Balancing a full-time job and two side projects: Ask Chanele McFarlane!

Chanele McFarlane - Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Do Well Dress Well

Chanele McFarlane is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Do Well Dress Well. The website is a resource for professional women to succeed in style and their careers by providing networking, personal branding and wardrobe advice. She is also a Digital Marketing Consultant for Vision Vertical. But this isn’t her 9-5, she has a full-time job as a Digital Marketing Coordinator!

We had a chance to chat with Chanele and asked her a few questions about how she balances her demanding schedule and juggles all of her priorities. Chanele will be speaking YWiB’s The Side Hustle: Panel and Meetup event so come on out to hear more about how this accomplished women manages it all!

1. How do you balance your full-time job, side project and personal life?

For me, the key to the balance between all three is prioritization and organization. When you have a number of things that demand your time, you have no choice but to begin prioritizing which things are the most important. For example, before starting Do Well Dress Well, I would always come home and watch a few hours of television before falling asleep. Now, that’s pretty much impossible for me to do as it means that I lose out on valuable hours that I could be writing blog posts or any other work to help build my brand presence.

I always start each week with a “master to-do list” that outlines every single action item that needs to be completed. With my entire list in mind, every morning I create a “daily to-do list” that has 2 or 3 things that I have to focus on for the day. When you break up your large to-do list into smaller lists, you’ll instantly feel less overwhelmed. It’s also important that you then assign a priority to each thing on your list - 1 being the most important.

I have found it helpful to designate certain days to focusing solely on my side projects. Monday and Wednesday evenings are for Do Well Dress Well and Thursday evenings are for Vision Vertical, my consultancy business with my husband. Tuesday and Friday evenings are usually reserved for relaxation. I then use the weekends to catch up on work for both while also ensuring that I take enough breaks, spend time with family and go on a fun date night. Sometimes, I do have to move my designated days around depending on my work schedule or other unexpected things that may come up but for the most part, I stick to this schedule. I’ve also started taking advantage of my lunch breaks so that I can save some time in the evenings. I like to use my lunch hour to draft a few blog posts, respond to emails, plan my Instagram feed using Planoly and schedule social content using CoSchedule. Being productive during this time has really helped me to accomplish more during the workweek.

Also, having a planner and a notebook is so, so important. I use both a physical planner and my Google Calendar to keep me on track. I like to use colour-coding not only to be a bit more organized but it allows me to see how much time I am allocating to each area in my life. For example, if my calendar is full of the colour pink (the colour I use for Do Well Dress Well items), I compare that to my other responsibilities to see if I need to adjust my balance.

Finding the right balance is certainly not something that happens overnight. I started my business back in February and it’s only now that I feel like I’m at a point where I’ve found the organizational methods that work for me. It takes a lot of trial and error (and yes, it took a bout of burnout as well) but through that experience, I’ve now found a balance that allows me to successfully maintain the relationships in my personal life.

1. What inspired you to develop Do Well Dress Well and what was the process for developing and launching the website?

About 4 years ago, I was walking to the train after a long evening at my internship when the words literally popped into my head. I was at a point in my life where I was thinking about my “purpose” and what it means to succeed. I was performing well at my internship but another thing that I noticed was how much my personal style was becoming a part of my brand. I realized how much “doing well and dressing well” have in common and realized that there weren’t any resources to help guide you with both. After years of going back and forth on whether to start a website and always having people ask me questions relating to career advice and professional image, I decided it was time to bring my idea to fruition.

The process for developing and launching took about 3 months. I spent at least a month conducting research to figure out what elements I wanted to incorporate on the site. During this time, I read a lot of blog posts and spent a crazy amount of time on Pinterest gathering inspiration. I then spent about a month on elements such as setting up my domain (I actually bought it in 2014 but didn’t do anything with it) and hosting, figuring out what type of theme I wanted, setting up a business email, securing my social handles and sorting out any technical things. Lastly, for one month, I focused solely on content because I didn’t want to launch without having at least a few posts there.

