Write your perfect bio

Write your perfect yoga bio - Transcript

Today, we're going to write your perfect yoga bio. Yes, today! Let's do it! Grab a pen and some paper because this is a practical, immediately implement guide to writing your perfect yoga bio. I

Before we get started, just take a moment to breathe, and to find calm.

Let's imagine

Imagine your favourite teacher puts a call out asking for cover, you're able to send your bio straight to them, and they know, you're a great teacher to cover their classes

Or imagine there's an opening coming  up at a studio you love, and a few teachers get in touch, but you're the one that's able to send your bio straight away, to show the studio that you're a great fit

Or imagine that you hear of an office looking for someone to run yoga sessions on a lunchtime for their staff; you're able to send over your bio, showing that you're keen, organised and they get a great feel for your style and your classes, and you get the work.

And finally imagine that someone who's super busy at work at the moment, they're really keen to get to yoga to relax a bit, and they're scrolling through the bios on the local yoga studio's website; they see your bio and they know, you're the teacher for them.

Having a yoga bio that's perfect for you, that you can access and send where ever you are, means you'll be clear about your yoga and clear about who you'd like to reach and teach.

But before we do anything at all, let's do a mindset check in.

For some reason, writing about your classes is really, really hard, and I think it's because us yoga teachers find it hard to big up our teaching, our ability and our classes. But in order for your bio to do you justice, it needs to be written in the way that your yogis see you; perhaps that's inspiring, motivating, compassionate, knowledgable. You might be hesitant about saying those things about you, but your yogis wouldn't!

So, let your mind start to ponder over the following questions:

• How has yoga changed your life?

• How have your yogis described your classes?

• How have they told you they feel after class?

• Why do they come to you? Why don't they go to the pub, or stay home watch Netflix, or go to the gym or stay at work or do any other of 1000 things that they could do?

Take a deep breath, and a big exhale. Let's prioritise being authentic. Not shy, not reserved, not exaggerating, but authentic, so that we attract the people that we want to work with.

Some quick insight as to how to write your perfect yoga bio

• So what - yep. That's where we're starting! So what!

• Then we'll look at the structure and content of a yoga bio, which I'm sure is really what you want to know

• Then we'll look at how to refine and perfect what you've written, which will be something that you'll most likely do again and again for the duration of your yoga teaching, maybe as you complete a course that inspired you or as you become more motivated to work with a particular population and as your knowledge, passions and focuses change and evolve over time

• And finally, we'll round up with how to make it immediately usable

Ok before we look at 'so what' - let's keep this in mind: progress not perfection. Progress not perfection. The perfect words might not come right away, but if you get something down, you can come back and refine it when the perfect word does come to you. This approach is way more useful and realistic than waiting for the perfect words to write anything at all.

Ok. here we go.

So what?

So what? This question is something you're going to ask yourself, again and again, as you write your whole bio. So what? Why would anyone care about this?

Your bio is written BY you, but it's not written FOR you, its for your yogis. So as you write every fact, sentence, paragraph, opinion, just think - so what? Does anyone care about knowing this? Does this really matter?

Your bio wants to be as short as it can be, but as long as it needs to be, so no fluff, but not keeping it short just for the sake of it. Remember, most people are time poor. They don't have ages to read your life story, but more than that, they don't want to waste an hour on a yoga class taught by a teacher that they don't connect with.

Structure and content

The structure I would recommend is:

• Succint overview

• A bit more about your classes and your teaching

• Your journey

• Your qualifications

• Social proof

Succint overview

Think a headline, a tweet, an attention grabber...!

Think about the busy people scanning through yoga bios; they want to know immediately if you're the right teacher for them. Remember - we're not trying to reach and teach everyone, because then we'll reach no one. You know who you want to work with, so keep them in mind.

For your attention grabber, your headline, your overview, think 'I am a WHAT and i WHAT'.

For example, I am a yoga teacher and I love integrating philosophy in to my classes

I am a power flow yoga teacher and I love making people realise how strong they are

I am a restorative yoga specialist and I enjoy helping people find calm.

Be concise, be clear, but don't hold back - this isn't the time to be shy!

Keep your ideal yogi in mind, and run it past the so what test. Does it matter?

