When I was teaching yoga full time, my favourite teacher and mentor advised me that I should keep my classes as cheap as possible. ‘Yoga should be affordable for everyone’ she would say and part of me agreed with her.

I wanted everyone to experience the power of yoga. As a relatively new teacher, I admired my mentor and looked up to her for guidance. I had no idea at the time how damaging this particular piece of advice was.

As yoga teachers, our primary source of income is teaching classes. It’s our passion and teaching our passion to others, fills us up. We get to share our knowledge with our students and support their journeys. It’s a beautiful and fulfilling act of service.

However, the unfortunate truth about the business of yoga is that, classes are often too cheap and unless you average 20-30 students per class, you (the teacher) are generally not very well paid.

The amount of money you recieve usually does not merit the amount of hours it takes for you to teach that one class. Especially, when you take into account the time for class prep (sometimes hours), travel time, setting up the room, teaching (the only part you actually get paid for) and student aftercare.

This whole process usually takes 4-5 hours +. You might be lucky and maybe teach 2-3 classes in a row at the same studio but it takes a lot of energy to teach 1 class so usually 2-3 classes is more than most teachers can handle per day. As you know, its physically exhausting!

Most full time teachers can only realistically teach an average of 10-15 classes per week which is a lot! But when income is low, the only realistic way most yoga teachers know to increase their income, is to teach more classes.

When already stretched to capacity, this can inevitably lead to burnout; And while burnout is the absolute antithesis of what we teach, it is scarily common in this industry.

Have you experienced this?

Sadly to say, this was me. I felt the only realistic way I could increase my income was to teach more classes and with the mindset I inherited from my beloved teacher, I kept my prices ‘affordable’ for my students and pushed myself beyond my limits, believing I must be some kind of ‘Super-hero’.

THE RESULT: I ended up completely BURNT OUT. Exhausted. Unable to teach. Shaky mental health. Zero passion to share what I love. And to kick a dog when it’s down, FLAT BROKE!

Can you relate?

All my hard work seemed to be for nothing and I didn’t have the fight in me to keep going. I felt the only solution for me, at the time, was to return to work in my previous career as a corporate accountant. However, I kept asking myself if surely “There must be another way”!

So I set myself on a mission to find ‘Another way’.’ I set myself a mission to discover how I could create a second income that would support me while I teach yoga.

This mission set me on a course for discovering something completely new entirely.

I knew there were teachers out there who were happy, balanced and earning multiple 6 figures annually. I was determined to figure out what they were doing and to how I could do this too.

Do you know that most ‘successful’ yoga teachers are using the power of the internet to support them? Do you know that they are using digital marketing methods to grow their yoga business exponentially?

They are using Social Media Marketing (paid and organic), Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Online Course Creation and more. They have created and continue to create, passive income streams to help support them while they teach, travel and even sleep.

They say ‘Knowledge is Power’ but I say it’s how you use that knowledge, that’s where the true power lies.

Today, I am building a digital (aka online) business to do just that. I am learning all the skills that I need to not only, help me to re-ignite and grow my yoga business but to build something sustainable to support me into the future and to continue to generate income when I can’t teach, when I want to travel or go on retreats and even, YES….. When I sleep.

There is so much that we don’t learn in Yoga Teacher Training and how to build an effective, sustainable yoga business that supports and nourishes its biggest asset (YOU) is definitely one of those things.

But the skills are there, if you want to learn them.

I don’t ever want to experience burnout again. And I don’t want YOU to experience that either.

I firmly believe that WE ARE HERE TO THRIVE! 

Sending you love and light for your journey!

Namaste Yogini!

Niamh x

If you have experienced or are experiencing burnout and you want to chat or to discuss anything in this post, please feel free to get in touch with me, leave a comment below or email me at niamh@thedigitalyogini.com.

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