1. What is your advice for professional women looking to turn their ideas into developed projects?

Start today but make sure you are at a point in your life where you can be consistent. Being consistent is way more important than having the perfect logo or website theme. When I initially started Do Well Dress Well, I had a very different brand image than I do now. I was extremely indecisive when it came to finalizing a logo and design so I decided to just launch the website and begin building an audience. I consistently wrote 2 blog posts a week and posted on my social media channels and eventually my following began to grow. Once I reached a point where I was like “Okay, I can really do this!”, I knew it was time to go back and design a brand image that I loved and so 4 months after initially launching, I rebranded into the look that you see today.

I also recommend finding someone (whether it’s a friend, acquaintance or family member) that will hold you accountable. Thankfully, I not only had my husband who (lovingly) nagged me every day that I needed to get Do Well Dress Well up and running but I had a few friends who would send me texts and emails every few days to ask if I’ve made any progress. I’ve found that once you share your ideas with other people, it will encourage you to keep focused as you don’t want to let them down.

Last thing - make sure that you’re passionate about it. It’s so easy to come up with ideas but I encourage you to really pinpoint the ones that you truly have a passion for. These are typically the ideas that you just cannot stop thinking about. It’s the first thing on your mind when you wake up and the last thing on your mind before you fall asleep. When you decide to pursue a side project, there is going to be so many late nights, early mornings and a lot of missed events because you simply need as much time as possible to dedicate to it. If your project is a passion, you won’t be bothered by the change of lifestyle because it genuinely makes you happy and it is allowing you to become the best version of yourself.

1. What has been the most rewarding aspect of Do Well Dress Well and what has been the most challenging?

The most rewarding aspect is being able to be a valuable resource of information and inspiration for women in various stages of their careers. It genuinely makes me so happy when someone leaves a comment on the website or tweets me to let me know that they found a particular blogpost helpful, they successfully used my networking tips and I have inspired them to dress better at work. I’ve truly found my purpose in creating valuable content and creating networking experiences to help women live remarkable lives. The most challenging has been the lifestyle adjustment as building and maintaining a brand definitely takes time! It was tough at first getting used to waking up extra early to get work done before heading off to my full-time job but now that I’ve found the right balance, it has become less of a challenge.

Serial Side Hustler? Ask Katherine Andrikopoulos!

What is your day job? Roles and responsibilities? I work at Cossette Media as a Performance Manager where I develop the strategy and oversee paid search, SEO, performance display and social media campaigns. My clients include large CPG and retail companies. I lead a small team thats ensures our clients are seeing in-store and online revenue from their ad campaigns. I also stay on top of consumer trends so my clients can best serve their consumers' needs. Part of my responsibilities include educating clients on the latest search and social developments, thoughtful analysis and optimization of our clients' campaigns and developing progression plans for junior team members.

What is your passion?

I'm a people person, I love collaborating with my colleagues and mentoring team members who are newer to the media and advertising industry. I care about promoting equality and diversity in addition to awareness about early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

What side projects are you involved in? What made you get involved/co-found? How do you find the time to it all? How did you overcome the challenges?

I co-founded Memory Ball, a charity event that focuses on raising awareness of Alzheimer's disease within the under 40 demographic. Memory Ball was the result of my mentor (and also my best friend's mom) Jane, being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's when she was in her early fifties. At the time, no one could fathom that Jane had Alzheimer's at such a young age. I remember being very concerned and confused seeing her behaviour change. Seeing my best friend, Carolyn Poirier, and her younger sister, Claire, be so brave in the face of care-giving in their teens made me realize how little support there is for young caregivers.

In addition to Memory Ball, I work on Filling the Gap, a women's empowerment event that donates all proceeds to the Schlifer Clinic and I'm involved in HER Collective, a network of creative women. Filling the Gap came out of seeing very few women at the top corporate ranks. My co-founders Sadie, Janice and I wanted to do something to help women advance in their careers, showoff women's accomplishments and of course, close the wage gap for women. Gender equality is a hard thing to tackle so we wanted to help women throughout the community which is why working with the Schlifer Clinic and supporting their work with women, who've been affected by violence is very meaningful. HER Collective was started by my good friend Talya Macedo who brought me on at the very beginning, and it's been a great outlet for my creative pursuits and opportunity to work with with an incredibly talented group of young women.

