I have been teaching yoga for some years now.

At the moment, I teach yoga to more than 100 students every week and I keep getting more and more classes and private sessions. Overall, things are going well. I get a lot of positive feedback and even though I love teaching yoga, three or four times every year I get this outburst of insecurity.

I know that yoga is not about competing or comparing and in my head I’m not in competition with anyone else. I run my own race. I don’t need to be better than everyone else around me. I just aim to improve, to become a better person than I was. The problem is that sometimes my heart just doesn’t agree.

When I’m in the period of insecurity my world is upside down. If I attend a class with a real inspiring teacher, I wish to be like them and I start to question the way I teach. It can also be when I see someone more flexible than me or mastering a pose I can’t do—then I’m sure that I’ll be a better teacher if I was just more flexible or could do more advanced poses. In my head I know this is not true, but in my heart I just get insecure.

I am not quite sure yet what’s going on, but what I do know is that I’m not the only one who feels this insecurity, no matter what job you’re doing. We all get insecure from time to time. I have come to realize that it might not be such a bad thing. When I question my own teaching or want to be more flexible, I don’t go home and feel sorry for myself. (Maybe a little bit, but then I actually act on it.)

The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do.

So I go home and I think of ways to improve my teachings: new themes, new ways of sequencing and I take a little extra care of myself. When I’m in my insecure period I think a lot about everything and I evaluate my life. After the first feeling of not being good enough is gone, something wonderful happens—I start to see things clearer and I feel rejuvenated. It makes me feel humble to the fact that I’m still growing as a human being.

So even though I never see it coming and I suffer in the beginning of my insecure periods they always take me to a better place. So remember that there is something good in every situation—you just need to look for it.

Gitte Lindgaard lives in Denmark with her husband and two daughters. She has a degree in Nutrition and Health and specializes in empowering people to be aware and take responsibility for healthy living. Gitte practices yoga and after recovering from whiplash, she began teaching yoga to people with disabilities. She believes in doing something every day that her future self will be proud of. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or her blog.

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Ed: Brianna Bemel