Dear Homegrown Yogis,
It’s officially mid October, and I’m finally sending out what should be our early October studio email. Since starting our monthly email blast years ago, I’ve always included one of these short letters. I know it’s not a necessary marketing tool for the studio, but these letters have been a way for me to set a deadline for myself to sit down each month, reflect on what’s happened and try to learn something from it. Yet for the past few weeks I’ve sat down, wrote a bunch of sentences and then refused to post because my words just weren’t coming out right. I realize now that these past few weeks of writing and deleting and re-writing have been the lesson I’ve been needing to learn.
In one of my favorite books, Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert shares this piece of advice her mom passed down to her: “Done is better than good.” Gilbert goes on to explain:
“… the truth of the matter is, most people don’t finish things! Look around you, the evidence is everywhere! People don’t finish. They begin ambitious projects with the best of intentions, but then they get stuck in a mire of insecurity and doubt and hairsplitting… and they stop. So if you can just complete something – merely complete it! – you’re already miles ahead of the pack, right there.”
I’ve seen this in my own life countless times. When I first began teaching yoga I spent hours and hours planning each class – obsessing over the sequencing, the perfect quote to share, and the best playlist. Then I started teaching more and more, and I wasn’t able to plan the perfect class. It was a choice between not teaching so many classes or just getting the class done. And to my surprise, simply getting the classes done made the classes less perfect but more me. Similarly when I opened our studio in Warner Robins, I had everything prepared perfectly from the moment we opened – events planned out for the first several months, schedule cards printed and ready to go, and the decor matched and coordinated. Fast forward several years to the Macon studio, and between balancing the Warner Robins studio, my teaching schedule, teacher training, and Freida, if I waited for things to be perfect for it, there would most definitely would never be a Homegrown Macon. Instead we opened and we’re planning events as we go, our schedule board is still very much a work in progress, and the desk, couches and rugs kind of -sort of “go together” at the best =) But again to my surprise, things are running much less perfectly but much more authentically.
So I’m sitting here with a timer set for 20 minutes and then this letter is being posted because I refuse to let my inability to create something perfect stop me from creating something real. And I hope that if you’re sitting on an idea, project or simply a conversation that you’re afraid to move ahead with because you know it won’t be perfect, that this perfectly imperfect letter may give you a little kick in the butt to go ahead and do it. Because in my humble opinion, the world needs some seriously authentic things done right now – not a bunch of perfect ideas being saved for later.
Timer is going off, and I am DONE!! I hope to see you on your mat soon!
With all my love,
Rachel