On top of that, I teach digital marketing foundations on a part-time basis at Red Academy. I enjoy working with my students and other instructors.

How do you maintain a work-life balance? How do you stay organized?

My friends will tell you that I live by my GCal, everything goes in there or it's not happening. I also try and get up early to work out (which I'll admit I've been slacking on) and I make time to stretch and walk around during the day. My coworkers think I'm a nerd because I have a standing desk which makes me feel healthy and helps me focus. I also try and stay strict with time commitments and being realistic of how much I can commit to within a day. I also find completing a task right away or designating a time to do something helps keep me on track. I'm a fan of a number of productivity apps but my absolute favourite is a good old fashioned written to-do list.

Why should people get involved with side projects while working?

Side projects are a great way to learn new skills and meet people. I find that working on different pieces ultimately makes me better at my day job. I often get ideas and inspiration from my side projects to incorporate at work and vice versa.

For example, working on marketing Memory Ball puts me in the role of a marketing director, similar to what any business deals with (at a much smaller level) so I'm better equipped to understand business objectives; whereas with Red, teaching students, I can figure out a better way to explain a concept to my clients and make my presentations to them more fun and interactive.

Name a success you are proud of that’s come out of your projects?

I'm incredibly proud of what we've been able to achieve with Memory Ball. In 5 years, we raised over $300,000 for the Alzheimer Society of Toronto. I'm always incredulous when people say they've heard of Memory Ball. Oftentimes, they're confusing it with Motionball, but when they're not, it's a very proud moment. We've also gotten coverage in the Toronto Star, Notable, the Globe and Mail, CBC News, influential Toronto blogs and more, which has been significant for us to reach more people with our message that Alzheimer's isn't just an old person's disease.

How do you find downtime/relax?

Ha..ha..ha...This summer has been incredibly busy but I am making time for a beach vacation. In addition to that, and to be completely cliché, I've been re-introducing meditation into my life with the help of apps like Headspace and a book I have that has a collection of different meditations. Working on so many different projects has also helped me zero in on what's important to me, such as spending time with friends, family and my partner. I try to more of that in, which sometimes means planning get-togethers in advance.

Favourite spot in the city to unwind?

I'm a big fan of going for a walk around Kensington market, lounging in Trinity Bellwoods park or pretending to be fancy in Yorkville. I like to go to Sweet Olenka's for ice cream or grab a juice or acai bowl from the Good Press. My best friends and I love to go to Cafe Nervosa for some pizza and sangria, hanging out on their patio. For healthier pursuits, I enjoy walking around the Scarborough Bluffs on the weekend, my friends who are from Scarborough always make fun of me because I think it looks like some exotic destination and they're very unimpressed because it's in their backyard and they don't think it's as cool as I do.

Social media Guru turned beauty expert: Ask Anum Rubec!

This September, the Ywib team is excited to announce the launch of The Side Hustle: Panel & Meet up Event. Here's a peak into the life of Anum Rubec, Social Media & Operations Manager at Dx3 Canada. We chatted about her inspiration on becoming a beauty blogger, beauty tips every girl needs to know, and of course, managing projects beyond the 9-5 work life.

What does being a beauty & lifestyle Blogger mean to you?

I've always loved to share my creations and findings with friends and family. If there is a concealer I'm obsessed with, a skirt that can be styled multiple ways, or even a cookie recipe I dreamed up that tastes incredible. I love to share it! That's why I started my blog - to share and inspire others.

Can you tell us a little bit about your side project SummerxSkin and the work that you do?

This summer, I decided to quit working full-time and pursue my blog and social media and communications consultancy instead! I work with Dx3 as my main client, as well as a couple of other smaller-scale brands where I offer them advice on influencer relations and help them with their marketing strategies. I've had my blog, SummerxSkin, for more than four years and I'm slowly working towards turning it into a business, which is SUPER exciting. What started as a passion project and side hustle is turning into a career for me!

