Wobble baby, wobble
So, how’s it going? We are one week into the New Year - have you stuck with your resolutions? Have you set any at all? Remember what we learned last week: resolutions are not about finishing, they are about starting, about embarking on a new path with your best guess of how you’re going to make it to the end. Just don’t forget that it’s a guess which means you might get it wrong. The thing that keeps people going is giving yourself permission to try again.
Toward the end of 2020, my health was trending in the wrong direction. The pandemic, like for many people, was not making it easy to eat right and as a result I just did not feel like I was at the level of fitness that was ideal for me. Around Thanksgiving that year, I realized I had to make a change and I didn’t want to wait for the New Year. I immediately started changing some routines and yoga became a new habit I decided to take on.
That winter, I bought the Peloton subscription (which by the way is only $13 a month, you don’t need a bike or treadmill, and includes a huge variety of classes), and I started doing yoga. As someone who is very not-flexible and has zero patience for sitting still, the beginning did not go well. I hated it, to be frank. Until one day I found Yoga Flow.
Yoga flow is a faster paced yoga class where you are nearly constantly moving and don’t stay too long in any one posture. Combine that with the loud music playing throughout the class, I had finally found something that worked for me. The thing is though, I would have never gotten there if I had just given up after a few weeks: well I tried, but I guess yoga is not for me. Not only were the pre-yoga flow classes excruciating to sit through, but even when I found the right class type I was not good. I could barely hold any standing postures without wobbling or completely falling over, and I had to modify literally everything.
One of the yoga instructors repeats a phrase often and it has stuck with me. She says, “every wobble is a sign of progress.” In other words, if you are trying to do a pose and you wobble and fall - it’s okay! It’s part of getting out there and just doing it; it’s building those muscles and it’s giving you a chance to stick with it long enough to find the right formula for success.
If you didn’t nail it this first week, or if you stumble next week, just remind yourself that every wobble is progress; it’s part of the process. Change positions if you need to. Switch up the classes. Change the whole goal entirely if you must - just remember the reason you set it in the first place.
It’s okay not to finish a goal, just don’t give up on the dream underneath.
