Productivity vs. Perfection. How the hell do we get stuff done? A conversation with Pooja Virani
This is the conversation I didn’t know I needed.
Productivity is such a huge part of who we are, and that feels like it goes double for those of us who work for ourselves, which is a lot of us in the yoga space.
So Pooja Virani is back, and she and I talk all about what it means to be productive.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
-Perfectionism and Productivity are both facets of white supremacy. As I said in the podcast, we will cover this more extensively in a couple of weeks, but for now just know that while the term “white supremacy” may seem like an intimidating term it is really just a system that puts one ideal, person or way of being above the others.
-Who are your rest role models? Our sponsor, Sunlight Streams has an entire blog asking this question and it is a good one. Who do you look to when you are thinking about people who have a good balance between productivity and rest?
-All of us, seriously all of us, struggle with the balance of feeling like you need to always be doing things–or feeling guilty because we aren’t doing the things. I know I can’t say this enough times, but especially in the wellness space we need to be cognizant of the fact that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than we hold other people. Let’s instead pour ourselves the largest cup of grace that we can and understand that while we have the skills and knowledge to do more, that we are human.
-Look. It is okay to be sick of yoga. We are so desperate for boundaries around yoga as your job/yoga as your practice in this profession. What we seem to espouse is something that most people can’t actually achieve. It is normal to get sick, and we are normal people. I realize that optimal health is our goal, but people get colds.
-Progress does not have to happen in only one way. That is my favorite quote of Pooja’s in this episode. I think it is important to highlight this idea as we go forward to create the profession we all want to be a part of. Our career paths are different. Our objectives, ideals, and production is different. But we are all in service of Yoga.
-You are already doing enough. Full stop. No exceptions, no reasons why not. One of the marketing campaigns I started at my studio in the month of February was “You already got an A+ for the week” and we are doing it every Monday morning. This was inspired from a conversation I had with a teacher at the studio, where we realized we all just need to hear that we are already doing A+ work, and you don’t need to grind hard all week to get it.
-Our industry can come together to model a better way of working, I truly believe this. We are equipped with tools that other industries don’t have. We already talk about physical and mental health and mindset in ways that other jobs and businesses don’t. So lets commit to figuring out healthy ways for us to work and be productive. It doesn’t need to be perfect.
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White Supremacy Culture website