Ep 6: How to design your yoga teaching career Pt 2

 I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how to craft your teaching career. In this episode, we will use an example, start at the big-picture goal and work backwards. By the way, I love starting at big-picture goals! 

This episode follows my roadmap to uncover what you want to teach, where you want to teach, how you want to teach, and discover the steps to help you get there. So if you're unable to take notes, say you're driving or washing dishes (btw I always listen to podcasts when I'm washing dishes) or say you just don't have a pen and paper near you to take notes. No worries. Included in the show notes below is a workable - downloadable PDF, meaning it has space for you to jot down your ideas. This is the exact roadmap that I use with teachers in my Business of Yoga 2.0 coaching program. 

And I'm going to partially walk you through it on this episode. So you don't have to write a thing, just yet. Just listen and let the information soak in!

• Download the roadmap: Designing Your Teaching Career Ep 6 PDF

Transcript

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I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how to craft your teaching career. In this episode, we're going to use an example, start at the big picture and work backwards. By the way, I love starting at big picture goals. We'll follow my roadmap to uncover what you want to teach, where you want to teach, how you want to teach, and discover the steps to help you get there. So, if you're not able to take notes, say you're driving or washing dishes, I always listen to podcasts when I'm washing dishes. Or say you just don't have a pen and paper near you to take notes. No worries, because included in the show notes is a workable, downloadable PDF, meaning it has space for you to jot down your ideas. This is the exact roadmap that I use with teachers in my Business of Yoga 2. 0 coaching program, and I'm going to partially walk you through it on this episode, so you don't have to write a thing just yet. Just listen and let the information soak in. Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright, and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you if you're a yoga teacher, you're looking for support, you love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you. My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, all the stuff that wasn't taught in teacher training, my process for building my business and helpful ideas, tools, strategies, and systems I use and you can use. So that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you want to dive deep and set yourself up for success. I'm so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously. So expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now let's do this together. Welcome to part two of this three part series discussing your teaching career. If you missed part one, I laid out for you the historical path that yoga took as it was being introduced to the States, what a typical teaching career looks like, and what many yoga teachers experienced during the lifespan of their teaching career. It was a good episode. I suggest you go back and listen to it if you haven't already. Okay, let's talk about how to craft your teaching career. In this episode, we're going to use an example, start at the big picture, and work backwards. Starting at big picture goals is how I do it. Together, we'll follow my roadmap to uncover what you want to teach, where you want to teach, how you want to teach, and discover the steps to help you get there. So if you're not able to take notes, say you're driving or washing dishes, or you don't have a pen and paper next to you to take notes, no worries, because included in the show notes below is a workable, downloadable PDF, meaning it has space for you to jot down your ideas. This is the exact road map that I use with teachers in my Business of Yoga 2. 0 coaching program. And I'm going to partially walk you through it on this episode. So you don't have to write a thing just yet. Just listen and let the information soak in. Okay, let's talk about working from a big picture to start and then whittling it down to the smaller details. I want to have a conversation with you about why this is so important. It's important. Because it's necessary to know your end goal and the destination you want to travel to. When you know what the destination is, it's easier to work backwards to figure out the steps to get there. As opposed to taking little steps here and there and hoping that you will find yourself at that final destination. So no, we're not going to work off of hope here. We are going to work off of intention and planning, and that's what's going to help you accomplish your goals. So think about it. What is one big goal that you have? For the purposes of this episode, let's take workshops. So for example, you want to teach more workshops knowing that You have to think about a few things. One, what your skills are as a teacher. Two, what you can confidently teach. And three, what value you can provide to students so that they want to show up and sign up for the workshops. Next, how will you pitch your workshop ideas to your studio or studio manager? How will you convince them that your ideas are viable and would garner student interest? I mean, the truth is most students will want to include I mean, the truth is most studios will want to include workshops for students because it's a win win for both you and the studio and also the students, of course, we can't leave them out. They're a main ingredient. Once you've pitched the workshop and received approval, now you can begin to build out the components of the workshop in more detail. Um, you may be asking why not write, you may be asking why not write out the complete workshop outline before pitching it to a studio manager. That is one of my favorite questions. That's one of my favorite questions. And my answer to that question is always that you want to work smarter, not harder, right? So First, you want to get approval for your idea from your studio's manager. Then once you have approval, talk to your students. Is this subject something they'd be interested in experiencing or learning more about? Only after these steps should you start to do more of the work, but if you