As a yoga teacher, I really appreciate it when my yogi students take the time to pop me a message to let me know they can’t make a class. They inevitably give me a explanation as to why they can’t make it and often my response is “Life happens”.

And Life does happen, to all of us. How often have you had the most perfectly planned day to have it thrown completely off its tracks?

Sound familiar?

On the flip side, we also need to identify what are our priorities in life and we need to be mindful of these priorities.

So, what do I mean? At the beginning of this year, cause lets face it a new year is always a good time to reflect and focus, I spent a bit of time writing down what my current priorities are. Believe it or not, but its only a list of 4 things. But I really got into and really expanded on what each of these 4 priorities are, how and what I want to focus on, within these 4 priorities.

I then wrote this all down in my diary.

My diary is a week by week diary and so I have taken different color pens and written in BIG, BOLD letters “Is this in line with my priorities?”

The reason, I did this, is as a personal check for my to-do list. This helps me prioritize my to-do list so it is in line with my current priorities. It also helps me to say NO! to all those things that do not serve my priorities.

So, what does all of this have to do with my yogi’s? Well, if looking after yourself and committing to yoga, is one of your priorities, then you need to draw a hard line and say no to anything and anyone who wants / expects you to miss out on your practice.

Maybe its time for a little reflection, is whatever has come up really important or are you just making excuses? Or, are you putting yourself and your priorities on the back burner for someone else?

As they saying goes “You cannot fill from an empty cup.”