I am a YES.

There is a saying in yoga, “I am a yes.” Not a no, not a maybe, not a possibly, not a perhaps.

Just a firm, definitive yes.

Over the last 40 days, I have been a yes.

And it’s a big deal.

Six weeks ago, I signed on for a 40 Days of Yoga challenge. The commitment was five 75-minute yoga classes a week, plus one 60-minute workshop. Which, when you work full-time and want to have something that resembles a social life, can be challenging.

I was trapped in “maybes” for a good two weeks before signing up. Maybe I’ll do 40 days. Maybe I won’t. 

But I hate grey areas, which means “maybe” doesn’t work for me. So I signed up. I decided to be a YES. If I can commit to shoes, I can commit to yoga.

Being a yes is hard. It meant I went to yoga at 3:30 p.m. on the first nice Sunday of the year. It meant that I went to yoga instead of going out with my friends. It meant that I went to yoga at 5:45 a.m. before work and that I went to yoga on a Saturday with a raging hangover when I would have rather been at home watching (and being) Bridget Jones.

The hardest part of being a yes, of making a commitment and sticking to it, was that I was making a commitment to myself. The only person I would be flaking out on if I dropped out of 40 days would be myself. This time, I needed to STICK TO IT. It’s easy to start out as a yes and then fade into a maybe and then slowly fade into a no, when the only person you report to is you.

For me, 40 Days was not about working out five times a week—it was about the commitment, about being a yes, about prioritizing and avoiding lame excuses like “not enough time” or “I have to do this other less important thing.” Sure, the workouts were great and my yoga practice has improved (bird of paradise anyone?). But more importantly, for the last 40 days, I was a yes.

So I challenge you—what do you need to commit to for 40 days? Where in your life do you need to be a yes?

If you’re interested in learning more, you can read about 40 Days to Personal Revolution, started by Baron Baptiste, here.

And if you think yoga isn’t an amazing workout for mind and body, you’re at the wrong yoga studio.

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