Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher

62. Your Teaching Year in Review: Reflection and Intention Setting for 2026

• Sage Rountree • Episode 62

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Most yoga teachers end the year measuring what they didn't accomplish. The workshops they didn't lead, the certifications they didn't finish, the Instagram following that didn't grow. But here's what I've learned after two decades of teaching: you're probably measuring the wrong things.

In this episode, I'm walking you through the reflection framework I use in my mentorship—roses, thorns, and buds—and showing you how to create a Bridge Statement that turns your 2025 lessons into clear 2026 intentions. You'll learn about the Four Dimensions of Teaching Growth (consistency, connection, competence, and confidence) and discover why most teachers only measure one of them.

I'll show you how to identify what you're keeping, dropping, and adding in 2026, and how to turn that reflection into sustainable intentions instead of resolutions that fizzle by February. We'll cover the Three-Part Intention Framework: your structural intention, your skill intention, and your self-care intention.

If you want to do this work together, I'm hosting two free live calls in The Zone:

  • December 18th at 2 p.m. Eastern: Your 2025 Teaching Year in Review (152)
  • January 15th at 2 p.m. Eastern: Designing Your 2026 Teaching (153)

Both calls include workbooks, community discussion, and replays.

You're already a better teacher than you were a year ago. You just might not be measuring the right things.

Listen now!

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Can I tell you something? Every December, yoga teachers, well not just yoga teachers, everyone does this thing where they beat themselves up for not accomplishing everything they planned. In January, they look at their unfilled teaching schedule, their unfinished training applications, their unrecorded workshop ideas, and they think: I failed. But here's what I've learned after two decades of teaching: the metrics you use to measure your teaching year are probably wrong. You're measuring what you didn't do instead of what you actually did. You're counting the workshops you didn't lead. Instead of the students who kept showing up to your regular classes, you're focused on the certification you didn't complete instead of the cueing adjustment that finally clicked for you in October. And because you're measuring the wrong things, you're designing your 2026 with the wrong information. This is Yoga Teacher Confidential. I'm Sage Rountree, and today we're doing something different. We're going to walk through a real teaching reflection process, the kind that actually helps you see your growth, and then we're going to talk about how to set intentions for 2026 that don't fizzle by February. And if you want to go deeper with this work, I am hosting two free live calls in the Zone at Comfort Zone Yoga. The first is Thursday, December 18th at 2:00 PM Eastern. That's your 2025 teaching year in review, and the second is on Thursday,

January 15th at 2:

