When “Don’t Make a Cookie-Cutter Shape”… Turns Into Cookie-Cutter Careers
In yoga we spend so much time telling our students that they don’t need to squeeze themselves into a set shape. There isn’t one right angle for a knee or one perfect version of a posture. There are options, variations, ways in and ways out. The message we repeat again and again is simple: trust your body, explore your patterns, notice what you always gravitate towards and try something different if it feels right.
We encourage autonomy on the mat. We talk openly about the kleshas and the loops we get stuck in. We invite students to notice if they’re the person who always pushes, or the person who freezes, or the person who tries to get everything “right” even when there isn’t a single right to be found.
And then we step off the mat, open Instagram and what do we see?
A whole industry repeating one message to teachers:
do less, teaching in person classes is playing small, charge more, teach teachers, sell a course, build a funnel, scale.
The irony is that yoga business advice has quietly become the very thing we’ve spent years trying to move away from. A cookie cutter model. One template. One path. And thousands of teachers being told to follow it, regardless of who they are, where they live, or what actually pays their bills.
A gentle reality check
There are only so many yoga teachers. There are only so many who want to “upskill” the economy has to be healthy enough for that spending to flow. Not everyone can teach teachers, sustain the years of responsibility and duty of care that takes, nor should they feel pressured to.
Yet these business templates get applied to every teacher as if we all run the same kind of life, teach the same kind of students, live in the same kind of town, or have the same financial realities.
It’s starting to look as if yoga is drifting away from the very diversity it celebrates. Different bodies, yes. Different shapes, yes but somehow… the same business plan.
The hairdresser who reminded me what real autonomy looks like
I recently switched hairdressers. My old salon was nice just noisy, busy and far too time heavy for me. My new hairdresser comes to my home. She walks in calm, works in total ease, tidies up, heads off and carries a full diary of clients with barely a single piece of content, absolutely no marketing strategy or algorithm hack, no burnout, just a job she loves fitted around her family.
She is barely on social media.
She isn’t trying to “elevate” by teaching other hairdressers.
She chooses her own hours, takes holidays when she wants to and doesn’t apologise for days off.
She works hard but entirely on her own terms.
Not glamorous. Not trendy. Not “scaled”.
Just a sustainable, steady, well run working life.
I couldn’t help but think: isn’t that what so many yoga teachers actually want?
Not fame. Not virality. Not a new product every quarter.
Just a diary with good people in it and a body that isn’t burnt out.
Where is the pressure really coming from?
If you’re feeling stretched thin or confused about the “right” way to grow your yoga business, it might be worth asking:
• How many of your paying clients actually follow you on social media?
(For many teachers it’s under 20%.)
• If you stopped posting for a month, would your classes suddenly empty?
• If you let go of one branch of your teaching, would your whole business collapse or would it actually create breathing space?
• Are your stresses coming from your clients… or from the industry itself?
• Does the pressure to “scale” come from your bank account or from comparison?
None of this is criticism. It’s simply an invitation to notice the loops. In the same way we help students recognise their patterns on the mat, teachers can start recognising their patterns off it.
Maybe 2026 isn’t about scaling. Maybe it’s about simplifying.
There’s a quiet power in getting your head down and working.
There’s a steady confidence that comes from a timetable that suits your life rather than impresses an audience.
There’s relief in realising your work doesn’t have to be glamorous or expansive to be valuable.
Sometimes the most sustainable thing you can do for your business is to trim it down, tend to what’s already working and stop trying to outrun the economy. Cookie cutter solutions might make great content but they don’t make great careers.
What if 2026 is the year of the simple, solid, soft business model?
The year of choosing the version of teaching that supports your life rather than stretches it – because just like in yoga, you don’t have to make the prescribed shape.
You’re allowed to find your own.