How do you maintain successful and productive, outside the 9-5 work life?

When you have your own business or side projects, you can't think of your day as a 9-5 situation anymore. Let your passion drive you! Some days I feel more productive working from 9 AM to 9 PM and that's totally okay. I reward myself by taking time off another day that week or have TV marathons with my husband while we both work or relax. It's great.

What have been some of difficult challenges you've faced while balancing work/side projects?

While I'm fortunate that my husband, my family and friends are supportive, invested in me and help me stay motivated - it also means that my work and life blend into each other a lot. Staying organized is key for me; I plan out what my month, week and day look like so I know what's going on at all times and don't miss out on any key occasions. I try to plug in lunches/dinners with friends as much as possible and take one day each weekend to visit my family, hang out with my niece. My husband and I try to do as much as we can together and have date nights just like any other couple. I'm sure all of this will change majorly when we plan to have children!

Why do you think an organization like Young Women in Business is important for someone looking to expand their network, or build connections with other women?

I always tell people, women need to support other women. These days I see so much negativity on social media and in real life; it makes me sad to think about how one woman will say anything to put another woman down and that is NOT okay. Organizations like Young Women in Business are great because a lot of us are like-minded, driven by our goals and dreams. As we network, we motivate each other to pursue them and assist as much as we can along the way!

Did you have any role models growing up?

Don't laugh - but my all-time role model is a fictional character named Brooke Davis from the show One Tree Hill. She's smart, driven, creates a massive fashion brand from scratch but is kind, down-to-earth and makes time for loved ones. Even though she isn't real, I know there are women out there like this and it's totally achievable! I've also always looked up to my parents: my mom and dad. They've given us, four children, everything in life and worked hard through it all.

Any beauty products/tips you swear by?

ALWAYS take your makeup off before you sleep - no matter what! It's not worth it to risk bad, long-term effects that makeup can have on your skin. If that means keeping your daily night-time routine simple, make that happen. You can always do a deep cleanse every couple of days or few times a week. I swear by all of my MAC lipsticks; I wish I had every shade!

Recap: 3 Things I Learned about Making the Web Work for You

Working in Vancouver, as a young woman in business, I had reached the point where right now felt like the right time to take a calculated risk. I moved to Toronto to wholeheartedly pursue a career in public relations, explore a variety of creative outlets and to connect with like-minded individuals. Within a week of living here, I attended my first Lunch and Learn event. I was warmly welcomed by the hosts: Young Women in Business Toronto and Camp Tech. YWiB TO is a phenomenal resource to tap into, whether you’re new to the city or open to new professional avenues. I gained valuable insight on How to Make the Web Work for You through the workshop lead by Camp Tech’s Marketing Manager, Tara Wilkins. She provided lessons on how to strategically target social media and digital marketing efforts. It’s easy to get caught up in frivolous details, so I am thankful for her personal and business online management advice.

Accessibility Matters: Be conscious of the fact that the internet – your website – should be accessible to everyone. To ease the navigation of visitors with disabilities, you can control your appearance so that there is a distinct colour and contrast. Provide straightforward link text for hyperlinks along with image text. These all contribute to an increase in your SEO standing, but inclusion should be your motivating factor.

Digital Recipes: Are you familiar with IFTTT.com? It’s this incredible tool that you can access online or by mobile, which will simplify your life. It creates connections – “recipes” – between your favourite apps and services. Create your own (the possibilities are endless!) or choose an existing recipe. The service is able to automatically save all of your Gmail attachments to Dropbox, share your Instagram photos as native Twitter photos or publish a new Snap to Wordpress.

Facebook Hack: Sometimes the obvious steps are the ones that get missed. Once you’ve finished running a new ad or boosting a previous one, take the time to individually invite each person who liked it or reacted to follow your Page. The retention rate is 10-30% and support at any level is valid.

In September, YWiB will be collaborating with RL Solutions for a panel event. Be sure to check back to this website or follow on social media for registration details.

