Hello curious person
It’s time for the second instalment of Diary of a Part-Time Yoga Teacher and the topic is missed opportunities. We typically take our free time and create our schedule around that. We max ourselves out as much as we can whilst also juggling those other responsibilities. We love teaching yoga and spreading the joy of the practice. The word circulates and people contact you for cover opportunities, one to one yoga sessions or working in a corporate environment. The reality is that we end up saying no a lot of the time. We teach in those slivers of time we are available but that mean we’re not available for those cover opportunities, the one-to-one yoga, or the corporate gigs. It can be quite sad especially when you’re presented with an opportunity that you’d leap at if you were available. I've always felt a little disheartened around this situation because, you know that with every no, people are less inclined to ask you in the future. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. There are prospects that come along where people have done their research and they know your schedule. It feels fantastic when someone has already done the background, asked the right questions and embrace your schedule. I love these people, whether it's a company interested, a potential student or a collaboration. I’m currently experiencing this first hand with a potential teaching gig. It opened my eyes and really raised my standards of how I expect these meetings to go in the future. How do I deal with all the missed opportunities? I try my best to spread the joy of yoga and reach out to my peers to see if they would be interested in the opportunity. As I mentioned earlier, it's disheartening but it feels so much better when I can reach out to fellow teachers to support them as much as I can. Yoga helps so many people and it feels great, although I can't do it myself, that people are managing to connect to this beautiful practice. Everything so far has been from the teaching perspective, but there's another side to it! You miss classes you really want to attend. There are so many great classes and workshops, but you already have commitments. I'm sure all of you can relate to this every time something comes up and you're caught at work for an extra 30 minutes than you want to be. How do you feel about/managed missed opportunities?
I love that you've checked in for part two - don't forget to comment and let me know your thoughts!
I appreciate you
Sam