Be Patient

Let's be honest. On Day 1, it's likely that you won't be able to perform a handstand. Yoga forces you to embrace your practice as it is right now. You should never push yourself to the point of great discomfort or damage if you want to challenge yourself. You risk getting harmed if you try to push your body to open into a position before it's ready. Warming up and building up to increasingly difficult positions is necessary; some stances take a lifetime. Similar to life, pushing events to occur before they are prepared nearly never advances us toward our objectives.

Pharmacist Erin Pitkethly states, "Yoga has taught me patience as I am occasionally unable to accomplish positions that I have done for a decade owing to an injury. Each week there is a small improvement, and having to wait a month or two to be able to return to a full asana is humbling."

In yoga, we frequently accomplish more if we work more slowly. When we try to force ourselves into an asana (yoga position), our muscles are likely to be stiff and we are probably using the wrong muscle group. This not only increases our risk of injury but also prevents us from strengthening and extending the proper muscles. We may accomplish our goals considerably more quickly if we can take our time and move with conscious awareness. The same goes for life off the mat when we rush through tasks or try to multitask, nothing gets done well, we fall short of our objectives, and we are more likely to make mistakes. But if we slow down and eliminate the unnecessary items, we'll find that we can accomplish more things without as much stress.