Nearing the halfway mark in January often makes it rather apparent that our New Year’s resolutions are going to faulter once again. This is not always the case, but the majority of us will attest to the futility of making these kinds of inspired, yet ultimately flacid, promises to ourselves at the strike of midnight on the 31st of December.

Throughout my years on planet Earth I have stumbled upon a few useful and by no means ground-breaking rules of thumb. One of these axioms arose from my approach to physical training but like all self evident truths, it appears to be applicable to many different aspects of life.

“Consistency is more important than intensity.”

Basically what I am getting at is the reason why New Year’s resolutions, or any other empassioned pratices for that matter, often fall by the wayside is that we approach them with an intensity that probably arises from our shortsighted view of the law of momentum. I say short-sighted here, and I am guilty of this too, since we think that if we start off something with enough intensity the generated “momentum” will be enough to carry us through the whole year. Unfortunately momentum only works like that in zero gravity. Down here on the ground any momentum will eventually run out and the object in question, in this case ourselves, will come slowly and inevitably to a standstill.

Staying with this analogy, it doesn’t matter how hard you throw a ball, it will eventually stop moving, and it will probably be far enough away from you at that point that it will take a certain amount or time and effort to retrieve it to throw it again. In the same way if we approach something with too much intensity, let’s use our asana practice as an example here, we may end up hurting ourselves and need to take either a time out or spend additional effort to get us back to the point that we started at in the New Year.

An easier way to maintain control and keep the ball moving, so to speak, would be to put it on the ground and gently kick it ahead of you as you walk. That way you still have a modicum of momentum, but it’s much more sustainable. So my reminder to myself as I start my practice, whether it be at the start of the year or the start of a class, is to move slowly and be consistant. Rather do a little everyday than a lot once in a blue-moon and little-by-little you may find that the practice itself may start to move you along…