“Do or do not. There is no try.” ~ Yoda
“You are entitled to your actions, not the results of your actions. You leave the results to the Divine.” ~ Marco Rojas, Yoga Teacher
I went to dinner with my friend, Allan, on Saturday night and he asked me how I managed to teach yoga classes in so many different places this past year since I finished my teacher training at Sonic. Without even thinking about the answer, I said, “Because I cannot be deterred, Allan.” And it’s true. If I really want to do something, I’m going to find a way to make it happen.
Lessons from striking out
This is not to say that I never strike out or fall flat on my face. I strike out plenty, and I’ve fallen on my face so many times that it’s shocking I have a face left at all. The truth is in the past year I’ve sent out so many emails, made so many cold calls, and just flat-out walked in to so many potential teaching spots that I’ve lost count. Most of them never returned my calls, emails, or in-person messages that I left. Most of them didn’t hire me. Sometimes I felt disappointed at all of the rejection, but I just kept showing up. Showing up was the only thing I could really control. And every rejection helped me refine my pitch, and my style, a little bit more.
And that’s the trick to getting over and through disappointment: figure out what you can actually do, and focus on doing more of it. I couldn’t make someone hire me. I couldn’t make someone even look at my resume or give me an informational interview. I could keep searching, and I felt confident that if I knocked on enough doors, one of them, the right one for me, would open, and I’d find the students I was meant to teach.
Ignore the skeptics, or at least learn from them
Everyone will tell you that what you want to do is too difficult, that there are already people who do what you want to do, and that you should just try to do something that’s easier. I’ve got news for them: it’s all difficult. Everything worth doing takes effort, and a lot of it. I wanted to manage Broadway shows. I wanted to learn how to be a fundraiser. I wanted to be a product developer who works with new technology. I wanted to move to New York City, and I really wanted to live on the Upper West Side, which always was my favorite neighborhood in New York (and remains so today). I wanted to adopt a dog. I wanted to travel, teach yoga, and be a writer. None of that is easy; it all takes effort and a lot of people told me that each and every one of those things just wouldn’t happen for me for one reason or another. I took their feedback and kept going.
I did all of those things and then some, and not because I have some kind of extraordinary talent. I did them out of dogged determination. I was stubborn and I just wouldn’t give up. If I could stay focused on the action, then I knew the result would follow. Sometimes it took longer than I thought it would. Sometimes I got what I wanted, and then realized it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Sometimes I had to make trade-offs. But I tried and tried and tried again. No silver bullet. No magic formula. Hard work was enough; it always is. Eventually, even a mountain yields to constant, flowing water.
Christa Avampato 