A Year Of Growth.
JUNE 1, 2016
It’s exactly a year ago today that I challenged myself to find 20 minutes a day to do yoga for the month of June and I started my blog ‘Mums yoga.’ It was a challenge because I had become a new mum the year before and I felt it was time to reclaim my body and a teeny tiny bit of my brain back for myself. A feat a lot harder than I thought it would be.
In the beginning, writing was a big deal for me. I had been a dancer most of my life. From the age of five until I fell pregnant at thirty two. I never went to University, I went to dance college. So past the age of sixteen I never wrote an essay, studied or took notes……I sweated, performed and counted to 8…..a lot!! So to start blogging was challenging but I am so glad I did it.
Writing my blog has brought me so much joy over the past year. Mostly, because I have had a chance to reconnect and connect with so many people through it but it also gave me something else that surprised me, something very simple but very powerful and important. It has given me a sense of achievement. Achievement, I have come to realise is a very big deal. In Fact, I would go as far to say it’s the key to happiness…..I will try to explain myself…. When you have done something for most of your life you put yourself in a box. I know I did. I started to believe I could do nothing else. I was a dancer that was good at her job and I assumed I would always be involved in that world in one sense or another as I knew nothing else. Then I met my Prince Charming and had my beautiful daughter and other things became more important and I had to let the dancer inside me rest for a while. At first this was hard. You see, my performing gave me a great sense of achievement. It started with an audition process – sometimes up to five auditions per show, so to get a “yes” felt like such an amazing achievement. Then being in the show itself. Being applauded every night for doing your job. I assumed that that was the only way I could get that buzz, through performing. What would I do without it? Luckily, over time I have realised I have wider interests and it turns out there are loads of different worlds outside of a rehearsal studio that I can be a part of. But the most important thing I’ve learned is that I can get a great sense of achievement from the littlest of things thus, giving me “that buzz!”
Setting myself my yoga challenge and starting my blog a year ago today has opened my eyes. Through tiny self challenges I have noticed I’ve become more ambitious and confident in what I believe I can achieve if I put my mind to it. I always thought success was measured by how long you did something. I was only a successful performer if I did it for my whole life. I don’t believe that anymore. I want to achieve more. I want to do lots and lots of different things. Even if they are only small like learning a new language, writing a blog or running 10k they are a big deal to me because of the sense of achievement I get from them is unmeasurable. I have discovered that I am capable of more and I am happier through achieving. I can be a mother, a writer, a runner, a feminist, an activist, an allotment gardener (that last one took me by surprise too!) and I will always be a dancer.
So I invite you to set yourself a little challenge. It doesn’t matter how small. Step out of your box and enjoy the buzz! I believe achievement creates happiness no matter how small the task.
Thanks for reading my blogs and thanks for the buzz!
Namaste!
Lots of love,
Laura x