Yoga and Financial Awareness: 5 Things They Have In Common

Whether or not yoga is your thing, you’re more than likely familiar with it. In fact, the practice of yoga has become popular enough that most people know how yoga’s done and how to do the basic poses.

What you might not know, however, is that you can learn a lot about life in general while holding yourself in a position like downward dog or lotus. When you practice, you study not only the different postures, but also things like flexibility, mindfulness, and stability.

Here’s how you can apply the things you’ve learned from yoga to your personal life. Consider the following yoga-related themes and how they might translate into investment habits that may be beneficial:

1. Positive Thinking

Our own thoughts and actions are largely responsible for creating our happiness and success. Positive thinking can play a key role in investing, too. For instance, if you were to constantly look at negative headlines, you might come to decide that it’s pointless to invest for the future because external events like economic instability abroad, political squabbles at home, and natural disasters will just disrupt your plan.

Consequently, you might decide not to invest, or invest in such a way that can make progress toward your financial goals difficult. However, if you maintain a positive attitude, you may be more inclined to invest wisely for your future.

2. Visualization

In yoga, visualization is often used to help reduce the amount of stress individuals are exposed to. At any given point, you can find it difficult to relax, but you can always rely on your imagination to see yourself — and put yourself — in a relaxed state of mind.

From an investor’s point of view, you need to visualize your financial goals, such as saving for long-term retirement. When you visualize, you can develop a strategy to help you work towards them. By seeing yourself where you want to be, you’ll be motivated to take the actions necessary to work toward getting there.

So try to put the principles of yoga to work; they may help you become a better investor.

3. Flexible Spending

Most people who practice yoga on the regular basis see an increase in their flexibility; and people like me — who believed they weren’t flexible at all — begin to see just how flexibility influences their entire lives. There are no limitations in terms of how you must use a line of credit. In other words, the more flexible you can be with your money, the better prepared you’ll be financially. In fact, financial flexibility has to do with your ability to change how you spend based on your circumstance. For instance, if you spend all your emergency money because your car needs to be serviced, can you be flexible with your spending for a couple months until you’ve replenished your fund?

Financial flexibility pertains to small things, like how much coffee you purchase from the store and how often you eat out. It can also pertain to much bigger things as well, like when you decide to buy a house, how you map out your investments, etc. Just as flexibility and strength are tied together in yoga, they often come together financially, too. So, loosen up and relax those tight muscles because you want your money to be as strong as possible.

4. Balance Is Central

If you observe advanced yoga practitioners, you’ll be amazed at the balance they exhibit during certain positions. Nonetheless, for serious yoga students, the idea of a well-balanced pose goes beyond physical ability and extends to the concept of life that emphasizes, among other things, an avoidance of extremes.

With that being said, being balanced can help you avoid extremes, such as investing too aggressively, or too conservatively. By building a well-balanced financial portfolio, and by investing on a regular basis, you can help increase your chances of making progress towards your ultimate financial goals.

5. Self-Care Is Always A Factor

People start practicing yoga for all different sorts of reasons, but they often continue because of self-care. Doing yoga, for example, makes you feel good about yourself. It also makes your body feel better, and could even alleviate long-term aches and pains; improving the body’s functional outcome and reducing high-stress levels.

This is because yoga is used as a mediating method, offering peace and quiet that most of us don’t have in our daily lives. So, in learning yoga, we often stumble onto self-care too.

Additionally, learning self-care through yoga often helps individuals take better care of themselves physically, emotionally, and financially. This can mean buying something as simple as a sweet smelling candle, or a good book. It can also mean using more discretion about how you spend and budget your money so that you aren’t always worried about debt or overdraft fees. Once you get into the habit of self-care, it often spills into your entire life.

Try putting these principles of yoga to work — they might just help you become a better investor.

Thanks for the read! Did I miss anything important? What are some other ways yoga can help individuals cope with their financial obligations? Feel free to leave a comment below.