Ep 104: Planning For A New Year: How to Work Smarter

Working smarter is not about “doing more.” Thinking this way is the mentality that keeps so many yoga teachers right on the edge of burnout. Instead of adding more classes or constantly creating brand new sequences every week, we’ll explore how to design a sustainable teaching ecosystem for 2026. One that supports your energy, honors your nervous system, and deepens your impact with students.

Discover how to plan your teaching year intentionally, build workshops and offerings that align with your students’ needs, and choose continuing education based on how it will transform your teaching. I'll offer you a few reflection questions and practical strategies for structuring your year around purpose, so you feel less pressure.

If you’re a yoga teacher ready to stop hustling and start teaching with more clarity and confidence, this episode will help you create a year that truly supports you and gets you excited about teaching in the year ahead!

Transcript

Monica: 0:00

We gotta break away from the do more mentality. That's keeping so many yoga teachers on the edge of burnout. Instead of adding more classes or constantly reinventing your sequences, let's explore how to design a sustainable teaching ecosystem for 2026. One that supports your energy. Honors your nervous system and deepens your impact with students. In this episode, you'll discover how to plan your teaching year intentionally. Build workshops and offerings that align with your students' needs, and choose continuing education that actually transforms your teaching. You'll walk away with reflection questions and practical strategies for structuring your year around purpose and not the pressure to do more or to be more. If you're ready to stop hustling, this episode will help you create a year that will truly begin to support you. Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers Podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you. If you are a yoga teacher, you're looking for support. You love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you. My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, my process for building my business and helpful ideas, tools, strategies and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you, whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you wanna dive deep and set yourself up for success. I am so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now let's do this together. Well, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Monica, and I'm so glad you're here. Here we talk about the anatomy, the injuries, the nervous system insights, plus all the real life knowledge you wish had been included in your yoga teacher training. Hey, hey, happy holidays. Before we get started, are you ready for everything that the holidays bring and have you finished preparing for them? This holiday season feels a little bit lighter for me as I've decided on participating a little bit less in the whole consumerism idea and it feels really good. So I guess I could say I'm prepared. And I don't feel like my back is. Up against the wall like it's felt in years before. So I hope that you're prepared as well as we come up on the end of this year. I know that many yoga teachers start thinking about how to plan for the new year, what the next year might bring, how might the next year be any different than this year? What goals you wanna set and how you can expand your teaching in a meaningful way. But for so many teachers, this reflection often turns into an exhausting cycle of trying to. Do more, more classes, more workshops, more content, more hustle, and yet, despite all the effort, you might feel like you're stagnant and just trying to keep your head above water. Today, I wanna invite you into a different kind of planning conversation. Instead of asking, how much can I fit into my schedule next year, ask yourself, how can I build a sustainable ecosystem in my teaching that actually supports me, my students, and my growth? When we talk about working smarter, not harder as a yoga teacher, We are really talking about shifting from reactive to intentional reactive teaching. Looks like saying yes to every opportunity, subbing extra classes, taking on way too many privates, or feeling pressured to constantly create something new just to stay relevant, intentional and purposeful teaching, on the other hand, looks like pausing long enough to ponder. What do I wanna be known for? What kind of impact do I want to have and how can I structure my year in a way that reflects that vision? The first part of building your 2026 plan is to zoom out and think about your teaching ecosystem. Every thriving ecosystem has different elements that support one another. Your classes are just one piece of that. They're the foundation, but not the whole picture. You might also include workshops, a specialty series, online offerings, retreats, or mentorship opportunities for students who wanna go deeper. Instead of adding more weekly classes, you can start thinking about creating. Experiences that expand on what you already teach. For example, if you specialize in helping students with pain or limited mobility, maybe 2026 is the year you create a four week movement for recovery series or an in-person workshop that blends your sequencing and nervous system knowledge. by diversifying your teaching ecosystem, you're no longer relying on class volume to grow your income or your impact. You're expanding your reach by deepening your expertise, and here is where the real sustainability lies. Another key part of working smarter is committing to at least one continuing education training per year and being intentional about how you choose it. Instead of enrolling in whatever training sounds exciting at the moment. Reflect on what your students actually need and what will move your teaching forward in a way that feels aligned. Ask yourself, what's the next layer of. Understanding that would make the biggest difference in how I serve my students. Maybe it's deepening your understanding of anatomy, studying the nervous system, exploring trauma informed practices, or learning about yoga for specific conditions or populations. The truth is, taking a training is only half the growth. The other half is what you do with that knowledge. One of the best ways to integrate your learning is to bring it directly into your classes and into your workshops. For instance, if you study a new approach to sequencing, challenge yourself to