00 PM Eastern. That's designing your 2026 teaching with intention setting. Both calls are completely free. They're each 60 minutes, and yes, there will be replays. You can find the registration links in the show notes or head to comfortzoneyoga.com. Join the Zone for free and RSVP there, but whether you can make it to the live calls or not, I'm going to give you the framework today so that you can do this reflection and intention setting work on your own. Now, here's what typically happens at the end of a teaching year. You look at your calendar and think, I taught three classes a week, some workshops, maybe some privates You might notice you made less money than you hoped, or you didn't get hired at that studio you applied to, or your Instagram following didn't grow the way you wanted. And then you set resolutions for next year. I'll teach more classes. I'll finish that training. I'll post more consistently, I'll build my following. I'll launch that program. But here's the problem. You're skipping the most important step. You're not actually looking at what worked. You're not identifying what you want to keep, what you're ready to drop, and what you're curious to add. You're not asking what lessons this year taught you about your teaching. I like to call these roses, thorns and buds, taking us some terms from gardening. What bloomed, what hurt, what's ready to grow. In the teaching world, you can think of it as keep drop and add. This is asking yourself questions like, what are you keeping from 2025 because it actually worked. What are you dropping because it didn't serve you or it didn't serve your students? And what are you curious to add for next year? But most teachers never ask these questions. If they do any reflection, they jump straight to I should do more without ever examining what more means or whether the more they're chasing actually aligns with what makes them good teachers. Let me tell you what happens when you skip the reflection step. You keep doing things that drain you because you think you're supposed to. You drop things that were actually working because you didn't recognize their value, and you add new commitments that sound impressive, but that don't actually fit your real teaching life. I have watched teachers do this for years. They'll say, I wanna teach more workshops next year. But when we dig into the previous year, they realize the two workshops they did teach were draining or exhausting, or poorly attended. What they actually enjoyed was their consistent Tuesday night class where students kept showing up and their queuing kept getting clearer. But because they never stopped to identify that pattern, that consistency and clarity are their strengths. They set a goal for next year that works against their actual gifts. Or they'll say, I need another certification. But when we look at their year, they grew more from troubleshooting a students and e issue than from the last training that they did take. What they actually need isn't another certificate. It's time to practice the skills they already have. This is why reflection matters because you can't design a sustainable teaching year if you don't know what the foundation is that you're building on. And here's the deeper truth. Most teachers underestimate how much they have actually grown. They focus on the dramatic transformations, the workshop they launched, the training they completed, but they missed the invisible growth, the way their voice got steadier in class. The way they started seeing students' needs faster, the way they recovered more quickly when something didn't go as planned. The growth is real, it's valuable, and if you don't acknowledge it, you'll keep chasing external validation instead of building on your actual foundation. So let's do this. I'm going to walk you through the framework I'll be using in these live calls, and you can do this work right now or save it for when you have 30 quiet minutes. Step one is identify what actually mattered. Forget about your Instagram. Forget about the workshops you didn't lead, or the classes you didn't get hired for. Instead, ask yourself, what are the moments from 2025 when I felt like a real teacher? Not when you felt impressive, not when you got compliments, when you felt like you were actually teaching, when you were seeing your students, when you were adjusting for their needs, when you were making a difference. Maybe it was the day you modified a sequence on the fly because half your class had sore shoulders. Maybe it was when you finally nailed the cue for Warrior two that had been eluding you all year. Maybe it was just showing up consistently every Tuesday night, even when your confidence was low. Write these moments down, maybe three to five of them. They don't have to be dramatic. They just have to be true. Here's what we're looking for. Evidence that you were teaching not performing. And here's the pattern. You might notice your best teaching moments probably weren't the ones that looked impressive from the outside. They were the ones when you were fully present with your students. Solving real problems, building real trust. That's your roses. That's what bloomed. Step two is to identify what you learned even from what didn't work. Now, let's look at the thorns, but we're not going to wallow in them. We're going to examine what they taught you. Ask yourself, what didn't work in my teaching this year, and what did I learn from it? Maybe you said yes to teaching a class time that never felt sustainable. Maybe you tried a new sequencing approach that just confused your students. Maybe you invested in a training that didn't give you what you needed. These aren't failures. They're data. What did each thorn teach you about your teaching? If the early morning class drained you, maybe you learned, you teach better when you're rested. If the fancy sequencing confused students, maybe you learned your strength is clarity, not complexity. If the training didn't deliver, maybe you learned you need practical skills more than philosophical theory. Write down what you learned, not what you did wrong, but what you learned. Because here's what I know from teaching from over 20 years, the lessons from what did not work are often far more valuable than the wins. Now, step three is to identify your four dimensions of growth. Let's look at the growth that you might not be seeing in the live calls. I'm going to walk teachers through these four dimensions of teaching growth, four Cs. The first C is consistency. Did you show up? Did you teach regularly even when it was hard? The second is connection. Did you see your students? Did you adjust for their actual needs? The third is competence. Did your skills develop? Did your sequencing get clearer or your queuing get sharper, or your understanding get deeper? And then the fourth C is confidence. Did you trust yourself more? Did you recover faster from mistakes? Did you need less external validation? Most teachers only measure competence, what they learned, what certifications they earned, but the other three dimensions are just as important. You might have grown enormously inconsistency this year. You showed up every week even when you were tired. That is real growth, even if it doesn't come with a certificate. You might have grown in connection. You started seeing when students were struggling and adjusting before they even asked. That is mastery. Even if no one notices but you, you might have grown in confidence. You stopped apologizing when things lent differently than planned. You started trusting that you could handle whatever showed up in class. Ask yourself, which of these four dimensions did I grow in this year? Pick at least one. Own it. That's part of your foundation. Then step four is to create your bridge statement. Now, here's where we build the bridge from this year to next year. This is the keep drop ad framework. Your roses, thorns, and buds. This is what you're carrying forward. What are you keeping? What worked so well