35. How to become a full time yoga teacher

This episode is all about how to become a full time yoga teacher, starting with a quick look at whether it’s right for you. Many people have a really romantic notion of what it’s like to be a full time yoga teacher but - while it can be an incredibly rewarding job, it is important to walk in to it with your eyes well open about the realities. There’s a harsh truth in there too, how lovely. 

Then we look at how to determine if now is the right time, or indeed, when the ‘right time’ is for you, including one of my favourite things - a ‘what if it all goes completely wrong’ plan. 

The good news is that you can follow these steps without actually making the leap and quitting your job, so, enjoy listening, get inspired, and at the end, you’ll be able to consider an informed decision as to your next steps!

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Teaching yoga for anxiety & stress, June 26

Myofascial Release, Energetic Anatomy and Yoga, Apr 26

Yoga and The Neurobiology of Stress, July 26

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello. And welcome to For Yoga Teachers. This podcast has been created to help you teach yoga with passion, avoid burnout and earn a fair living. This episode is all about how to become a full time yoga teacher.

On Monday, we'll have a bonus episode which is my personal journey, to becoming a full time yoga teacher, if you're interested in that, although I wouldn't blame you, if you weren't! 

So in this episode, we'll have a step-by-step process to working out if, and when you should make the leap to be a full time yoga teacher. 

This is a cumulation of all of the advice I've given in teacher trainings and in mentoring sessions. [00:01:00] It does not constitute one on one advice for you. Please be extremely careful with your career and your finances and your earnings and get professional advice where needed. 

In the podcast episode, we'll start with a quick look at whether being a full time yoga teacher is right for you. Many people have a really romantic notion of what it's like to teach yoga full time. But while it can be an incredibly rewarding job, it is important to walk into it with your eyes wide open about the realities. 

And there's a harsh truth in there too. How lovely. 

And then we'll look at the steps to determine if now is the right time or when could or would be the right time for you. Including one of my favorite things; a 'what if it all goes completely wrong' plan. 

The good news is that you can follow all of these steps without actually making [00:02:00] the leap and quitting your job. 

So, enjoy listening, enjoy getting inspired, and you'll be able to consider an informed decision about your next steps. 

Let's go. 

Step one. Should you become a full-time yoga teacher? 

This might be a straightforward yes or no answer. Or it might be yes, but in the future, Or not really sure at the moment. 

First things first. If you want to be a full-time yoga teacher, ask yourself why. In the show notes for this episode there's some journaling prompts to dig deep into this question. You are really, really, really going to need to know the answer, if you make the transition into full-time yoga teaching. 

A little side note here. One of the things that comes up time and time again on trainings for yoga teachers is how, before being [00:03:00] a yoga teacher, yoga was a place of escape. But now yoga is work. So where do you escape to? My advice here, which might sound really over the top. And this is the harsh truth that we've all been looking forward to. 

Is that you probably need a yoga practice for you; the person and a separate yoga practice for you; the yoga teacher. When you practice for you, the person you roll out your mat, you do your class, whether it's a lead class or self practice. And it's just for you. No notebooks, no sequencing notes, no manuals. It's not for your yogis in any way, shape or form. And then separately, you have your yoga practice for yoga teacher you where you do have notebooks. You have the intention of sequencing the class, playing around with transitions, generating an intention or theme, getting inspired and whatever you [00:04:00] need. I know this sounds over the top and it might sound like you need to practice twice as much, but that is not what I'm saying. 

If you practice twice a week now. Then one of those could be for yoga teacher you, and one of those could be for the person you. 

If you practice daily, maybe five is for you, the person, and two is for yoga teacher you. You decide. But I really can't recommend this enough before your practice declare to yourself, whether the practice is for person you or for yoga teacher, you.

And this is a really serious consideration. Do you have the tapas the discipline to keep your yoga practice for you up? As it is one of the things that disappears as yoga teachers get busier and busier, more and more tired.

And what about the overall logistics? Bearing in mind that especially at first yoga teachers tend to work pretty antisocial [00:05:00] hours. You'll probably be teaching classes, weekday mornings, lunchtimes, evenings and at weekends. So, if you have a love, who works office hours or lots of your friends work office hours, or if you have kids who are at school, it might be that full time yoga teaching doesn't work for you because you're not getting to see the people that you love. 

Step two. What if it all goes belly up?

I've mentioned a few times that one of my favorite things is to create a like worst case scenario plan. Not because I'm a negative person. I mean, don't get me wrong. I have my moments. But if you are happy with your worst case scenario plan, if you can cope with that plan, you've almost got no reason to not give it a go. 

In the interest of full disclosure here. 

And like I say, on Monday, there's a bonus episode coming out, which is my, [00:06:00] um, journey, my path. Uh, to becoming a full-time yoga teacher. But it is worth me saying here that when I took the plunge, I didn't have anyone who was financially dependent on me. I didn't have kids. I didn't even have a dog. I was renting a flat on a rolling monthly contract. So worst case scenario. If I got no work as a yoga teacher, I'd have to pay one month's rent and then go and live with my mum who uh, was about a 40 minute train ride away. So it was a very viable plan for me. I could most certainly cope with it. 

And so for me personally, at that time, it was almost silly for me to not give it a go. So if you were to go full time tomorrow and it went belly up, what would your plan be? How long could you pay your rent or your mortgage for? Is there a backup place that you could live? Do you have people that you're financially responsible for? Do you have savings? You might be best speaking to like a bank or an accountant or [00:07:00] something here, but in my experience, it really, it comes down to raw sums. If you don't make enough money, it's a struggle to pay the bills. And that's that. 