Balancing a Master's with a full-time job: Ask Pansy Lee!

This September, join us for The Side Hustle: A Panel & Meetup! Stay tuned to grab tickets this week! In the meantime, here's a sneak preview interview with Pansy Lee, Director of Product at RL Solutions. We chat about managing work on her Master's degree with a full-time job, and ruthlessly prioritizing to get stuff done.  

Describe your full-time job.

I’m head of the product team at RL Solutions. Our role is to really make sure that we’re meeting the needs of our customers today, but also anticipating what their future needs are and making sure that we’re innovating to meet those needs. Mostly my job kind of consists of two major things, one is to make my team has [everything they need]. You spend all this time hiring all the right people, all these really smart people, and I feel like part of my job is to provide a little bit of guidance on what’s the direction we’re all going in and making sure that they have the tools and the methods and processes to make sure they do amazing work. The second part is working with the other departments in the company to make sure that we’re breaking down silos.

Describe your side project at OCAD. What is your thesis?

I’m doing my Master's of Design, and the program is called Strategic Foresight and Innovation. It’s a program [based] around design thinking and really being human-centered, so it’s a different approach to problem solving. My thesis is looking at women in tech but I’m kind of looking at it from a different perspective. I’m trying to look at it from a men’s point of view because right now in the industry, and well, the world really, there’s just so much going on around women empowerment and gender equality. You’ve got organizations like Young Women in Business, and Ladies Learning Code... There’s all these things happening around supporting women, so I was kind of interested in looking at it from the men’s point of view because I really believe that it takes both groups to agree that gender equality is important. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. It’s not enough to be like women say it’s important and men thinking that it’s not. So I’m more interested in what kind of barriers they’re facing right now in trying to support women in business. My hypothesis is that if we can reduce those barriers or those challenges that they have then maybe more of them will get involved.

How do you find time to work on your Masters with a full-time job?

When I was doing my classes my company was very supportive. They supported me by giving me Fridays off to go do my Masters, but now that the classes are over and in the thesis portion of my Masters, I now have to find time in my personal time to work on my thesis. So I have a support group, like me and a couple of other classmates who are all trying to finish their theses together. We meet Mondays and Thursdays after work to work on our projects.

[RL Solutions] has been so great about my Master's and just passion projects in general.  They’re always giving me that freedom to carve out time for the things that I really care about.

What do you love most about each of those things and what do you find is the biggest challenge in trying to balance the two?

These are two things that I think are really important. Trying to make healthcare safer is so important but making a difference in the tech industry and gender equality is also so important. Not to say that I’m going to solve all of the world’s problems, but even just chipping away at those major problems are things that give me purpose in life. That’s why I love doing them so much.

The biggest challenge is when you love two things so much, how do you decide which one is more important. You know you have to make the decision which is more pressing and which do I need to spend more time on. It’s always that negotiation of which one you’re going to work on. There’s just not enough hours in the day. I find everything fascinating and I want to learn everything and I want to do everything, so sometimes the biggest challenge is just having to say no to things that are outside of what you really want to do. I’m really prioritizing finishing my Master's now so I can really stop saying no to all these other things I also want to do.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone who also works full-time and wants to pursue a passion project?

That’s a hard question. For me, I just end up taking on too much. There was a talk that I went to and an article that I read that have both kind of stuck with me. They were both around this idea of ruthlessly prioritizing. There are a million things that you can do but sometimes you have to ruthlessly prioritize which one is more important and which one do you really feel passionate about and go after it. The article was about saying no to one opportunity every week or something like that, because there will always be opportunity and you will want to say yes to everything but when the quantity of the things you get involved with goes up, you know you only have so many hours, so the quality is going to start to go down. If it’s a passion project for you, you’re going to carve out the time for it but the only way to carve out the time for it is if you say no to certain things and that’s really hard.

Looking back to when you first entered the workplace, what would be one piece of advice you would give to that person?

