Success Habits: an easier way to start meditating

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">HeadSpace</a>. The app also allows me to meditate anywhere, in an office, at the pool, even on the bus. People think I’m listening to music and sleeping, little do they know I’m preparing (my mind) to conquer the world.</p><h2 id="8946">2. It’s not about not thinking</h2><p id="1895">This is the biggest game changer that helped me with meditation. A lot of people think that meditation is about not thinking anything. That’s simply not true. Meditation is actually about coming back to your focus. Usually during meditation you’ll concentrate on your breath. Then a thought will pop into your head. The novice meditator will try to block out that thought and then will get frustrated when the thought comes back or another thought pops up. The novice meditator will then get pissed and say “why isn’t this working!” and they’ll quit meditating and go back to watching cat videos.</p><p id="57f7">Meditation is actually the practice of bringing your focus back. No matter how good you get at meditating you’ll always have thoughts pop into your head.</p><p id="9330">This is okay, it’s actually perfect.</p><p id="6605">Every time you have a thought pop into your head, acknowledge the thought and then bring your attention back to your breath. What this translates to in real life is an ability to recognize distraction and bring your focus back to your initial task. You’ll notice after a while that you’ll get good at spotting when you’re getting distracted in real life. You’ll notice when you’ve opened 5 tabs on your browser and say to yourself, “wait a second, wasn’t I supposed to be writing that email which I started like 20 minutes ago?” It’s pretty cool, you’ll see.</p><h2 id="4635">3. Find the right time of day</h2><p id="b5f5">The only way meditation works is when it becomes a habit. It’s not necessa

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ry to meditate 7 days a week, but you should shoot for 3–5 days. If you start with 3 days per week that’s really, really good. To help you get consistent you should find the best time of day to meditate. I first tried meditating in the morning because that’s what all the successful people do. But it wasn’t working.</p><p id="32e8">I was way too pumped up in the morning to start my day and attack my to-do list so meditating at that time felt like I was killing my energy. I then tried meditating before bed, but I found that clearing my mind stopped me from reflecting on the wins and losses of the day, which is something I really enjoy doing.</p><p id="2506">The solution for me was setting a reminder to meditate every day at 12:30pm. This was the most effective time because I had already done some work and gotten myself stressed out just the right amount. Right as I’m getting to that point of feeling frazzled, I stop, sit down outside, and soak in the sunshine. In 10 minutes I feel like I just woke up and have my focus back.</p><p id="cfd5">I’ve only been meditating for 7 months and have a little over 8 hours total meditation time under my belt, but it has been incredible to see how much more centered I am from day to day. Even on days when I don’t meditate I feel a lot more centered and almost have a third-person perspective on my life. I still get stressed of course, but my reaction to that stress is a lot more mild than it used to be. I hope this helps you get started and gets you one step closer to conquering your world.</p><p id="b59f">EDIT: You probably won’t feel any effects from meditating until doing it for 3 weeks consistently or about 4 hours total meditation time. It’s pretty easy to achieve this though, 10 minutes per day x 24 days = 4 hours. Hope that helps!</p></article></body>

Success Habits: an easier way to start meditating

What do Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Robbins, Ellen DeGeneres, Kevin Kelly, and Oprah have in common? They all meditate.

Studying world-class performers one finds a somewhat bizarre correlation between those who meditate and those who seem grounded in their success. That’s not to say that meditation is a prerequisite to success, but damn it really helps.

After noticing this pattern I wanted to get into meditation, but I didn’t want all the kumbaya spiritual holier-than-thou attitude that comes with it. The task was simple: build a habit of successfully doing meditation on a daily basis resulting in a more centered and effective state of mind.

Easier said than done.

But here’s what really helped:

1. Start short, really short.

Meditation is really hard, it’s one of the hardest things to do but also one of the most beneficial. And, the harder meditation is for you, the more you need it. The key to getting good at it is consistency and the amount of time you spend isn’t important. Start with 10 minutes per day. Don’t be ambitious and start with 15 minutes or 20 minutes, you will fail. To help guide you through the 10 minutes (so you don’t go crazy in your head) there is an app called Calm. I really liked using this app because it gave me a starting point and it also blocked out the ambient noise of the chaotic world around me. Another app, which I haven’t used but I heard is good, is HeadSpace. The app also allows me to meditate anywhere, in an office, at the pool, even on the bus. People think I’m listening to music and sleeping, little do they know I’m preparing (my mind) to conquer the world.

2. It’s not about not thinking

This is the biggest game changer that helped me with meditation. A lot of people think that meditation is about not thinking anything. That’s simply not true. Meditation is actually about coming back to your focus. Usually during meditation you’ll concentrate on your breath. Then a thought will pop into your head. The novice meditator will try to block out that thought and then will get frustrated when the thought comes back or another thought pops up. The novice meditator will then get pissed and say “why isn’t this working!” and they’ll quit meditating and go back to watching cat videos.

Meditation is actually the practice of bringing your focus back. No matter how good you get at meditating you’ll always have thoughts pop into your head.

This is okay, it’s actually perfect.

Every time you have a thought pop into your head, acknowledge the thought and then bring your attention back to your breath. What this translates to in real life is an ability to recognize distraction and bring your focus back to your initial task. You’ll notice after a while that you’ll get good at spotting when you’re getting distracted in real life. You’ll notice when you’ve opened 5 tabs on your browser and say to yourself, “wait a second, wasn’t I supposed to be writing that email which I started like 20 minutes ago?” It’s pretty cool, you’ll see.

3. Find the right time of day

The only way meditation works is when it becomes a habit. It’s not necessary to meditate 7 days a week, but you should shoot for 3–5 days. If you start with 3 days per week that’s really, really good. To help you get consistent you should find the best time of day to meditate. I first tried meditating in the morning because that’s what all the successful people do. But it wasn’t working.

I was way too pumped up in the morning to start my day and attack my to-do list so meditating at that time felt like I was killing my energy. I then tried meditating before bed, but I found that clearing my mind stopped me from reflecting on the wins and losses of the day, which is something I really enjoy doing.

The solution for me was setting a reminder to meditate every day at 12:30pm. This was the most effective time because I had already done some work and gotten myself stressed out just the right amount. Right as I’m getting to that point of feeling frazzled, I stop, sit down outside, and soak in the sunshine. In 10 minutes I feel like I just woke up and have my focus back.

I’ve only been meditating for 7 months and have a little over 8 hours total meditation time under my belt, but it has been incredible to see how much more centered I am from day to day. Even on days when I don’t meditate I feel a lot more centered and almost have a third-person perspective on my life. I still get stressed of course, but my reaction to that stress is a lot more mild than it used to be. I hope this helps you get started and gets you one step closer to conquering your world.

EDIT: You probably won’t feel any effects from meditating until doing it for 3 weeks consistently or about 4 hours total meditation time. It’s pretty easy to achieve this though, 10 minutes per day x 24 days = 4 hours. Hope that helps!