Every January a lot of people tell me they are going to practise more, and by the middle of February most of them are practising exactly as much as they were in December. I have watched this cycle nine times now.
The decision was never the problem.
Intentions have no address
“More yoga” cannot be acted on. There is no moment in a week when you can do “more yoga”, so it never competes with the things in your week that do have a time attached, and it loses every single day without you noticing you were choosing.
Tuesday at nine competes. It has an address in your week.
Two, not five
The most common January mistake is volume. Someone who has been going once a fortnight decides on five sessions, manages four in week one, three in week two, and reads week three as failure.
Two fixed classes a week is a real change from once a fortnight. It is also survivable in a bad week, which is what makes it a habit instead of a burst.
Pick the awkward one deliberately
There is usually one class you would go to if it were easier to get to, and one you have never tried because it looks like it is not for you.
Take the first as your anchor and the second as your experiment. The anchor is what you protect. The experiment is what stops the whole thing getting stale by March, which is the other way these plans die.
Write it where you will trip over it
Not in your head. In whatever holds the rest of your commitments. If a class is not in the same place as your dentist appointment, it is not competing with your dentist appointment.
When you miss one
Go to the next one. That is the entire recovery procedure, and the people who keep a practice for years are not the ones who never miss. They are the ones for whom missing one is not information about who they are.
Look at my timetable, pick two, put them in your week. It takes four minutes and it is the only part of January that matters.