Balancing Goals with an Irregular Self-Care Practice

Just finished doing a 40′ practice session. My accountability partner and I have been doing it together every day and today was the start of our second week.

Last week we did 30′, including 10′ of conscious movement, 10′ of sited meditation and 10′ of walking outdoors. It was a challenge we set for ourselves since we had noticed our self-care time had been declining.

To make sure we would follow up on our commitment, we agreed that for every 10′ of missed practice, we would owe the other person $20. If a day went by when we didn’t do any practice at all, then the payment was doubled.

The practices didn’t have to be all done in a row, but they had to be finished before going to bed. We also had to let the other person know whenever we finished any amount of practice for that day. This helped keep us accountable and motivated with our practice.

My Self-Care Practice Results

The first week worked beautifully, both of us missed only 20′ in total. That means we each spent 190′ practicing self-care. That is a little over 3 hours, which is much better than nothing.

This week we added 10′ of yoga practice. This can include either the restorative type like yin yoga or a more fluid approach like vinyasa yoga. We also added 10′ of breathing. This can include any type of breathing, from the many pranayama techniques to shamanic breathing techniques or the Wim Hof Method. To compromise and keep our goal achievable we took out the 10′ of walking from our routine. It’s not the most convenient daily challenge when it’s zero degrees in Boulder Colorado.

Long Term Struggles Require Patiance

To keep things honest this is a blog post I started writing a month and a half ago. My hopes were to continue showing you our progress and commitment to practice, that’s obviously not how it rolled out.

For as long as I remember I’ve struggled with discipline, most people do. That’s why I found myself an accountability partner, who also struggles with keeping a regular self-care practice.

Unfortunately, the patterns continue to seem just the same. I’ll set lofty goals, all across the board and eventually fall short in all of them and beat myself up for it.

At the same time, I know that there is a valid reason to skip my practice, and self-care doesn’t always need to look the same. Some times I might go to a yoga class, other times I just do some gentle stretching at home, some people go on hikes and others prefer to spend some time with friends. As far as I’m concerned, as long as we are taking care of ourselves (and each other), it doesn’t matter if we keep a mega strict practice or skip a session or two here and there. It also doesn’t matter if we do the same practice for 30 years or jump around trying new things until our body lays dead.

Of course, if your vision is to become the next World Yoga Champion then, by all means, stick to your 12-hour yoga practice and go get yourself some medals, but if you just wanna feel good a little self-care here and there might be all you need. It really is up to you how much you need and want, and if you struggle to stick to your routine, find yourself a good accountability partner, not like mine. =P

– Bruno Treves