learning, yoga

Step 118: Getting What We Need

“Some people say, ‘I’m really inflexible so I don’t do yoga.’ That’s like saying, ‘I’m really hungry so I don’t eat.’ Silly.” ~ Will, my yoga teacher

Will told us this quote as we were talking about the importance of a regular practice, whatever it is we’re practicing. Regularity breeds mastery. To shy away from developing a practice because of something we lack isn’t logical. We practice so we can learn something. There’s no point in practicing something we already do perfectly. There’s no such thing as more perfect.

As we consider taking up a practice of any kind, what if we turned our attention toward something we want to improve or learn from scratch? I wanted to be a better writer, so I decided to write every day. Some of the pieces I wrote were terrible, and after a while I really started to see progress. By continually working on my craft, I did get better. Same is true for my yoga, and most recently for my meditation.

We all have to start somewhere; sometimes we start at zero. My friend, Brooke, has a great line about learning: ‘At birth, we all started at zero.’ Everything we can do now at one point didn’t exist at all. Go get what you need in order to achieve what you want to achieve. Don’t worry if you’re not any good at it now. You’ll get better.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.