Making excuses doesn't serve you.
Let's get serious and build your daily meditation practice!
What does it really take to build a daily meditation practice? Well today I’m going to give you 3 ways to get that daily meditation habit started, but keep reading because I added a bonus tip that might be the real solution.
Let’s start with why.
Why would we even want to build a daily meditation habit in the first place?
Meditation has gone from being regarded as another new age fad to one of the most beneficial self-care practices you can use. Its benefits affect many aspects of your physical and mental health. Some of the scientifically-backed benefits of meditation include;
- It helps boost your immunity by helping you increase your antibodies.
- It helps you manage pain, including chronic pain, aches, and headaches.
- It helps you manage your blood pressure by helping you manage stress.
- Lowers your anxiety by as much as 40% by helping you manage racing thoughts.
- It boosts your productivity by providing clarity and improving your focus and attention in the present.
- It boosts your creativity by encouraging problem-solving and creative thinking through mindfulness.
- It lowers your risk for depression by calming you down and allowing you to step back and identify stressors in your life.
- Meditation improves your social well-being since, through mindfulness, you learn to build better relationships and develop empathy.
- It boosts your emotional intelligence by making you aware of your emotions and feelings.
Yes, I know. These seem like miraculous results and certainly too good to be true. I get it! I was skeptical at first as well. It took me some life traumas, a business downturn, and a decade of minimal self-care to fall into a 2-year depression to make me desperately search for serious self-care strategies to work on healing that dark place I ended up in.
Although it does sound too good to be true I have shared multiple links above to medical journals and other trusted resources. Please review them or do you own research. Meditation changes lives. I challenge you NOT to take my word on it, but TEST IT OUT YOURSELF. Commit to a meditating 7 days for 10 minutes everyday and see if you do not feel a little better.
In as little as 8-weeks people like Richard J. Davidson PhD and Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD, have shown that people in an 8-week program have changed their brains and started on some amazing paths of change. Be a skeptic, but have an open mind and give it a try. Try to build your own daily meditation practice for a week, then if that feels good, go for two. Then for a month and then 8-weeks.
That is what I did a decade ago. My life changed so much I now feel obligated to teach it to others. So let me share a few tips and ways to get started to build a daily meditation practice.
READY FOR 3 WAYS TO BUILD YOUR DAILY MEDIATION PRACTICE?
1. Pick a consistent time, either in the morning, at night, or both
For most people, the first excuse is that they do not have enough time or that there are plenty of distractions when they intend to meditate. Fortunately, there are two parts of your day you have much control over and have the least potential for distraction; in the morning when you wake up and at night just before you sleep.
They are excellent times since you can use meditation to either plan the day or take a recap. You also control the time, and you can easily predict the sleep and waking hours, making it easier to maintain consistency.
Beyond this, morning meditation sets the tone for the day. Why not start the day on a positive foundation. Then so many of us have issues sleeping. Why not add an evening meditation focused on helping you get to sleep faster and setting the tone for a positive night sleep?
2. Start small and manage expectations
Creating a new daily habit is not easy, so it helps to make small daily changes. Thus, you can start with as little as three or five minutes and keep adding an extra minute each day.
There are rumors that you get the most benefits when you can spend at least 30 minutes of daily meditation. I say consistent practice is more important than quantity of time spent in meditation. Build the habit first them longer session can be accomplished and added.
Remember, although a 30 minute meditation is great, that is not possible from the start, so you build up small gains until you can maintain that regular meditation time daily. You should also not have high expectations of getting immediate benefits, as that may discourage you before you build the consistency required for reaping them.
In my own journey, I was in a bad place and I did a 7-day challenge doing 10 minutes a day for 7 days. I noticed this was easy for me and I did see some benefits so I kept going. Everyone’s experience is different but the real rewards are from the above mentioned consistent daily practice, but just start small.
3. Find a style that works for you
There are so many types of meditation. You can find religious meditations, the law of attraction meditations, silent timed meditations, guided meditations, music-based meditations, and the list goes on and on. You can find recommendations for several different postures – sitting, half-lotus, full-lotus, laying meditation, and walking meditation to name a few.
So obviously reviewing these few things, you can see that it is easy to get overwhelmed pretty quickly, and most just give up if things get too complicated. What you need to do is find a style and/or position that is easy and works for you. You want to enjoy the practice and make things fairly easy to stick with.
How did I build a daily meditation practice? By meditating first thing in the morning before I got out of bed. I just did a daily laying meditation. Over time I grew my practice and tried a ton of different styles and postures, but my foundation was built on daily morning laying meditation.
These are 3 great ways to get started building a daily practice. In all honesty though, as I mentioned above, habit formation is hard work. Although these 3 tips are powerful most people need a bit more support and a regimented approach. This is where an expert lead program seems to really help lock in the daily habit.
BONUS TIP to build a daily meditation practice
4. Join the 30-Day Daily-Meditation Habit Builder Challenge
The ultimate step to build your daily meditation habit is GET SOME HELP AND ACCOUNTABILITY! You can do that by joining the 30-Day Daily-Meditation Habit Builder Challenge. That’s because it gives you a long-term target and the motivation for achievement.
Actually this challenge offers both short-term targets – just do your daily practice and easy ways to do it and medium-term goals – go 30 days straight. Then the long-term target is making your daily meditation practice something you do forever once the practice is established.
Here’s the thing… you are no longer going through the struggle alone. In this challenge you now have others to hold you accountable and support you. This has been one of the most powerful and maybe valuable parts of the challenge. Further, you get a guide and expert instruction from a meditation coach, me.
30 days is long enough to help you build a daily meditation habit, but not too long to be able to see hitting this target. We can do almost anything for 30 days. Am I right?
There is sufficient learning material, and the gamification of the target makes it easier to follow through and keep your discipline every day there is a new mini-target. The satisfaction of achieving it is the best reward.
Because you are part of a group and you have support around you, it does not seem unrealistic, and it helps challenge you and train your mind daily. You will be surprised that you look forward to meditation and no longer have excuses. I try to offer daily prompts, lessons, and/or audio meditations that are fun, unique, and interesting to keep you engaged and excited to get the daily prompt.
With these tips, you should no longer struggle with creating a daily meditation practice. The 30-Day Daily-Meditation Habit Builder Challenge is the final step to overcoming all the hurdles you have been experiencing.
You have a community to work with who also support you, a defined goal, and, more importantly, expert advice that will help you avoid mistakes and maintain consistency.
Sign up for the challenge and see how much easier it is to build a daily meditation practice that will allow you to enjoy the numerous benefits of meditation I mentioned above.