design a four week class Theme around that concept. If you learn about the vagus nerve or pain science, build a class or even a short educational series for your students where you share what you've learned in a way that's accessible and meaningful. To them. This not only helps you retain what you've studied, but also positions you as a teacher who is intentionally evolving, the teacher who is invested in their growth and in their students' experience. You might even consider building quarterly themes into your teaching year. For example, maybe winter focuses on nervous system support and slower grounding classes. In the springtime, you focus on mobility and strength. Summer is for deep dives into anatomy or advanced sequencing. And fall becomes a time for reflection and integration. Structuring your year this way can help you avoid burnout and keeps your teaching fresh without the constant pressure to reinvent everything every week. While you plan for 2026, it's also worth looking at your schedule, not just from a productivity standpoint, but from an energy perspective. Ask yourself, where do I feel most energized in my teaching? Where do I feel drained? What parts of my schedule or commitments no longer feel aligned with the teacher I'm becoming? These are powerful questions because they help you make decisions based on your nervous system, not just your to-do list. The teachers who create a sustainable career in this field are the ones who honor their own capacity and create space to refill their cup. One small but powerful practice is to schedule your own recovery and inspiration time before the year begins. Build in days or even weeks where you step back from teaching to rest, reflect, or create. You can't pour from an empty cup, and your students will always benefit more from a grounded, inspired teacher than from one who is overextended. As you look at your year ahead, I also want to invite you to take a moment of gratitude for how far you've come since your first few months of teaching, even if you're still finding your way or figuring out your next steps, you've already chosen one of the most meaningful and thoughtful careers there is. That's helping people feel more awareness of themselves, more connected to their bodies, and more in tune with their breath. That's not small work. This is really significant. So instead of chasing newness or feeling like you have to do more, what if 2026 became the year of refinement of doing what you already do, but with deeper awareness, clarity, and purpose. What if it was the year of teaching fewer things, but with more of your heart? I wanna offer a few reflection questions to guide your planning for the new year. Take a moment to journal or think through some of these questions. Number one. What kind of teacher do I want to be by the end of 2026? Kind of zoom out and take a broad look at yourself and your teaching, and what do you want your teaching career to look like? Number two, what parts of my teaching feel aligned and sustainable right now? Number three. Where do I feel most inspired and where do I feel kind of stuck? Whether you feel inspired or stuck, that might inform you on some continuing education that you might be interested in taking. Okay. Number four, what one area of continuing education would truly elevate the way I teach and serve? This is really important. This is Choosing and selecting your continuing education with intention. And finally, how can I intentionally integrate what I learned back into my students' experience? It does no good to take continuing education. If you don't, then integrate it and bring it back to your classes and teach your students and bring them along for the educational ride that you're going on. Now as you answer these questions, remember, growth doesn't happen by accident. It happens through intention, through curiosity and small consistent steps. So here's my challenge for you. Before the end of this year, I want you to block out a few hours to map out your 2026 teaching ecosystem. Write down your anchor points, your classes, your workshops, your trainings, and your rest periods. Identify one continuing education training you'll commit to and brainstorm one way you'll share what you learn with your students. It doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be. Final. The goal isn't to plan every little detail out, it's to set your direction with clarity and with purpose, and as always know that you don't have to do it alone. This yoga teaching career can feel isolating at times, But we grow best in community through mentorship, through conversation, and through continued curiosity. And this is why I enjoy having this podcast to be a resource for you so you feel less alone and having the conversations with each other that we so desperately need. So as you look ahead to 2026, remember you don't need to work harder to make an impact. You just need to work with more intention, more awareness, and more compassion really for yourself when you commit to one intentional continuing education training a year. Design classes that align with your values and integrate what you learn Into your offerings, you create a sustainable rhythm that supports long-term growth. Your teaching doesn't have to be about doing more. It's about doing what matters most with awareness and with purpose. As you plan for the new year, ask yourself, what kind of teacher do I want to become and what do I need to release in order to make room for that? All of this is what working smarter as a yoga teacher really means. Understanding anatomy, biomechanics, and the effects yoga Asana have on the body helps you help your students. If you've been enjoying these episodes, I know that your yoga teacher who's ready to teach with more intention and less fear around injuries, let's continue to raise the bar for how yoga supports real bodies in real life. It is so important for us to have this conversation so that you remember that students of all shapes, sizes, alignment, and abilities come to your classes and you can serve all of them. You know that my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching life. And it's so important to understand movement and the issues that students come to your classes with. Subscribe to the podcast so you're always in the know when a new episode drops, and share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. And finally, thank you for helping to spread the word about this podcast. Alright, thank you for listening. That's it for now. Bye.