So let's review. In summary, what would you do if you went full-time yoga teaching and it really really didn't work out. 

If you can cope with this plan then what a good chunk of food for thought that is. If you really can't live with that plan, that's really important to acknowledge as well. 

Step three, decide if you're excited about running a business. From my experience, most yoga teachers don't think about yoga teaching as running a business. I get it. Business is cold and hard and cash crazy. And you as a yoga teacher are none of those things. But yoga teacher, when you start teaching yoga for money, you are running a business. And the more you see it like that, [00:08:00] the more likely you are to have success. You'll know that businesses need promoting, businesses need tough conversations, they need contracts and they need to be efficient. Your yoga teaching will most certainly need all of these things at some point. So let's just face up to it right now. You might not be super talented at every aspect of running a business. You might not like some aspects of running a business, but it does all need doing. 

And remember it is possible to pay people for the bits that you don't want to do.

Step four. Align your passions, your background and your yoga teaching. There are so many yoga teachers around now. And for the record, I think that's a really good thing. As long as we're not all clones of each other. So have a think what in your background is unique to you? What are you passionate [00:09:00] about? Who do you want to teach and how do you want it to teach? I mean, this is basically creating your yoga brand. If you haven't done this yet, or if you haven't done it for awhile, head to episode 30, once you've finished listening to this episode. As it's going to be really, really useful for you here. Once you've created your yoga brand, do some market research to see if there's a demand for your offering. Another little bit of food for thought for you here is to try and get as much real life data as you can. 

So while you're working out, whether to go full-time yoga teaching or not, Could you set up a block of classes or a couple of workshops or a course, or a retreat- with your way of teaching at the heart of the offering? So, for example, if you're a trained run coach and you dream of working mainly with very dedicated runners to help them get their [00:10:00] PBs, you might design a four week course 'yoga to run faster'. If you host it a few times and it repeatedly sells out. That's great data. That is great information to work with. I definitely recommend hosting things more than once. Total one-offs have a habit of flying off the shelves, but then second, third time. It's a bit harder to fill them up. Don't fall into this trap. 

Step five, the raw sums.

Open till now we've been thinking about going full time, yoga teaching in the way of, is it possible? And if it is possible, would it work for you? And now it's time to get to the nitty-gritty. I mentioned before in my experience, the finances just comes down to raw sums. How much do you spend and how much will you earn? The good news is that I have a very exciting spreadsheet to help you work this out. I [00:11:00] know, I know. It's so exciting. Isn't it? If you've got this far, and you're getting excited about being a full-time yoga teacher, you have to do the sums and you have to be really honest with yourself. On the spreadsheet is a list of costs and your yoga teaching income as it is now, or a projection or a combination of these two. Put simply if your yoga teaching can pay for your outgoings, well, you're golden aren't you. But if not, there's some more thinking to be done here. But please yoga teacher complete the spreadsheet. Make your decision with real life data. Knowing in your gut that you want to be a yoga teacher is beautiful. It's a beautiful thing, but your gut feeling won't pay the bills. Let's come at this from raw sums. Get the link to your spreadsheet from our show notes. 

Step six. 

What, [00:12:00] and where will you teach? Distribute your offerings between yoga studios, wider offering fitness studios. Add in gyms. Private yoga classes, workplace classes, and one-off offerings to, or pick and choose from these as it works for you. I think a combination of yogis paying you directly for your offerings. And adding in working for gyms and yoga studios, is a really good combination. You'll probably be able to predict the income from the gyms and the yoga studios, and then the income straight to you is an added bonus. 

Step seven. Create your plan to stay motivated, inspired and well,. You're probably going to be knackered. So now how about booking in a monthly massage for the next six months? Or if you don't like [00:13:00] massages like a haircut or a spa day or something? I mentioned before lots of busy yoga teachers see their practice fall away. 

So yoga teacher from my heart to yours, keep practicing. Make a plan now for how you'll keep a regular practice going, even when you're tired, grumpy, achey, knackered. 

And if you want to teach a range of studios, I'd recommend practicing at studios before asking to go on their cover list. By going to practice at yoga studios that are new to you. You can now kill two birds with one stone. 

Step eight. Build your village. Make connections with other yoga teachers who could cover your classes if you're not very well, or if you're on holiday, but also that will ask you to cover their classes. Connect with people like physios and massage therapists to direct people to who [00:14:00] have injuries, aches, and pains. Maybe you could even come to an agreement about a little kickback if you're constantly sending new customers to a physio or a massage therapist. 

Connect with a business coach who can help you succeed. Hi. And connect with all the local businesses and business owners. They don't even have to be in the wellness space or the spiritual space. Just being able to chat to another business owner about the highs and lows can be a real tonic. 

And last but not least step nine. Decide. Or decide when to decide. 

If all the previous steps have gone well, you probably had a pretty decent place to explore making the leap to full-time yoga teacher. Or to say to yourself, I'll make a decision by three months time or six months time. 

Okay. Yoga teacher. I hope that's given you some food for thought about whether [00:15:00] teaching yoga full time would suit you and will be suitable for you or not. I'd absolutely love to know what you think. And remember, you can make your way through these steps with a full-time job or a part-time job or something else, just to give your business a boost. Good luck, yoga teacher. And thank you for listening. If you share this with another yoga teacher, we'd be so incredibly grateful. Good luck. We'd love to know how you get on. Keep us posted.