9 THINGS YOU SHOULD BE FOCUSING ON AFTER COMPLETING YOUR 200HR YOGA TEACHER TRAINING
So you have completed your yoga teacher training or you're almost finished and you’re thinking WHAT NEXT?
Quite commonly you will be coming out of your training with a full time job and your dream to start to teach on a regular basis, maybe even eventually becoming a full time yoga professional?
I remember back in 2013, I came fresh out of my first teacher training, with a head and heart full of dreams but no idea where to start. I ended up wasting a lot of time not really knowing what I was doing. Doing my best but totally winging it and it was (as I know now) harder than it needed to be and took a lot LONGER than it needed to.
To achieve the dreams I had, it took time, hard work and a lot of mistakes made along the way.
Here I’m going to share with you 9 things to focus on straight away that will help to fast track you forward and help you to achieve your dreams and embark on a fun and exciting yoga teaching career.
Lets dive in…
1.Teach as much as possible
It is a myth that we come out of our first teacher training fully formed and ready to teach. To be good and even great at anything we have to put the hours in. Practice, practice, practice. Try to commit to a regular session each week
Firstly you can set up your own online class. This is the best and easiest way to start to get that practice in and at the same time start to grow your community of students.
If you can try to get classroom experience, you can observe experienced teachers, assist teachers that you know, get involved with your local studios as a karma yoga teacher, you could even ask your local studio if you can host a teacher training class with your teacher training friends.
Any practice that you get you can then also add to your yoga teacher CV.
2. Get clear on your vision and goals for your teaching career
Getting clear on what you want to achieve in your teaching can help you to move forward fast. The more that you can get clear on what you want the more likely you will be to achieve it.
Having a dream is one thing but a dream is nothing without action I’m afraid.
Take time to sit down and write out your goals for the next 6 months, 1 year & 3 years. These will of course evolve and potentially change as you move along in your teaching journey but it is important to start to create this vision to get to where you want to get to be able to see how to get there.
Start to break your goals down into 90 day increments and break them up into daily, weekly and monthly tasks. Putting dates beside them as to when you want to have these completed. In this way you will start to make progress and see results.
3. Work on your mindset
When we first start teaching it is common for all of the skeletons to come out of the closet. The inner critic, imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs, lack of confidence, visibility issues to name a few. I dealt with these all personally and know its an interesting and uncomfortable place to be. It can be easy to sink into procrastination, comparissionitis and not showing up as yourself so this needs to be addressed as soon as possible or your teaching journey will be harder than it needs to be.
The number one thing that will help with all of these things is working on your MINDSET.
This is a thread that we work on through out the Evolve Together Mentoring Programme that I have been running for the last 4 years and the mindset work alone creates a huge space for growth and for building confidence, not just with teaching but off the mat as well.
4. Get insured
Getting insurance is something you need to do as soon as you start teaching. This will legally protect you when teaching privately and in studios and all studios will require you to have this and update it on a yearly basis.
There are many insurance companies you can go with here in the UK.
Balens is a company I personally use https://www.balens.co.uk/individuals/yoga-professionals/ but you can do your own internet search and do some research to find the company that is right for you.
Once you receive your coverage email make sure you save the PDF and store it in a folder with your yoga documents.
5. Create a yoga teacher CV
You can create a yoga teacher CV that will bring together your teaching training qualifications, teaching experience, your professional training and experience.
If you don’t have a lot of teaching experience don’t worry there is still quite a bit that you can add to your CV.
You can include professional experience and skills that are relevant and can be translated into your teaching. Be sure to include your training qualifications and you can also include any continuing education workshop or immersions that you have attended, even if it was before your 200HR YTT.
Make sure your personal statement talks to your teaching style and what you are inspired to share and teach and perhaps if you are hoping to specialize in a particular style or type of client add this also.
6. Develop your teaching skills
This is one thing that is highly undervalued coming out of your yoga teacher training. Over the time of your yoga teacher training you have learnt a lot of new skills but unfortunately it doesn’t give you so much time to develop these skills.
A lot of the skills you have learnt have also only just touched on the surface and not gone very deep. So therefore you will need to do work around this to develop and deepen your experience and knowledge.
This will include sequencing, theming, teaching language including vocal & body and how to hold space.
What can help with this is practice. Using trial and error. Seeing what works and what doesn’t. This takes time. You could also find experienced teachers that you can work with to guide you. Taking extra workshops or courses or getting involved in a mentorship programme in which you will have time to work in depth into each area with eyes and feedback given on your work.
7. Get clear on your why
Getting clear on your WHY is a foundational piece with your yoga teaching. This is something I had had more guidance around at the start of my journey.
If you want to teach yoga, you will need to love teaching. Practicing yoga and teaching yoga are two very different things and teaching yoga comes along with a lot of other things.
You will need to manage your time and energy efficiently, run a small business i.e. marketing, finance, event planning to name a few. It is not an easy path.
With that said the right tools, strategy and guidance in place, it can be a very rewarding and fulfilling career, especially if you have the passion and drive behind it.
So the key is finding your why, where your passion lies is a good place to start and a great place to come back to when things are a little more challenging.
Take time to journal around this. Here are some questions to get started with…
Why do you want to teach yoga?
What brought you to the practice in the first place?
What are you inspired to share?
What do you love about the yoga practice?
If you want to dive deeper into this, this can be a great way to start to discover your authentic voice.
I’ve created a workbook to help you flesh this out.
GRAB IT HERE
8. Build your community and support system
As a yoga teacher part of your job is to build a support system, a community and team to help you move forward. You will have some amazing moments and times in your teaching journey but you will also inevitably have some hard times. In these moments you want to have people around you to support you.
This could be made up of other teachers that you have completed your training with to bounce ideas of and share ideas with and collaborate with, your family and friends to practice teaching on, to support you when you’re feeling blue, Teachers you look up to to practice with, to work with in mentorship, business coach to guide you with the business side of your teaching journey.
Who else did you want to make up your community and support system. Make a list and then make sure your spending time developing this and nurturing these relationships.
9. Keep practicing yoga!!
This is at the bottom of the list but it should be at the top ;) With this first point of needing to teach as much as possible in mind, you must support this with a strong foundation of self care and making space for your own practice.
As you start to teach it can be very easy to let your own practice slip go to the bottom of the list, thinking that you don’t have the time or the energy. I can tell you from experience this is a big mistake.
It is important to cultivate a strong routine right from the start and a connection to your own practice.
Your own yoga practice can be a space to cultivate creativity for your classes: sequencing, dharma talk and the words you are using to cue your classes. You will have the opportunity to feel in your body what you are teaching. This will help you connect on a deeper level to your students to what you are offering them.
Try also to keep a journal with you when you are practicing to jot down anything that comes to mind as you move through your practice or for post reflection.
Here are 3 ways that you could potentially practice at home…
Practice with online yoga sites. I use www.movementformodernlife.com or www.alomoves.com. There are so many wonderful teachers online and their teachings can be a source for inspiration.
Practice the sequence that you’re currently teaching or working on.
Put on some inspiring music and move creatively on the mat. Move in a way that makes you feel good, in a way that your body wants to move.
So how are you going to make sure you fit your practice in this week?
Finishing your yoga teacher training is such an amazing achievement and an exciting step forward towards embarking on your teaching career. You have invested time, money and I’m sure a lot of love into the course but this is just the beginning.
What comes after, the action that you take, will make the difference between you making the most of this time when you’re feeling inspired and fresh with the teachings and into a successful career in a fun and exciting way or spend your time struggling through.
This takes time so be patient, keep going, keep showing up, keep learning and developing.