Why I teach Pilates
Practice Pilates, and Stand Up for YOUrself. ~ Christine, aka Pilates Bound
Have you heard of the 7 levels deep exercise? Here’s the website: www.7levelsdeep.com. This exercise was used from the book: Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi. Here’s the book’s tagline: Discover your why to self motivate, accomplish goals, and live a purposeful life.
Side Tangent: I’m familiar with this exercise from a corporate perspective. I first learned this in one of my business management courses in college. You know, one of those Harvard case studies. I think it started in manufacturing, then adopted by quality assurance, and it may have been 5 why’s. Regardless of the number, it’s essentially root cause analysis. RCA as a business term. It’s a process to identify appropriate solutions for underlying problems to prevent it from happening again, rather than addressing the symptoms only.
Going back to the 7 levels deep exercise….
This exercise is used to help determine what really drives you to accomplish anything in life. This exercise will help you figure out your WHY… your driving force to do something, anything, everything no matter what, when you think WHY is this so hard that it might be easier to walk away. And then you think WHY do you do this, WHY do you keep going, WHY do you stay?
Start by naming your goal/outcome/want.
Then ask your first Why Question: WHY do you want that <your goal/outcome/want>?
Write down your answer.
Then ask your second Why Question: WHY is it important to you that you <insert answer from above>?
Write down your answer.
Repeat 5 more times taking each answer, and asking why is the previous answer important to you.
Keep repeating until you get to the 7th question of why is the previous answer important to you. This process takes you from your head to your heart (your passion).
Several months ago, I went through this exercise to answer the question “Why do I teach Pilates”. Full disclosure: I started this exercise several times, got stuck, set it aside, went back to it weeks later, tried again, got stuck, rinse and repeat probably 7-8 times over. So, when things get difficult, why do I teach who I teach? What keeps me going? Why do I teach my clients?
Now, here’s the deal, you may have to repeat these 7 levels several times. You may have to set it aside, and come back to it. And this process may have to keep repeating itself until you get to your WHY. My business coach says your WHY should make you CRY.
I’ll admit my answers to these questions in the 7 levels deep exercise in the first couple of rounds were self-serving. What Pilates gave me is what I thought I wanted to share with others – counter the effects of a desk job, help with life stress, help others, make me feel more like a well-rounded human being, getting in self-care to put my best self out in the world, keep the aches and pains away for as long as I can as I get older. Sound familiar to you? I mean aren’t any of these reasons I listed why you started Pilates? But these answers are barely scratching the surface. It’s what Pilates gave me. But I wasn’t answering WHY I teach Pilates. I needed to dig deeper. My answers to the next couple of rounds were addressing my definition of success, happiness, potential, and integrating/embodying this in my body and mind, and in my life.
Finally, I wrote these notes:
- Take charge. You matter.
- Speak up, speak out, speak loud, speak proud. If you don’t, who will?
- Stand up for yourself.
And BOOM, moving from the head to the heart, getting to my passion, that’s how I came up with my tagline. Stand Up for YOUrself.
By the way, notice the triple entendre in that tagline? There’s the literal meaning of standing up. You start the Pilates mat sequence standing up and arrive down to the mat to the best of your ability without using your arms, and you end the Pilates mat sequence the same way you started – by standing up again without using your arms. Then, there’s the figurative meaning of learning how to stand up properly integrated simply by practicing Pilates. Hopefully, by the end of your Pilates session, you stand taller, longer, stronger than when you started. And finally, there’s the hidden meaning that by practicing Pilates, getting stronger, and carrying yourself with confidence, you stand up for yourself in life!
And that’s how I came up with my tagline (and the answer to why I teach Pilates):
Practice Pilates, and Stand Up for YOUrself.