Half a decade ago, I was a group fitness instructor.
More importantly, I was overcommitted. A year into teaching a class called Yoga Sculpt at Corepower that paid $12 an hour, I was teaching at 6 AM on Tuesdays, 5:30 PM on Wednesdays, and 7:30 AM on Thursdays, building a growing schedule around my full-time office job.
Between the free memberships to other studios and the extra $75 per week (before taxes), I felt like I had cracked the code to early adulthood: underpaid physical labor for a company only sporadically accused of being a pyramid scheme!
Apparently deeming myself insufficiently stretched thin, I found my interest wandering to a different type of group exercise with a little more star power: indoor cycling. My moon sign was “girlboss” with “theater kid” rising, so the (literal) podium, Britney Spears mic, and stage lighting were perfectly calibrated in an Equinox boardroom to tap into something primal within me. I felt desire’s familiar pull: I want that.
But cycling was different. It was not just far more physically demanding, but the cyclebrities of the late 2010s era Dallas fitness scene had legions of adoring fans and the Instagram followings to show for it. Dorothy, we’re not in Corepower anymore.
Sensing that I was probably getting in over my head after the three-hour audition concluded, I decided to keep teaching Yoga Sculpt while I trained to become the type of woman who could sincerely sport a backward flat bill and shout LinkedIn platitudes like “You don’t have to, you get to!” into the overworked sound system of a room full of half-asleep people at 5 in the morning.
The process was unexpectedly grueling—I would take a 5:30 AM cycle class to meet my quota before rushing across town to teach a 7:30 Sculpt class, all before my eight-hour work day would begin. Sundays were for long practices with the other hopefuls, and evenings were for building adequately challenging playlists and programming for both formats.
Despite the obvious lack of sustainability, I felt reluctant to downshift my Sculpt schedule. It still wasn’t clear this other thing—the thing I really wanted—was going to pan out, and abandoning the certainty of my yoga teaching gig (and my desirable class times I had worked hard to secure) felt risky. I had placed one pedal-shoed foot tentatively in my new studio, and kept the other planted firmly in the past, just in case I couldn’t hack it.
Before long, it became clear that I wasn’t making progress as quickly as I should’ve been. I sensed my lofty aspirations of teaching upmarket group fitness in a mid-tier city might be slipping away. Finally, my cycle coach said the thing I feared most: “I think you need to quit teaching Sculpt.” She said she felt that immersing myself every week in a completely different format and style—“teaching the Corepower way”—was jumbling my ability to fully learn and embrace what I needed to succeed.
My fear of committing fully to my next chapter until I was certain it would work out tethered me to the old one (and risked sealing my fate accordingly). In order to have a real shot at what I really wanted, I had to let go of the “good-enough” thing—and risk having neither.
I know now this is a pattern of mine. When I find myself wanting a change; something that feels new, different, or somehow bigger, it’s only a matter of time before I’ll work up the courage (or mania) necessary to pull the plug on stability. But in the meantime, I’ll straddle the line for far longer than necessary, handwringing through variations of the same pros and cons list.
This is a well-meaning tendency, I think—to assume doing things halfway will provide a sense for how a next step might feel, as well as allow you to hedge your bets. When you’re comparing a known quantity—even one you aren’t thrilled with—to something that feels like a wildcard, walking away can feel like an incalculable risk.
But so far, every transition that’s been characterized by this fear—clinging to certainty; being both thrilled by and terrified of the throbbing tug for something else—has looked, in retrospect, the way this one did: obvious.
In the end, I quit Corepower. I became a much better instructor.
And now, for all eternity, I have these fierce little photoshoots as evidence I once had muscle definition and a headset mic, which is—as far as I’m concerned—invaluable ROI.
I think this helps describe what many people go through, including myself.
I want something radical and different. I want something big to change my life. Yet I am always drawn to the comfort and the easiest task available. That is how our brains are designed. I also need stability because I have a family to care for with spouse and kid and multiple pets.
I can't just pick up and try something new and leave the stability behind that my current job provides. There lies the dilemma of stability and finding comfort in what I have versus what I think. I truly want to break out and do.
Loved this essay! Also brought back my own days of yoga teaching outside of my corporate job whilst also considering attempting to become a spin teacher lol.