"Trying Enough": Yoga helps us practice a different kind of balance

Yoga asks us to embrace the balancing act between effort and ease. Effort requires intention--striving even. Ease requires relaxation--releasing. How do you do both?

When I was coaching rowing, it was more challenging to get athletes to pull back than it was to teach them to push through. After all, we are conditioned almost all of our lives to believe that more is better. Work harder, go faster, strive, strive, strive.

What would it look like if you tried enough?

Does that make you uncomfortable? It does me. Can you imagine going into a performance review and saying "my goal this year is to try enough"?

Here's the thing--trying enough depends on context. Some days trying enough means you're working really hard. If you're on a deadline, trying enough means "enough to get the job done the way it needs to be done." With athletes this meant training not only their bodies, but also their minds so they could know and trust what "enough" was. An athlete that is constantly going 110% doesn't make it to the end of the season. They get injured, they get sick, they get passed by their peers who understand that rest and work are two halves to a whole. The rest of life is no different.

Yoga gives us a short, focused time and space to practice trying enough. It may feel high stakes to moderate your output at work, or in your relationship, or your Ironman hobby. Trying enough in savasana? Excellent. 10/10. It's not like you can mess it up. Trying enough can also mean asking yourself why you're practicing today. If the answer is "to feel good" your enough might look different than "I want to challenge myself." The key here is that yoga is, or can be, free from noise. We can practice the skills we want to take with us--and generally speaking, those core skills aren't about fancy poses.

Yoga is an efficiency practice. You aren't trying to exhaust or exploit the system; instead, you're trying to find something sustainable. Yoga doesn't just allow us the option of easing up, it demands it. "Pay attention," it says, "and make good choices." Yoga gives us the freedom of being just yoga. It's not your boss, or your kids, or the bills, or any of the other thousand things that are really, really important. And so, you can pause, notice, and make a choice. Is today the day you move a little slower, a little more gently? Or is today the day you finally get your handstand? It's up to you. Paying attention is self-responsibility. It is part of how we stay accountable to ourselves.

In yoga, balancing effort and ease means meeting the needs of the moment with exactly enough. You're responding, not reacting. You're building a more resilient system. And you're training yourself to recognize opportunities for efficiency. This is the transferable skillset.