Business lessons from my yoga mat.

I remember the first time I saw “half moon pose” in a yoga class.

It was in a level one Hatha class and we were practicing the pose against a wall for support with balance.

At the time, I never thought I’d be able to actually hold that pose away from the wall.

Of course, I eventually did.

And now it’s one of my favourite poses to teach.

It’s one of the few poses that look “hard” but with the right approach, is also totally do-able for most practice levels.

It also teaches a super valuable lesson:

If you focus on the end point and ignore the steps to get there—it’s going to take you way longer to find your way.

When I teach Half Moon in flow, I cue the step by step instruction but often students will hop right into the pose only to fall out because they lose their balance.

When I teach it in foundations, I tell my students to focus on the moment to moment progression into the pose and it makes a MASSIVE difference.

I think it’s a pretty natural thing to see an end point and make a b-line to it without taking time to build the foundation it would take to sustain that end point successfully.

In our businesses, we’re often focused on end point goals like: how many sales we make, how much money we’re making, and how many followers we have on Instagram.

We think we have to sell out an offer the first time we launch it.

We think that to be successful we have to be making six or seven figures.

And we think that our follower count is directly related to the amount of financial success we’ll have.

So we focus our attention on the end.

And get frustrated when our success doesn’t feel consistent or on par with what we were expecting.

The other day one of my clients said that I’m a coach for ‘regular people’.

What they meant by this is that I’m not teaching 7 figure sales strategies, viral content strategies, or six figure launch strategies.

I’m teaching the foundation.

I’m teaching all those little steps that need to be taken along the way to build a sustainable business that has longevity baked into its DNA.

Things like relationship building, stellar client experiences, clarity on your offers and messaging, how to show up for yourself, your clients, and your business and how to keep it all organized while building momentum.

When we focus on the end, we forget about the incremental steps that need to be taken consistently over time that make reaching the goal feel more stable and secure.

Teaching yoga has given me a tremendous gift when it comes to understanding goals. In yoga, there is never a point in which you’ve mastered the practice. It’s all about consistent, incremental action taken over a long period of time.

I think that’s a pretty important lesson for life off the mat too.