can't even get to the approval point, there's no need in building an entire workshop from start to finish if you're not even going to be able to deliver it. So that's something for you to think about. Now, while building out the workshop details, you can do it from a more for it. Now, while building out the workshop details, you can do it from a more informed place, a place that has secured manager and student buy in before you even create it. When you do it this way, you can build it specific to the student's needs and questions they may have, as opposed to you throwing out a bunch of information that you have circling around in your head. Okay. What are you passionate about? I have an entire episode titled how to find your passion. It's episode four. And if you haven't listened to it, I suggest going back as I walked you through a conversation I had with a yoga teacher who wasn't feeling it anymore. And by it, I mean teaching. I asked her these specific questions so she would get to the heart of why she felt the way she did. One. Why do you feel the way that you do? Whether it's bored or uninspired or just meh. Number two, do you know what excites you? If not, you got to figure that out. Number three, ask yourself what classes do I enjoy as a student and would I love to teach those kinds of classes or not? Number four, what experiences do you want to create for your students? And five, how do you want students to feel after they leave your classes? Answering these questions helped her and they'll help you find the passion again. I'll link that episode in the show notes as well. Again, it's episode number four, how to find your passion. Now, let's continue with the example of creating workshops. The first thing that you need to do is realize what it is that you're passionate about learning or you're passionate about teaching. Let that be the starting point, then work from there. For example, why teach an inversions workshop if restorative yoga is your jam? Once you realize what you're passionate about, you can then begin to match that with what the studio needs and what your students needs are. I want you to think about this. When you combine the topics and issues that you are passionate about with the needs of students and studios, that's when you start to get buy in and you can do less marketing because people already want what you have to teach. See how this is an easier strategy than trying to convince and beg people to sign up for your offerings? Take the things that you're passionate about and create learning environments that benefit your students, the studio, and you, of course. Here's something that I don't think we talk about nearly enough. Are there any life shifts that need to happen? Do you need to talk with your family? If you want to incorporate more workshops into your schedule, think about it. Workshops are not during the hours of nine to five on weekdays. So if you have a family, a spouse, a partner, Children, if you have a schedule that you were used to and now needs to change, you have to talk to the people who are important in your life about how your schedule might change, even if it's just a couple weekends a month, considering the needs of your family and or your support group will go a long way while you work on creating your career. What, how, when, where do you want to teach? These are big picture questions. Let's talk when specifically. When you get really clear on what an ideal schedule is for you, your family and your work life balance, you can begin to work backwards from here as well. I'll give you an example. When I first started teaching, it was common for the studio to give new teachers the 6 a. m. weekday class on the schedule. However, I had two small children at home who I was responsible for getting to school in the mornings. I had a firm boundary in place that I would not I could not ever teach a 6 a. m. class because of this. I mean, to be honest, I also wasn't thrilled about the idea of getting out of my bed at 4. 30 in the morning to go teach a class. But really, I couldn't and I wasn't willing to alter my family's needs to teach a 6 a. m. class. So that answers the when. question. Here's another example and this answers the where question. I was teaching regularly at a studio that had pretty strict rules on sequencing and what we could or couldn't teach in a class. Now, anybody who knows me will agree that I'm a pretty good rule breaker and boundary pusher. So these restrictions eventually felt confining, meaning I knew that my growth was being compromised. So I had to make a choice. Lead the studio, the community, the students, and my colleagues in order to grow and develop as a teacher. So the big picture answer to the where question was that I knew I needed to teach, where I'm able to have the freedom to grow and evolve into the teacher that I wanna be, then. Working backwards, I worked on finding studios that would give me the flexibility I desired so much. I landed on a few, and then blossomed as a teacher. Alright, those are just two examples of the when, how, why, where. Um, and it's a partial walkthrough of the PDF. Did you download it? Remember, it's in the show notes below that PDF is going to give you the space to land your big picture thoughts so you can get them out of your head. on paper and create a plan to work backwards. Remember, it's not necessary to have all the answers now, but it is necessary to start thinking about them. Thank you again for tuning in to this episode on how to craft your yoga teaching career. Up next, part three, how to know if you're getting in your own. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. And my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching life you have. And remember it takes some work to get there. Sometimes, like always, please leave a comment. or a question because I truly enjoy being in conversation with you. Would you do me a favor? Rate and subscribe to the podcast so you're always in the know when a new episode drops and share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. Thank you for helping to spread the word about this podcast. And finally, Why don t you join my newsletter that s just for yoga teachers. I ll link it in the show notes below and I would love for you to join so we can always stay connected. All right, that s it. Bye for now.