You will lose motivation if you try to do too much for too long, which is why so many people give up after their first week of practice. The key to a lifelong practice is to keep it small enough to maintain even on your most tired and/or busy days. It’s less about what you do and more about whether or not you do it. The little-and-often approach gets far better results than doing a lot every now and again. Slowly but surely, your body learns to be more flexible, strong, and co-ordinated.
Having a set time of day can also be helpful. A morning practice can shake out the night from the body and a night practice can help alleviate the stress of the day. Ultimately the exact time of day is less important than simply having a consistent time. Also, try to practice in the same location each day, even if it’s just a section of a room. That way you will train your brain to feel like that space is a place of exercise and relaxation. If you leave the mat out, you’ve just eliminated a tiny step you may use as an excuse not to practice.
Another trap is thinking the more poses we do the better. If we keep changing the sequence, the body will not be able to integrate. If we do the same few poses repeatedly, the muscles will learn to do them more efficiently. We can do a mini practice where we forward bend, do a low lunge on each side and a seated forward bend. If we practice these shapes until they are easy, then we can hold them a little longer to get some results.
A basic 15-minute practice could look like this: Take a minute or two to breathe and calm your mind. Then, do some gentle circles with your neck, shoulders and hips. Stand up and do a couple of poses to get your legs warm. End with one longer stretch on the mat and one minute sitting still. If you do the same routine every day, you don’t have to think about what to do, and it feels more like a habit than a choice. If you feel tired, you can go slower instead of not doing it at all.
When you miss days (and you will), don’t worry about it and beat yourself up for it, and use it as an excuse to quit. Instead, just start the next day with that same modest goal, and do it every time you miss. Over weeks, you start to feel like your body needs this reset, and the movements that feel clumsy and hard at first become automatic. You start to rely on that time to loosen your muscles and get some peace of mind.