My yoga experiment started many years ago, mainly out of frustration about my lack of flexibility. In fact, like a true yoga dinosaur, I still bought my yoga instructional videos on DVDs! 

Predictably, my practice was very hot and cold. Sometimes I would get inspired and practice regularly for a week or two. Other times, my DVDs would gather dust for weeks on end (as is the fate of most DVDs nowadays).

My breakthrough finally came when I fully committed to my morning routine. Yoga was a natural candidate for inclusion, mostly because it wakes up the body and can be done whether it rains or shines.  

Thus, yoga soon claimed a slot quite early in my routine right after my rather odd 2-minute habit of scoring the previous day (we’ll get to that in a couple of weeks).

Which brings me to another important point about habits… Routines tend to work well because the start of one habit is triggered by the end of another. 

For me, filling in the last number on my scorecard is the trigger to turn off my wake-up music and put on Rodney Yee. And when Rodney says “Namaste” at the end of the routine, it’s my trigger to sit down for a few pages of an educational book.  

So, that’s how, after years of trying, my yoga habit finally stuck. I gave yoga an honorary position early in a string of habits that naturally cascade like a chain of dominoes every morning. 

We’ll be collecting some more dominoes for your own habit cascade over coming weeks. I hope morning exercise has already earned its spot 🙂