4 Reasons Why You Might Fail At Meditation and Practical Steps To Fix That

Meditation is a great mindfulness practice that if used regularly, it can help develop self-awareness, improve your focus and concentration, and often enhance your creativity and problem-solving skills. When a very deep level of relaxation is achieved during meditation, it can also shed light on and reveal insight into things or situations that happened to you and assist in providing a different perspective to a particular struggle you are currently dealing with in your life. Regular practice can lead you into transforming your life entirely, but of course only when you give it enough time and dedication.

I began my meditation practice just about 2 years ago. It was a couple of months after I’ve lost my job and while trying to find a new one, my life turned into a stressful and uncomfortable existence. I stopped believing in myself. At the same time, I felt an extreme urge for a change and as I was googling for self-help articles, I stumbled across a book by one of the most popular spiritual teachers, Eckhart Tolle, named ‘The Power of Now’. The contents of this book intrigued me, and that combined with the encouragement from my partner I decided to try meditation practice. I wanted to see whether it can help to calm down my anxiety and improve the miserable reality I found myself in.

Since then, my life has gone through a total transformation.

I improved my confidence.

I started to believe in myself and my abilities.

I gained more clarity on my real needs, desires, and purpose.

My focus, concentration, and creativity increased.

I became more balanced, harmonious, and at peace with myself.

I began to notice little miracles that happen to me every day.

I became much more independent and self-reliant.

I freed myself from a range of limiting beliefs that were holding me back from becoming my best Self.

I recognized and stopped people-pleasing.

I found the courage to start expressing my true and authentic self.

These are only a handful of positive results and benefits I started experiencing not long after I introduced daily meditation into my life. You can experience these, too, and many more, however, you just have to give it a go and be consistent in showing up for your meditation practice regularly.

Meditation is truly a great tool, however, we are often unable to make any use of it, particularly when we are only doing it sporadically, or we are simply new to it, and unsure how and where to start.

Last year, shortly after I was placed on furlough by my at-the-time employer, I was granted a precious gift of more free time. I decided to devote it to more frequent meditation practice.

Some days I meditated for over 2 hours.

After hours of practice, and experiencing many great, not so great, and unsuccessful practices, I developed an understanding of the reasons why meditation sometimes didn’t work for me. I hope pointing out the mistakes I’ve observed and analyzed in my practice will assist you in improving your experience with meditation and help you take it to the next level, allowing yourself to grow into a higher consciousness and expand your awareness.

1. You don’t focus on observing your breath

Meditation is a relaxation practice. If you aren’t feeling relaxed, if you’re not consciously calming your nerves down and not remembering about steady breathing, your meditation will quickly turn into torture. This will create resistance and often put you off completely from any further trying. Proper, deep breathing is key if you want meditation to work for you. Scattered thoughts racing through your head that you’re not in control of and the tension in your body can be quickly calmed down just by bringing attention back to your breathing.

Every time you take a deep, conscious breath, you immediately bring yourself back to your body and instantly break the thought cycle just got caught in.

When you breathe in, imagine fresh air flowing in through the tips of your toes, and that the air fills your entire body from the bottom to the top of your head. When you breathe out, imagine you are releasing and letting go of everything that’s not serving you — your thoughts, any emotional or physical pain, the tension in your body, and everything else that you no longer need to hold onto. Practice this conscious breath, staying calm, observing, and centering yourself in the moment for as long as you feel the need to. Eventually, if you’re patient enough, you’ll feel the release that will nurture you and allow you to just be and sink into a relaxing meditation.

2. You don’t take time to practice

Only when practiced regularly, meditation can be learned and provide results. It’s after you incorporate meditation into your daily routine, it will start assisting in improving your life.

It takes time to build a habit, especially a good one. You have to give yourself time and a lot of patience. Only by repeating and trying something persistently, you become a master in it.

Have you ever learned to drive a car? Have you ever studied for an important exam? Have you ever managed to lose excess weight through regular exercise or after introducing a healthy diet? Have you ever stopped drinking or smoking? In other words, have you ever been focusing your energy on a goal that needed your time and dedication in order to achieve? Consider meditation as the same type of goal.

