I'm a bilingual yoga teacher who helps people who sit a lot gain mobility, move without pain and reduce their stress.
Use your own psychological bias in your favour
Do you know the famous psychological bias called "the sunk cost fallacy"?It's when you've already invested so much time or energy in a project that you can't bring yourself to abandon it, even when you know it's going nowhere. Once we know it exists, we start seeing it everywhere: our friend who's staying in a relationship that emotionally ended years ago, the degree we're no longer interested in but we're "too far in" to quit... We keep pouring energy into something because we can't bear to admit what we've already spent is lost. But I had an idea: what if we could flip this bias on its head?What if, instead of sunk costs, we could create sunk benefits? I thought about it because one of my former clients sent me a message recently. When we first worked together, he made one decision: start his mornings with 5-10 minutes of yoga. It doesn't sound like much, but here's what happened: once he'd invested those ten minutes into his wellbeing, he found himself naturally protecting that investment throughout the day. He took mindful breaks spontaneously. He chose the stairs over the escalator. He snacked less. He didn't even have to think about it, his brain spontanously whispered "I started my day so well. It would be a shame to waste it." When you invest in your body and mind first thing in the morning, every decision that follows becomes easier. You're not trying to find motivation from scratch at 3pm when you're exhausted. You're simply continuing the momentum you've already built. We're using our own psychology in our favour, because we don't like to destroy what we've built. You already know what I'm going to ask you...What kind of momentum are your mornings creating? If you're rushing, eating on the go, or dragging yourself to your laptop... what investment are you protecting for the rest of the day? I'm not telling you to wake up earlier than you do, I know it's too tough a committment for a lot of people. Just think about one thing you could change to your current routine, and how it might shift everything that follows. What I love about this approach is that it doesn't require any willpower. Just one conscious choice early in the day, that makes all the other choices easier. And if that speaks to you and you'd like me to help you build your own morning routine, you know what to do (it's my website). Om, peace 🧡 Clem |
Clémence Dieryck
I'm a bilingual yoga teacher who helps people who sit a lot gain mobility, move without pain and reduce their stress.
There are two fundamental skills I believe everyone should develop as early as possible: emotional regulation and body awareness. Most people get why emotional regulation matters. It's the ability to recognise an emotion arriving, identify it precisely (sometimes anger is actually fear, or a subtler feeling like injustice), and pause before responding... so you can respond thoughtfully rather than reactively. But body awareness's trickier. You might be thinking: "Of course I know when I'm in...
It's not a secret that I've been dealing with anxiety for a long, long time. I often feel like my brain is working against me, telling me that I don't do enough, that I could do more, and that whatever I do, I better do perfectly (or else). I'm dealing with that much better than I used to, but I'm also aware this is something I will have to deal with forever. Still, I'm always looking for ways to make sure the anxiety doesn't take too much space. Which led me to the realisation that I had...
"I don't want to do yoga, I want to start a revolution!" "I don't want to calm down, I want to change everything!" If you don't know her... she's an icon I completely understand the sentiment. The powers that be want us to calm down, to be docile, to accept things as they are, and to let them get on with their dodgy dealings on their own. If we do yoga, aren't we playing right into their hands, really? And why should it be our responsibility to calm ourselves down, when we'd be much calmer if...