For me, work ethic is the number one thing I look for in people. I think having a good work ethic is one of the most important things. The two things that I think are really important for me and that have worked out really well in my career is good work ethic and wanting to learn everything. Having that insatiable desire to learn.

Running a space for healing and discovery: Meet Temple 23

We're so thankful to have been hosted by Temple 23, a space owned and operated by Sarah Hauch and Kristine Vanderplas, for our Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds workshop two weeks ago! I got a chance to chat with Kristine between her yoga classes about what it is like to run the venue and learn more about the space.  

What is Temple 23?

Temple 23 is a spiritual healing centre. It's a space for people to be themselves and express what they want to do. We are primarily focused on spirituality and self-expansion and curate the events we hold, but we've hosted lots of different events from workshops to music nights. We also run some events ourselves, Sarah ran a Sober Bar [on July 16], for example, and I host Meditation Mondays every week. Our goal is to make it an accessible space which honours integrity and authenticity which also means it is a dry space.

How did you two get started running an events venue?

Sarah and I met two years ago through mutual friends but really bonded over the Empower Thyself course at the Modern Mystery School. Around that time we became close and the opportunity came up. I was already teaching yoga and guiding meditation sessions, it was really a matter of timing and being willing to adapt. We moved in January 2015. [The building is] a converted warehouse so it was a blank space with white walls that we could really make our own. We put in a floor and decorated some but it wasn't until one woman from the Aerie Collective approached us about using the space for hosting urban retreats, and she was really interested in using it, and said "Look, if you give me a budget I can make it look more like what you want."  That really shaped it more into what we envisioned. We both have jobs outside of Temple 23, so it's not like we spend all of our time on it but we've had steady interest from the beginning, just really positive feedback, and a good uptake. Our primary business is offering healing to individuals.

You mentioned a Sober Bar earlier, do you want to explain what that is?

That's really more Sarah's project than mine, but a Sober Bar is basically a place where you can go to be in community, like a normal bar, but without alcohol. It's a concept that's become pretty popular on the West coast, you hear about them having these long lines. Our first one was last Saturday and we had a decent turnout. People are very appreciative of having access to events where no alcohol is involved. We hear from people who have struggled with addiction, and it's very hard to get back out there when the main places to do that are bars. There's also people who are just outgrowing the bar scene but still want to be able to go out on some nights. Some people are skeptical at first, we hosted an art show not too long ago and there was a lot of back-and-forth with the organizers because it's an art show. "You have to have alcohol, it's an art show!" they said, but we just said sorry it's a dry space. And you know, the show went really well. The organizers were happy and they were impressed. Nobody got sloppy drunk and everyone was just present. So there can be benefits!

Why did you choose to partner with YWiB and give us the opportunity to use Temple 23?

We're interested in reaching people beyond the spiritual community. [Temple 23] has gained a good reputation and Toronto has a fairly big spiritual community which knows about it. We want to be able to reach people who wouldn't come across it naturally now, people who are maybe outside the community but still align with our focus. Your Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds event actually strikes home for me because I'm really interested in wellness in the workplace. It's important to take time for yourselves, especially young women who often work more hours than most. People seem to just be working longer and harder and that focus on wellness is so necessary.

How to fit yoga into a busy work schedule

Lara Cupido led the Yoga session at the Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds event hosted by Young Women in Business, Toronto chapter. We caught up with her to hear more about her and learn about the benefits of yoga, especially for young and busy professional women.

What do you think the biggest benefit of practicing yoga is?

That’s a great question – though since there are plenty of benefits of practicing yoga, it’s a tough one to answer!

Everyone has their own reason to practice, which is one of the very reasons why I love yoga so much. That said, there are two benefits of practicing that I believe are the greatest: not only does yoga strengthen your body (yoga teacher training put me in the best shape of my life!), but it strengthens your mind as well. It helps you get in tune with your body so that you can better understand why different pain occurs both physically and mentally, and how to avoid or ease any tension. Mentally, it teaches you to focus: focus on your body, your practice, and on the present moment.

What about benefits specifically for working women in offices?

