What Sticking to Yoga Has Actually Taught Me
- Sam Turner
- Apr 20
- 4 min read
I recently posted about building a routine to expand your yoga practice. That one was about how I made it happen - click here to read it. This one is about what it actually did to me.
The really short answer is: consistency has built my confidence, and made perfection feel less important.
Before I get into it, I would like to share a little of my backstory from the past couple of years. Things weren’t quite right back at the end of 2024. I was concerned about my health, particularly with how tired I was feeling 24/7. I had to make a radical decision to focus on this feeling of fatigue I was carrying around with me.
At that moment, something was glaringly obvious. I wanted to keep running this business successfully. To do that, I needed to shift some of the investment from the business back into myself. Ultimately, this business is called Sam Turner Yoga and there’s no STY without ST.
I had to accept a couple of truths. 1) I was running on an empty battery and 2) I needed to do more things for me to recharge.
It wasn’t sustainable - I knew that - but I was also happy to ignore that and power through. I needed to figure out how to recharge so I found something I could show up to once a week that was entirely for me. It ended up being a weightlifting class on a Sunday morning.
From there, I slowly redeveloped my ability to be consistent for myself. Not the business. Not for others. Not for work. For me.
It's a cycle
The first thing I noticed was that change doesn’t settle. It keeps moving.
At the start, it felt easier not to bother. I’m very motivated in parts of my life, but I’m a couch potato in the rest. There were plenty of reasons and excuses between me and the first step. That part always felt hard.
Once I’d been a couple of times, I knew what to expect. The classes followed a six week schedule, so one week felt similar to the next. I started to recognise a few faces. It began to feel easier.
Then it changed. The schedule shifted, and it quickly felt hard again. Everything felt new. The amount I knew dropped off. But I kept showing up.
That pattern repeated itself. New teacher, different session, trying something I hadn’t done before. It kept moving between hard and easy.
Over time, I became less sensitive to it. Things feeling hard didn’t throw me as much. I just expected it to happen. And that made it easier to keep going.
Showing up is enough
I’ll take an average class over a perfect class any day of the week. A couple of years ago, I would have told you I wanted something that felt exactly right. The perfect class at the perfect time.
I spent a long time looking for that. Most of the time, it meant I didn’t go at all. Now, if something is good enough, I’ll take it.
This slowly took me from one class to seven. I remember someone asking if I was enjoying spin… No, not really, but it did the job and it was only 45 minutes long. I could have spent hours looking for something better, but I wanted to test my cardio and I was free at that time.
That shift has probably had the biggest impact on my own yoga practice. I don’t attend classes that often. I just get on the mat and do what I can. It used to feel like it had to be done properly, or not at all. So most of the time, it didn’t happen. Now I tend to just start.
I was away recently for three days and managed two 45 minute practices next to a hot tub. They weren’t perfect, but they happened. And that was enough.
It's contagious
It started with my workout schedule. That was it. Nothing more intentional than trying to carve out a bit of time for myself. I didn’t expect much from it, and I definitely didn’t expect it to spread into anything else.
At first, it felt like a bit of a drag. Showing up was something I had to push myself into repeatedly. But somewhere along the way, that resistance started to soften. Not dramatically, just quietly, over time.
I remember sitting there at one point and realising I’d actually kept going. Not perfectly, not effortlessly, but consistently enough to notice a change in myself.
That’s when I started to see it differently. I wasn’t just “someone trying to be consistent” anymore. I was someone who could do hard things, even when they didn’t feel particularly appealing in the moment.
And that started to show up elsewhere too.
I became less hesitant in other decisions. More willing to try things without overthinking them. More able to sit with discomfort without immediately stepping away from it.
It didn’t feel like a big transformation. More like something quietly widening in the background.
I didn’t set out for any of that. I just kept showing up.
See you next time
Sam
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