About your classes and your teaching

After your headline, your overview, you have the opportunity to tell them a bit more about your teaching; once you have their attention.

Think about the benefits of coming to your classes. Remember earlier on, we had a think about writing your yoga bio in the way that your yogis see you; keep that front of mind here. What benefits do your yogis gain from your classes? Will they feel calm? Will they try something new? Will they experience a deep and divine savasana? Will they receive hands on adjustments? Will they be given modifications to suit their needs? etc etc etc.

Include in this section the style or styles that you teach; if someone's looking for a power flow class, and you teach Restorative yoga, you're not their teacher, not today, and that really is ok.

You could also include something around the atmosphere that you create, the focus of your classes, and so on.

So, you have your headline; your succinct overview, and then you go in to about paragraph or two giving more detail about your teachings and your classes.

Here's some inspiration to get your cogs turning, about what you might say about your classes:

• alignment focused

• calming

• Include philosophy

• make you sweat

• workshop style

• friendly and encouraging

• grounded in anatomy

• energising

Your Journey

I've now had Yoga Hero for over 8 years, and in that time I've read, easily, 200 bios. Probably way more. And i would say that about 90% of them start with - by the way all details of this fictional bio have been made up in my head -

My name is Tina, I qualified in Vinyasa Flow in India in 2018 and I'm a 200 RYT. I love yoga because it makes me feel calmer. I have since studied a 50 hour Yin in Mexico and a 50 hour Kundalini in Portugal...

So I'm half way down the page before I have any idea of what their classes are like! Which is not a good use of my time, and so I tend to stop there and go back to what I was doing before, and the person doesn't get any further towards working at Yoga Hero.

So rather than telling your story at the beginning of your bio, which, no offence, but no one really cares about at that initial point of working out if you're their yoga teacher or not... tell your story when the person does feel like they'd like to learn from you, when they know you will make them feel they want they want to feel, and you teach the styles they want to practice.

When writing about your journey, this really does need to be subject to the 'so what' test! Keep asking - so what? Is this relevant? Will anyone care? Will my busy person want to know this?

Ok, think about including:

1. What brought you to yoga in the first place. If you explain why you came to yoga, you might find that people really resonate with that; they see parallels of your story in their own life, or they're inspired by you or both

2. What made you take the big step of wanting to train as a yoga teacher

3. What were your intentions as a new yoga teacher, and if you've been teaching a while, what are your intentions now, and how has your teaching changed

4. Your dreams and aspirations as a yoga teacher - be open, be authentic, what do you dream of doing? Who do you dream of working with? At this point, your yogis want to know who you are

Your qualifications

Bear in mind, that most people probably don't know what RYT is! We're putting qualifications here rather than higher up because non-yoga teachers and non-studio owners probably don't really care how long you've been qualified for or how many hours a qualifications was.

Social proof

This third party validation can come from people who come to your classes, studios that you've worked at, workplaces that you've taught at, and any reviews or testimonials from online.

You don't need loads, just some third party validation that your classes are what you say they are, is perfect.

Refine and Perfect

So by this point we have the bare bones of a yoga bio; which we just need to refine and perfect.

Go back through it, and use language that sounds like you. Make it meaningful. Tap in to your passion for sharing yoga. Pause, and breathe, anytime, as many times as you need to!

Get the whole thing read over, by as many people as you can, but mainly, by an honest friend; they might be able to help with any words that don't feel quite right, because they know you so well. Get it read by some of your valued yogis; after all they're the ones that can tell you what coming to your classes is really like. Get it read by someone you don't know THAT well - to see how it comes across. And then get it proof read by someone, or some people, who are very confident with the English language.

Make it usable

We don't write to write this perfect yoga bio, then just leave it in a notepad, on a shelf at home. You want to be able to access it and send it, where ever you are. Some options are apps like dropbox, evernote or google drive, or you could email it to yourself, and / or put it on a notes app on your phone.

And that's it!

Follow those steps, and you perfect yoga bio will be ready to use and send so you can jump on opportunities that are perfect for you! You might like to set a reminder to review it, maybe just a couple of times a year, so you know it's relevant and perfect for you.