If you find it difficult to remember to take time to meditate, schedule it in. Set an alarm on your phone. Whether you are an early riser and do it in the morning or prefer to do it after work, it doesn’t matter as long as you make time for it every day and keep practicing.

Practice regularly as if you were learning to drive a car with the intention to receive a license that will allow you to finally drive on your own. Know that if you practice long enough, you’ll become great at this and eventually receive the reward you’ve been working so hard towards.

3. You expect the results too soon

You may have read about all the benefits that meditation provides, thinking that you want to experience them, too. Meditation is a game-changer, that’s for sure. It’s a great tool that if used mindfully can help enhance your life experience on this Earth.

However, if you are turning to meditation with a particular goal you are looking to achieve, and expect it to happen right away, unfortunately, you’ll hit the wall instead of seeing any positive results.

Have you noticed that every time you expect something in your life, whether it’s a certain behavior you demand from another person or a belief that a new pair of shoes will make you happy, the opposite happens? Well, as you probably noticed, this usually triggers your frustration and disappointment and makes you feel like you are not in control because something didn’t make you feel in a way you thought it will. The same thing happens when you expect meditation to provide immense value to you, but after the initial excitement, you realize that results aren’t coming that easily as you originally anticipated.

Every time you come to your meditation practice with expectations, you throw a pressure on yourself for a certain outcome to happen and, therefore, deprive yourself of diving into unknown.

Give yourself some time. Be patient. It’s best if you come to meditation with a clear head and have no expectations. As you practice more and get better at it, you’ll eventually begin to notice small, positive shifts. These will give you the strength to keep going.

4. You use it for the wrong reasons

Meditation can provide you with insights, different perspectives, and sudden realizations about your life but it won’t fix all of your problems. Some things, situations, and tensions between you and other people you have to solve on your own. Meditation, if used incorrectly and for wrong reasons, can be just another way of numbing out and sweeping your problems under the rug providing you with a temporary solution in a form of forgetting about your issues and putting off solving them instead of consciously facing them. This behavior doesn’t differ much from numbing yourself out with alcohol after a hard day at work, taking drugs, excessive eating, or any type of activity that provides an escape from reality for a short period of time.

If you use meditation as a temporary distraction from your problems and straight after come back to your usual unmindful way of living, don’t be surprised that nothing changes or gets better in your life and around you.

You are responsible for the change that needs to happen inside of you. You and only you have the power to break the vicious cycle and behavioral patterns that you keep repeating and falling back into.

The best thing you can do as a follow-up after your meditation practice is to be mindful, be brave and face your problems.

Find courage and be honest with yourself and others and talk about your needs and explain how you feel. In case, this isn’t possible or achievable for you, just accept what is without guilt, judgment, or resentment and choose to move forward with your life.

Make a to-do list if you struggle with time management.

Get up and get your body moving if you really want to get healthy.

Go for that walk you’ve been putting off for so long and immerse yourself in nature.

Begin the search for that dream job you’ve always wanted to do.

Start that business plan or a project you’ve been wanting to create.

Change things up, speak up your truth, be honest, be authentic, be yourself. Move boldly and fearlessly, otherwise, nothing will change.

Whatever is that you want to achieve in life, start taking mindful steps towards your goals and desires. Regular meditation will help you prepare yourself emotionally for changes that need to happen so your life can get better. Get ready to prepare the action plan of what you want to create and spend some time with yourself on figuring out how you want to feel. And just like with everything else in life, be patient, be consistent, keep striving forward. That’s the only way to achieve fulfillment in life. There are no shortcuts, and even if it seems that there are — I can assure you that not without consequences.

Hi, I’m Malgorzata but friends call me Gosia. I share my insights on self-love, well-being, personal growth & spirituality hoping to inspire others to live empowered and fulfilling lives on their terms. For more about me & about what I do, check my website. I hope you enjoyed reading my piece. If you would like to support me as a writer, consider joining Medium. You can also subscribe to my Medium posts and get notified by email every time I publish one. Much Love, Gosia