing your teaching work to be a success can really mess with your head. You’re going to struggle to find peace and joy in what you do when in the back of your mind, you have this constant nagging worry about filling classes and making ends meet.
When you’re in this state of mind, teaching feels less about sharing something you love and more about a desperate scramble for numbers.
And the more you stress; the harder it gets.
Being backed into a corner worrying about income can leave you taking directions and decisions that might not sit right with you. This can show up in the form of compromising on the type of classes you want to teach, rushing into trainings you feel like you ‘should’ be doing or feeling like you have to adopt a persona that's just not you to attract more students.
In desperate times, you might find yourself buying into those ‘sure fire strategies’ that clash with your core values.
In short, you start playing a game; trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
As exhausting as that is in itself, there isn’t just the risk of burnout. This kind of pressure can really fuck with the quality of your teaching.
Are you standing up in class encouraging authenticity, patience, and non-competition in practice, yet failing to apply those principles to how you run your business?
But - IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE THIS WAY.
The advice I always give here is advice I heard years ago that is not ingrained on my brain. It isn’t the most glamorous and many people will dismiss it 🤷♀️ but these 2 words have served me better than ANYTHING else I’ve been told in business, or even really in life…
Start small.
If the big-time business path is meant to be yours, it will find you.
Growth can happen RAPIDLY when the correct ducks line up in the right kind of rows for you, but that growth should feel easeful.
It's like starting with a small snowball; as you gently roll it along, it naturally picks up more snow, growing larger and effortlessly taking shape into a snowman, rather than straining to sculpt a perfect replica of someone else's creation from scratch.
(Note here I say ‘EASY’….easeFUL…it can be a lot of work, but it doesn’t feel like you’re pushing massive boulders uphill. It’s not a slog. You don’t spend your days feeling like you’re forcing something that’s not meant to be, or constantly living in a state of worry and doubt).
So let your teaching start as a tiny snowball. Rolling it out bit by bit is the difference between building it on solid ground vs quicksand.
Keeping a day job or another income source isn't a cop out - it's about giving your teaching space to breathe and grow without the chokehold of financial panic. You don’t have to stay small forever - when you find your style, your voice, your people and your place in this work, you’ll hit a point where it can’t HELP but grow.
But building in this way lets your business expand in a way that feels right, not rushed.
When your livelihood isn't riding on your next class's mat count, you've got the freedom to experiment, to fuck up, to keep learning, and ultimately, to do things on your own terms.
Don’t let the pressure of making teaching into something big crush your spirit, just because certain corners of yoga culture would have you believe that you’re only legit if you’re all in.
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