that you want to protect it, build on it, center it in 2026. Maybe it's your consistent teaching schedule. Maybe it's your approach to queuing. Maybe it's the workshop format that actually filled, maybe it's the boundary you set about not teaching more than a certain number of classes per week. Write it down in 2026. I'm keeping. Then consider what are you dropping, what didn't serve you or your students or your sustainability. Maybe it's that class time that just never worked. Maybe it's the sequencing style that felt forced. Maybe it's the social media pressure. Maybe it's saying yes to every opportunity, even when it drains. You write it down in 2026, I'm releasing, or in 2026, I'm letting go of. Finally ask, what are you curious to add? What's the bud? What wants to grow? This isn't a should. This isn't a resolution. This is genuine Curiosity about what might serve your teaching and your students. Maybe you're curious about teaching athletes. Maybe you're curious about workshop design. Maybe you're curious about a more sustainable planning system. Maybe you're curious about slowing down your teaching style. Write it down in 2026. I'm curious about, or in 2026, I'm exploring, this is your bridge statement. This is what you're carrying into next year. And notice it's built on what actually happened, not on what you wish had happened. So you've done the reflection, you've identified your roses, thorns, and buds. You know what you're keeping, what you're dropping and what you're adding. Now what? Here's where most teachers make a mistake. They turn their curiosity into rigid goals. They say, I'm curious about teaching workshops and immediately commit to leading six workshops in 2026. They say, I'm curious about athletes and sign up for three different trainings before they've even taught one athlete. But that's not how sustainable teaching works. Instead, we're going to turn your reflection into intentions, not into resolutions. And here's the difference. Resolutions or goals are outcome focused. They're impressive. They often fail. Intentions are process focused. They're sustainable. They build on your actual strengths. So instead of saying, I will teach six workshops in 2026, the intention might be, I will explore workshop design. By developing one workshop outline each quarter, instead of I will finish three trainings, the intention might be, I will deepen my understanding of working with athletes by teaching one athlete per week and noting what I learn instead of I will post on Instagram every day. The intention might be I will share my teaching insights once a week in a way that feels authentic. Do you see the difference resolutions or goals set you up to measure success or failure? Intentions set you up to learn and to grow. In the live calls, especially in the second one on January 15th, we're going to build three specific intentions. First is your structural intention. This is how you'll organize your teaching, your planning rhythm, your schedule, your systems. Maybe your structural intention is, I will plan my sequences monthly using a modular approach, so I'm not starting from scratch every week, or maybe it's I will protect my Tuesday evening as my anchor class and build everything else around. That consistency. This intention creates the container for everything else. Number two is your skill intention. This is what you will develop. The one area you are curious about from your reflection, maybe your skill. Intention is, I will deepen my ability to teach athletes by learning how to modify poses for tight hamstrings and offering more functional movement. Or maybe it's, I will develop my confidence teaching yin yoga by leading one yin class per week and practicing silence during the holds. Pick one, not three, one. And the third intention is your self-care intention. This is the boundary that protects your sustainability. Maybe your self-care intention is, I will not teach more than eight classes per week, no matter what opportunities come up. Or maybe it's I will take one full week off from teaching every quarter to rest and recharge. This is the intention that keeps you from burning out while you're working on the other two. So here's what this looks like in practice. You do your reflection. You identify what you're keeping, consistency, connection with students, clear queuing, you identify what you're dropping, the early morning class that drains you, the self-imposed pressure to post daily on Instagram. You identify what you're curious about, like teaching workshops or working with athletes, then you build your three intentions. The structural. I will use a monthly planning system to create consistent, clear sequences. The skill I will explore teaching athletes by offering one athlete focused class per month or a lesson per month, and learning from what works. And the third self-care. I will protect my energy by keeping my teaching schedule to six classes per week maximum. That's it. That's your next year's teaching plan, not a list of impressive resolutions, not a pile of certifications. You should complete. Just three clear intentions built on what you're actually good at and what you're genuinely curious about. Now if you want to do this work together with guidance, with community, with accountability, and with a pretty Google Doc workbook, that's what these two upcoming live calls are for. Call One is your 2025 teaching year in review. It's Thursday, December 18th at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. We will spend 60 minutes reflecting on your year, identifying what actually worked and creating your bridge statement. We'll use polls. We'll have some discussions and some guided workbook time. You will leave with clarity about what you're keeping, what you're dropping, and what you're adding. Then call two is designing your 2026 teaching and intention setting. That's on Thursday, January 15th at 2:00 PM Eastern. We'll take your bridge statement and turn it into a realistic sustainable teaching plan using that three-part intention framework. I could match you with an accountability partner on this call, someone you can connect with in Comfort Zone Yoga, and we could set up quarterly check-ins so that your intentions don't fizzle out by February. Both calls are completely free. Both include workbooks and both will have replays if you can't make it live. You can register at comfortzoneyoga.com or find the links in the show notes. And here's what I want you to know. You don't need another certification to be a better teacher in 2026. You don't need to teach more classes or post more on Instagram or launch some big impressive program. What you need is to see what you've already built. To acknowledge your roses, examine your thorns, and nurture your buds, and then you need to design a teaching year that honors all of that instead of working against it. That's what we're going to do together, whether you join the live calls or do this work on your own. Here's my invitation. Take 30 minutes before the end of December and actually look back at your teaching year, not what you wish had happened. What. Actually happened. The moments you felt like a real teacher, the lessons you learned, the growth that might be invisible to everyone, but you. Write your bridge statement. What are you keeping? What are you dropping, and what are you adding? And then this is important. Build your 2026 intentions on what you're keeping, not on what you're dropping. Don't design next year as a reaction to this year's disappointments. Design it as an expansion of this year's strengths. This is how sustainable teaching works. I am Sage Rountree. This is Yoga Teacher Confidential. I will see you in the live calls or in the next episode. And remember, you are already a better teacher than you were a year ago. You just might not be measuring the right things. I'll see you next time.

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Sage Rountree

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