Since yoga helps you get more in tune with your body, you can learn specific postures that help open up areas that you may be tightening due to your work life. For example, there are weeks that go by where I am sitting in front of my laptop for 8+ hours a day. Naturally, my back wants to hunch over, which closes up your chest area and shoulders. Thus, soft back bends that help open up the chest and shoulders truly aid in balancing your body and maintaining alignment.

What drew you to yoga and what inspired you to become an instructor?

I’ve taken dance lessons my whole life and used to work out at a gym. However, I never really liked yoga. I always thought it wouldn’t be an intense enough workout (boy, was I naïve…).

Five years ago I decided to join my family at the weekly yoga class they regularly attended. After the class, I felt good. I can’t really explain or pinpoint exactly what it was, but I loved how I felt. And I knew the instructor’s perspective, helpful attitude and radiating energy, aided in this feeling. She truly wanted the absolute best for her students, and helped them be the best they could be. She singlehandedly altered my idea of yoga.

On her last day at the gym, I decided it was mine as well. I joined a yoga studio so that I could learn different techniques and practice more often. Shortly after, I decided that the only way to further deepen my knowledge of the practice was to become an instructor myself. In becoming an instructor, I would be able to help others feel good about themselves, just as Karin helped me do. That is what truly drove me to search for a teaching program in the city.

I then turned to Yoga Tree Studio, which offered a great teaching program composed of elements such as physical training, anatomy, and meditation. To my surprise, I found out that Karin was one of the lead instructors who would be teaching the training program. After one quick phone call to Karin, I recalled the energy that she exuded through practice, and I was sold. Needless to say, the Yoga Tree training program was one of the best experiences of my life, both physically and mentally.

Looking back, I now wish I could go back to when I was younger, during my dance years, and do physical activity properly. Yoga teaches you how to breathe properly, how to align your body, how to strengthen your core, how to stretch properly, and the list goes on.

What is your advice to those who are new to yoga?

Be open. Truly be open. With your eyes, ears and mind. Losing any premeditative judgments, or judgments that arise in your mind through practice, is critical. I often hear two things from new students: 1) Yoga is too hard, I’m not flexible! Or 2) Yoga is not intense enough of a workout. And here are my thoughts to those two misconceptions:

1) Many people tell me that they cannot practice because they are not flexible, but my response always is “that’s why you should practice! See you Sunday morning!”. Everyone is on different levels and that is OKAY. That is normal. That is how the world works! Everyone, at any given moment, is at different stages of their life, they learn at different times, and progress in different ways. However, what is important to you is what YOU are feeling, where YOU are at, how YOU can improve. And that is something that can be taken from the mat into your everyday life.

One of the biggest teachings in yoga is to lose judgements on things, on others, and on yourself. So ultimately do what makes YOU feel good on the mat. If you keep that mentality, you’ll notice progress quicker than you ever expected.

2) As I mentioned earlier, there are many misconceptions that say that yoga isn’t hard core enough. Actually, yoga is a full body work out. Many different muscles are targeted in each posture. It’s about learning how to use those muscles so that you can strengthen them. Almost all of my new students who say that yoga is too “easy” tell me after class that it is “actually really hard!” Again, be open!

Do you have any suggestions for how young professional women can fit yoga into their busy schedules?

I completely sympathize with women who feel as though there are not enough hours in one day – so much so that there have been months where I lose my own practice. I’m an interior designer by day, so my schedule is super hectic as I am often running around the city to meet clients, suppliers, and contractors, while teaching nights and weekends. By the time my work day is over, I feel as though I don’t have any energy or time to practice. What’s funny and ironic about that is that when I do fit in a yoga practice, I have so much energy. Yoga improves energy, respiration, and vitality.

I think what is important is to figure out what is the best time that works for you. After trying different class times, I realized that an early 6:30am class helped me to feel accomplished and energized for the day. Fitting it in at a regular time every day (or a few times a week) and thus creating a routine, will help you to stay committed. Once you do a class, you will be amazed at how your time and day opens up. You’ll be able to carry on with your day with a clearer mind, which will be a key factor to your productivity.