Re-imagining Work in the New World

Reimagining Work in The New World

This will be a small series regarding a new perspective on the way we work and think about our careers. According to Human Design, we are entering into a new paradigm in 2027, with the tilt beginning in 2020 (as we can all see) so this is a highly potent time to re-imagine how you want to work beyond what you previously thought was possible.

When I became a full time yoga teacher, in 2017, I was equal parts elated and terrified. I had been told, read and simply overheard, for years, that working as a yoga teacher was more or less an express ticket to being broke as hell. I had been managing a yoga studio that saw many teachers come and go, unable to make it work, and others who taught on the side of their corporate careers or caring for their children who would chat to me before and after classes I just don’t know how they do it. The full time teachers. It must be so hard.

But there I was, doing it anyway, no savings, no investment banker husband, just a lot of passion, and a lot of support from a (small) group of people very close to me.

A disclaimer. I am not suggesting anyone, especially not someone who has a highly paid corporate job to throw it all to the wind in the hope of making it as a yoga teacher. What the world really needs right now, is people in high paid corporate jobs who can bring the practices and teachings of yoga to the companies and people who hold the money and the power. What the world doesn’t need, is another yoga teacher complaining endlessly about how impossible it is to make a living.

But.

If the opportunities keep showing up. If the passion and enthusiasm is undeniable. If you’re being pulled into the trajectory of teaching even against what you know, what you’ve been told about how hard, how impossible it is.

Then maybe it is for you.

This doesn’t just apply to teaching yoga, of course. It applies to anything you’ve been told is unstable, frivolous, wrong, impossible to make a living from.

There are many, many people in the world who make an excellent living from teaching yoga. There are simply many, many more who do not. Perhaps they will in the future. Perhaps it’s not the right career for them in this life. Same goes for being a writer, an artist - anything. Remember. People get paid, literally, for playing video games. Others get paid for organising peoples wardrobes. For baking fresh flowers into cookies. For making videos of themselves dancing. For performing energy healings on cats.

Think the people around them thought it was a smart idea?

Seriously.

Anything you can think of. Someone is getting paid for it. So why are you not getting paid for the thing you really, really want to do, even if you don’t know what that is until you get there.

This is where Human Design comes in as a total lifeline. The way we’ve been brought up to think about our career is incredibly dated. The old model, go to University, get the degree then get the job, then get the promotion then be happy for ever after could only work for a handful of professions. If you’re going to be a doctor, or a nurse or a therapist, it makes sense. If you want to write, create, make art, then you’re probably best finding a mentor, finding a group of people who you can learn from, meet up with and bounce ideas off. People working in the same field. People a few steps ahead of you. You’re better off just creating the work all by yourself, writing the piece, not forcing your unique flavour to fit the outdated guidelines of an institution who doesn’t really care if you find work, and certainly not happiness at the end or not.

Human Design teaches us to move away from figuring out what our ‘thing’ is with our minds. It teaches us to follow our authority, to follow the thread.

What grabs your attention? What can you not look away from? What opportunities are moving all too swiftly in your direction? What could you be doing, if only you got out of your own way.

Here’s how I ended up teaching full time:

Around the same time I finished my entry level Yoga Teacher Training I was made redundant from my very cool, very hip, very toxic job (thank fucking GOD). I had a deep feeling that I should tell the woman I had studied yoga under. I had been assisting in her classes in order to deepen my learning and asked if I could come again in the following week after a small break. After class I told her I was out of work. She immediately offered me the job as studio manager, as the previous manager had recently quit. A week later I was managing the studio full time. I didn’t have any experience, I was doing about a million jobs at once. I wasn’t paid enough, but I was paid more than I’d ever made before. but I learnt quickly on the job and put every ounce of myself, and more, into that job.

Within a few months I was teaching a full time schedule alongside my management role. I was offered classes by my boss, and three other studio owners contacted me asking me to teach at their studios after taking my class. This is what it looks like to be pulled blindly into something, even when you’re told it’s impossible. Even when you’re told it’s an oversaturated market, you’ll never get your foot in the door, on repeat, wherever you go. And yes - that is true, but at the same time, a different reality simultaneously exists. My reality was that I had too many offers and opportunities to teach, I could no longer continue to do both. So I left the management job, and soon after, the studio itself.

The hard work, in this case, was not spending all my time networking with studio owners, submitting resumes at every space in Sydney. It was putting my hand up to assist classes for three months, when everyone else thought it was too much effort and stopped coming after a week or two. It was showing up to take class with the teacher trainer every single week. It was spending hours researching and preparing classes. I used to lay on the floor after all the students left. Sometimes I would want to cry. Sometimes I was too tired to move. I taught to one person. To two people. Sometimes not a single person showed up. I covered the classes no one else wanted to cover. I’d get home at 10pm and get up before 6. There were times I made $12 a class. Yes I had a lot of opportunities but it was anything but glamourous. I was not teaching packed classes. I was fuelled partly by coffee but mostly by the thrill of working for myself.

Obviously, this cannot last for ever. But the important thing was, there was no force. Yes, there was too much effort, not enough rest. But there was no force. No pushing. No blaming anyone else for it not happening fast enough. Just a certain type of hard work that continued to quite obviously pay off.

I share this story to try and demonstrate the difference between showing up and force. Whenever you start something new, it’s hard. Rest, pilates, riding a bike, learning to do a headstand, working for yourself, levelling up your business, whatever it is. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong. You have to ride out that hard season for a little while. Don’t let yourself get stuck there forever, but don’t give up too soon. Learn how to Rest within the space of that difficult season. Learn to prioritise it there. Have a limit and pull back when you’ve reached it. Re-assess. Do less to see more clearly. Then re-emerge.

What I see far too often is giving into defeat too soon. If I stopped teaching yoga because only two people came to class, I would have stopped teaching a lonnggggggg time ago. If I stopped writing instagram posts or sending newsletters because no one engaged with them, I would have an empty website and instagram account. I for sure wouldn’t be writing this post right here. But if you’re constantly getting pushed back time and time again, you feel like you’re forcing it to happen, you feel like you’re constantly banging your head against a brick wall, take a minute. Are you rushing? Is this really want you want to do?

Because we are so damn used to our minds figuring out our life, we’re so used to listening to the opinions and ideas of others as if their reality is the same as our own (most of the time, it’s totally, absolutely not) it can be really difficult to know which steps to take, which direction to move into. This is where Human Design really saves the day. By leaning into our strategy and authority we can block out a lot of the noise coming from the outside world, our conditioning, our limiting beliefs and move forward from a place that is true for us, and only us.

Remember that you don’t have to have it all figured out from day one. Remember that it won’t be easy. Remember not to give up. Remember to keep tapping back into you. Keep reimagining the life you want to live, and have the courage to continue to step it up, even when you want to throw it all away.