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We bring more than our mats and water bottles to our yoga practice. Each of us also takes something unseen along with us: our personality.
Without realizing it, we carry our expectations, ambitions, and habits into our practice. These influence literally everything we experience on the mat and can sometimes derail our experience of yoga and its benefits. Although we all have days where we push ourselves a little too hard, allow our focus to be scattered, or shy away from a challenge, yoga is a practice of self-inquiry and creates a space where we can observe, explore, and perhaps challenge these tendencies.
If any of these behaviors sound familiar enough that you fall into them more often than not, it might be time to reconsider the way you show up to yoga. You might even ask yourself whether you show these patterns in your life outside the studio.
6 Common Personality Traits That Derail Your Yoga Practice
Following are some habits that take your practice contrary to the underlying teachings of yoga.
1. Wanting Mastery NOW!
Years ago, I taught a class that peaked in Dancer Pose (Natarajasana) with an overhead bind. Almost the entire class used straps to help find the shape. Afterward, a new student who was clearly frustrated approached me and demanded to know, “When am I going to be able to get this overhead bind? I’ve been practicing yoga for a month and I still can’t do it!”
Some students expect every pose to be almost instantly within their grasp. But no one can play Rachmaninoff after a single piano lesson. In fact, many never achieve such a level of mastery with a musical instrument. The same is true of yoga.
Of course, with the right alchemy of skeletal structure, bodily proportions, and movement history, some of us might nail the external shape of a pose on our first try. Other times, no matter how long or how hard we work at it, our bodiese simply won’t get there. Most of the time, the desired pose is only possible with a patient foundation of skill, capacity, and practice.
Here’s what I wish impatient students could understand: steady and persistent practice is its own reward. Ironically, by the time these students get to the point of figuring out how to take their bodies into the pose, they longer care so much about it. Chances are whatever benefits they sought from the fancy bind or arm balance, they gained along the way.
2. Seeking Perfection
The question the perfectionist student most consistently asks of the teacher and themselves is, “Am I doing it right?”
They agonize whether their back foot should be angled 40 or 45 degrees in Warrior 1 long after class. They lose sleep questioning their inability to lift into Crow or Crane Pose (Bakasana). They feel upset that they didn’t feel as significant a stretch as usual when the teacher told class to lengthen the distance between the heels and the hips in Bound Angle Pose (Baddha Konasana).
The perfectionist student becomes so lost in the external appearance of a pose that they become oblivious to their internal experience—the fierce strength required to hold any version of a warrior pose, the courage summoned to try an arm balance, the yielding release of a less-intense hip opener.
The nuances of a yoga practice could warrant a lifetime of study. And there’s a reason why yoga is considered a practice, not a performance. That’s because its focus is internal. Instead of asking whether they are doing a pose “right,” I wish my perfectionist students would instead ask themselves, “What do I feel here?” Letting themselves experience less ruminating over the textbook specifics of a pose and more curiosity about their actual experience of the pose could change everything.
3. Doing Too Much
We all know the student whose version of ujjayi is reminiscent of very loud Darth Vader or who approaches pranayama breath holds like a free diver preparing to break a world record. The one who takes the most challenging variation every single time whether their body is up to it or not. Who sneaks in extra core work when the rest of the class is in Savasana. Who equates harder, longer or more with better.
Some days, we might even be that student.
There’s nothing wrong with challenging ourselves, especially when we have extra energy or agitation to release. But like any unconscious pattern, this one has limitations.
When our default is 110 percent, we forget how 50 or 75 percent feels, leaving us without options on days when our capacity is depleted. Also, when we care only about the most intense or complex version of a pose or practice, we miss opportunities to refine our self-awareness and our understanding of the pose’s most fundamental lessons. After all, elite athletes still practice simple drills.
Patanjali’s Sutra 2.46, commonly referred to as the concept of sthira sukham asanam, espouses the necessity to balance steadfastness with ease. I wish my Type-A students understood that a truly advanced practice is built on nuance, subtlety, and (above all) balance rather than brute force and determination.
4. Not Challenging Yourself
The flip side of the above equation can also be a trap. Some students consistently coming out of Chair Pose (Utkatasana) after a couple seconds because they don’t like feeling their legs shake or burn. They move to the wall in every standing balance pose because they are unwilling to risk the perceived failure of having to bring the lifted foot back to the floor for a moment. They leave class before Savasana every time because they get restless when lying or sitting still. They opt out of their practice every time they don’t feel like it.
Don’t misunderstand me: Any and all of these examples could be the most appropriate option on any day or perhaps every day. But consistently opting for them could demonstrate a tendency to stay safe in our comfort zones and hold us back from physical or mental growth.
Many of us turn to yoga as an avenue of transformation—to grow stronger, more adaptable, calmer, or more compassionate to self and others. And growth sometimes requires discomfort. We only get stronger by challenging our strength. We only improve our balance by being willing to wobble. And we only learn how to cultivate calm in a way that is useful by learning to do so in situations that aren’t easy or necessarily pleasant.
The key is to be honest about what we need from our practice. Not every day has to be the day to push our limits. Sometimes our mat is, and should be, a refuge from the difficulties of life. But at certain times, it can also be the thing that reveals to us an unknown capacity and our true potential.
5. Focusing on Others
One of the things that make yoga classes special is the community created. Seeing the same faces in the same room week after week, through good times and bad, can be a subtle but powerful source of support.
Some students, though, take the communal experience a little too far. They are so invested in what’s happening on the mats around them that they lose sight of what’s occurring on their own, whether due to envy, judgement, or distraction.
We all look around at times, and might even draw inspiration from seeing another student demonstrate the determination of sinking a little deeper in their warrior stance, the self-awareness of opting for a variation, or taking a much-needed break. But there’s a difference between occasionally focusing on others and that being our default state.
Yoga is not a spectator sport. We each bring a different mind, body, goal, and history to our practice, so there’s no point focusing on someone else’s practice. While we might occasionally feel inspired by seeing someone in our community model something, most of the lessons we learn from yoga are internal ones.
6. Being Constantly Distracted
Yoga is not always comfortable. It takes time and practice to learn to sit quietly with the thoughts and sensations that can arise during class. That’s an essential part of the practice. No wonder it’s easier to focus on other things than what’s happening for us at the moment.
The constantly distracted student makes an art form of watching other students or focusing on literally anything else, whether checking their phone or smartwatch, fixing their clothing or hair, repositioning their mat and props, or letting their thoughts drift out the studio window.
Sometimes the transition from the mayhem of life to quiet on the mat is simply too much to ask of our overburdened minds. After all, most of us are exposed to more information in a day than our ancestors encountered in a lifetime.
But if you find your attention wandering reflexively, ask yourself what it would take to stay with what you’re feeling. Switch your focus to what’s happening for you in the moment, whether that means reducing the intensity of your pose, unclenching the muscles of your jaw or forehead, or tuning into the rhythm of your breath. Learning to manage discomfort on your mat, where the stakes are low, helps you become more resilient to the challenges you face in the rest of life.
