Last updated September 16, 2023
Make yoga month every month—not just in September during National Yoga Awareness Month.
We have a saying in our household: “Wherever you go, there you are.” Change the environment, change the experience, right? As simple as it would seem, there’s a common factor that follows you everywhere you go — you.
While travel is an incredible opportunity not to missed to inspire, educate and reinvigorate the soul, you cannot truly escape yourself just by changing the environment you’re operating in.
Some habits we may not want to escape from either! Especially the healthy ones we have worked diligently to structure into our lifestyles.
Seven Tips to Maintain Your Yoga Habit
In celebration of yoga month, we’re featuring seven tips to develop and maintain a healthy yoga habit when traveling and while at home… a healthy habit you’ll want to take with you everywhere you go!
1. Get Clear on Your Why
Why do you want to practice yoga? What drives you to take a mat with you or downward facing dog in any hotel you stay in? Better yet, the question to ask is, why do you choose this healthy lifestyle and path?
Getting clear on your WHY can be one of the most crucial steps toward achieving any long-term goal. As well as sticking to it. When your drivers are clear, it can be much less challenging to get derailed on your personal path and endeavors.
For myself, yoga and living well has become a lifestyle. And one that doesn’t stop at my front door. I love how I feel sticking to that routine, moving daily, eating well, nourishing my mind and traveling to new places.
This WHY creates a long-term build for myself achieving the overall well-being that keeps my energy and productivity at its best and my mind at its most calm and creative. Get to know yours and the rest of the tips will flow with greater ease.
2. Habit Track the Day
Like anything new, seeing the progress build can be a powerful affirmation for yourself that you’re doing it. Journal about the days you’re doing yoga, what you focused on, where you practiced, your intention for your practice or how you felt after. These are just a few cues you can run with. But a note from your practice can help to remember the WHY and the experience in the less than ideal days that will naturally arise.
Further, there’s something powerful about writing down your successes. The pen to paper goes beyond the digital realm and puts the power into the pen and within yourself—reminding you who is the creator of your life, your schedule and your choices.
3. Schedule the Time
Is your practice time important? Then, let your calendar know that. Commit to your calendar that the time blocked off is for you and the mat, just like any other important appointment or meeting.
This meeting time is for your body and mind to reconnect, converse and grow more powerfully together. Once the time is allotted, there can be less task-creeping that can happen, where another “priority” could pop up in its place.
4. Leave Visual Cues
Get the mat out, get the yoga video pre-selected, have the class already confirmed, have your water bottle and sweat towel rolled neatly and in a tote bag near the door.
Having all of these pre-planned tasks completed have you in a self-committed mode that takes any excuses out of the WHY to get you on the mat. Seeing the mat and the bag will also remind yourself of the practice and its importance in your habitual schedule.
5. Learn Your Excuses and Plan Ahead
We’re all human and have internal monologues with excuses that can talk us in any direction we truly desire. “I’m too tired to go to…” “It’s not like it makes a difference to go because…” “Well, I’m not good at that anyways, so…”
The excuses may have some small valid proof in your past pudding. However, the past doesn’t define your NOW, nor your future. If you have a common story from the past that prevents you from following through with any habit, learn that excuse. Then, plan ahead of it. Make your goal excuse-proof, and watch your life change dramatically and radically.
6. Find Your Tribe
If you’re like the five people you surround yourself the most with, surround yourself with those you want to be more like. A tribe or group of other yoga practitioners can keep you on track and also keep you excited about your progress.
The new lifestyle of sticking to a practice can be amplified dramatically by being a part of a shala, or community, that gets what you’re doing and can challenge you positively to keep going further in your own spiritual connection.
7. Pause and Reflect
To keep progressing forward, it’s necessary to stop in moments and also express pride in yourself for how far you’ve already come. Remember a time in your past that you were taking on a new habit (be it a more aligned job, healthier food, time you wake-up, a routine in your day, etc.) and what that initial feeling was like. There might have been some resistance. But, guess what? You did it.
Celebrate that! Remind yourself of what you’ve achieved and how good it felt to stick to it. And then commit to yourself to try something new and make it a lifestyle and a part of the healthiest version of you!
What’s one of your habit hacks to take your healthy routines with you at home and when you travel?
About Vacayou
At Vacayou [pronounced VACAY – YOU], we believe that travel has the power to change lives. The power to revive, rejuvenate and redirect your inner wellness warrior. And that’s why we’re here. Vacayou brings the world of wellness travel to you!
No matter how far or how adventurous, our team scours the globe to curate the best in wellness travel. But the booking process can often be time-consuming and complicated. We’ve made it much easier for you to search, discover, and book wellness and active vacations. With Vacayou’s Instant Book, your dream wellness getaway is now just one click away.
Start the trip of your lifetime today, with Vacayou. We are here to help create a healthier global community through wellness and active travel.
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