This month, I’ve been working on our 300 hour yoga teacher training with Claire, my business partner from Ambassador Yoga (see photo below). Last week we filmed The Business of Yoga and we each talked about our yoga teacher journeys. Mine started with a Year of Saying, “Yes!” and I thought I’d share it with you today.

The Year of Saying Yes!

Soon after I became a yoga teacher I went on a “yes” kick and made a pact with myself to say “yes” to any yoga class I was offered to teach. 

The goal was to fill my teaching schedule AND get more confident as a teacher. 

I let other teachers know that if they needed a sub, I would say yes if I could. This “yes” phase lasted about a year and it worked. I found new classes, and most of them came from word-of-mouth from my experiment.

Hand-me Down Classes

What also happened was my first five regular teaching jobs were hand-me-down classes for teachers I subbed for through the year. They passed the classes on to me after I had subbed for them and when one teacher moved to a new city, she offered me a number of classes. 

But my favourite “yes” moment happened in the bathroom!

Yes I was attending the winter solstice yoga retreat in Florida when, in the bathroom, I overheard a teacher asking her friend if she could teach the morning sadhana class.  

Now, this is the kind of yoga where the day begins at 4 am with a total of two and a half hours of prayers, yoga, and meditation.  It was also a pretty big retreat, hundreds of people, usually about 300 or 400 people showed up for morning sadhana. 

Back to the bathroom, one person asked the other to teach and the other was all, “Oh no, I couldn’t teach that many people! Hard no.”  

I was overhearing this as I came out of the stall and the person said something like, “I’ve got to find somebody to do it.”

Saying it Out Loud

“”Yes!” I thought and then I said it out loud! 

“Yes, I’m a teacher, I can teach it.” 

Long story short, the next morning there I was up on the platform, leading the morning program. It is still the largest class I’ve had the opportunity to teach, and it was my first year as a teacher. 

I’ve been teaching since 1998 and I can say that these kind of opportunities do not come along often. I’m so happy I got to teach the class and I’m proud I had the “yes” mindset that helped me grow as a teacher. 

Eventually, my schedule filled up and I had to start saying no to subbing, but I did try to sub if I could to help out other teachers. 

When You Give Yourself a Push

Now I’m not saying you always want to “yes” to everything.  Years later I had a “summer of no obligation” where I went to the other extreme.  I’ll tell you that story another day. 

My point is, it can be helpful to push oneself in the direction you want to go with challenges like these.  

Right now, I’m saying yes to the 300 Hour recorded training and planning the 2027 cohort of the 95 Hour Certification.  

I’m saying no to trying to juggle the end of the 2026 Cohort and the beginning of the 2027 Cohort. There will be a gap when the training is closed to new registration so I can work.

What about you? Do you have some yes’s you want to push?

Feel free to add a comment here and I’ll read and give you some encouragement.