January. The First Month.

Make it a month of firsts and switch up your yoga and self-care routines

© Design + Know-How

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve given you ideas for how to assess your year of flows and flops, how to conduct an end-of-tear review, how to use an annual planner for quarterly organizing, use writing prompts to ask yourself important questions, provided details on how to participate in a FREE meditation event or The Offline Club’s 24-Hour Digital Detox Challenge… Basically different processes for achieving your 2025 goals, like so:

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Reflect and Reset for 2025

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But is goal-setting even yogic?

The practice of yoga is partly rooted in the concept of non-attachment to the fruits of diligent action so it would seem antithetical to work toward an aim since goal-setting is all about achieving a desired result and YOGA IS ABOUT PROCESS.

In Light on Yoga, BKS Iyengar states that our Sadhana (practice) is the twinning of Abhyasa (“effort of long duration, without interruption, performed with devotion which creates a firm foundation”) and Vairagya (detachment from outcome, absence of worldly desires.)

The process — long, repetitive, steadfast, unconcerned with material gain — is the entire point.

January invites us back into the process

If process is the point, then January can be the time to focus once again on the steps rather than the outcome. Return to a beginner’s mindset. Julie Dohrman, one of our favorite yoga teachers, says that whenever she gets overwhelmed or things start to feel complicated, she asks herself:

• How’s my breathing?

• How’s my foundation?

Julie goes back to basics. We should, too.

Let’s become curious about our habits and perhaps refine what we already know, or rethink one of our patterns. Or try a completely different approach to something familiar — a yoga pose, a relationship, a work strategy, the way we take in the world — and see if it yields new insight.

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After the jump: four ideas for switching up your yoga and self-care routines…