Starting Your Own Meditation Practice

Self-discipline governs what you do to help you create a habit, like a daily meditation practice. Undisciplined people usually fail.

 

The way you start your day sets the tone for the rest of your day. If you start your day with a disciplined meditation habit, then you start your day proactively and powerfully.

 

Once you have created your habit, you meditate every day without even thinking about it. It is automatic.

 

When people begin something new and want to create a new habit, they often ask themselves how they move the needle and create a new habit and as a teacher of meditation, many people have asked my advice on how to start their meditation practice.

 

This eventually led to the creation of my signature system, Easy to Meditate.

 

Easy to Meditate was designed to be done in any place you prefer, including your office. One meditation session at a time, one day at a time.

 

Here is my easy step by step approach. The closer you follow the Easy to Meditate instructions, the more likely you are to be successful in setting up your own simple and repeatable practice.

 

The benefits that you will gain from meditation are cumulative.

 

This means that as you continue to meditate regularly, you will acquire more and more benefits.

 

If you are truly serious about creating a meditation habit, then you will make it part of your daily routine. The benefits that you will gain will improve with a daily commitment.

 

There are many reasons that some people struggle to create a daily meditation practice.

 

The first is because they do not realize how beneficial their meditation practice is for them. In this book, I will discuss the benefits, and there are many benefits.

 

The second is because they try to go too big, too soon. You must start small when creating your meditation habit. By starting small, you would be silly to say no. Starting small gets you started, it helps you get over the hump and running. Starting small requires very little willpower. Often when we start small, we end up going bigger than we expected.

 

But, first a bit of insight.

 

If you are new to meditation, it is important to remember to be easy on yourself. The idea is to reduce your stress, not to add to it.  Exhale and let your stress go.

 

The best thing you can do when working to create a meditation practice is to make sure you set aside time every day to meditate. You must consider meditation an important part of your day. Those that get the most out of their meditation practice consider it the most important part of the day because it primes the pumps for the rest of the day.

 

You must schedule it into your day. Think of it as the most important appointment you will have all day, and you must do everything possible to keep this appointment.

 

Set up your practice so that you consistently meditate in the same place and simultaneously every day. If you are a road warrior, like I used to be or just travel once in a while, like I still do you can still create an easy and repeatable habit, whether it be while you are in your car (parked of course), in a hotel or even on a plane. You can meditate anywhere.

 

Meditation is portable and can also be taken to the workplace, to school, or even while sitting in the park or parking lot.

 

Start small and do not overdo it. If you start meditating and expect to meditate for 20 to 30 minutes at a time, you are going to be very disappointed.

 

Do not fall into the trap of overdoing it. You will find that mastering even 5 minutes to start at the beginning can be tough.

 

One of the best ways to sabotage a new habit is to overdo it. Start with something that you can manage. My system Easy to Meditate starts with 3 minutes and slowly builds from there. The goal is to help you create a successful and repeatable habit, not to help you fail.

 

Remember that you are starting a new habit, a very important new habit, a life changing habit. Start with a short period, a period of time that you can manage. If you expect to start with a 20- or 30-minute habit, you might just end up disappointed. Start small and build from there.

 

When you are successful as starting small, you can periodically and incrementally add time until you build up to the 20 to 30 minutes that your desire. Start small and build on it.

 

It is important to track your progress as you build your habit, and this is even more important if you find it hard to hold yourself accountable.

 

If you find it hard to meditate alone, try to meditate with a group or join the Easy to Meditate coaching program I have created for you. The investment is worth it, and I personally designed this program after lots of research. I designed the coaching program to give you the greatest chance of success. I have cracked the meditation habit code, and I want to teach you what you need to know. I want to help you make the quantum leap necessary to create your meditation habit.

Meditating is like going to the gym. Practice it regularly, and you will reap the benefits. Slack off and you will not.

 

Get clear, crystal clear about why you want to make meditation a habit. Go through the list of benefits that I discuss in this book and decide why you want to create a meditation habit.

 

Are you motivated to relieve your stress and crush your anxiety? Make sure your why truly resonates within you. Imagine how you will feel you can successfully create your own meditation practice. Visualize how you will feel, how your life will improve, and how your positive success will keep you motivated to stay with it.

 

Take a moment and make an oath to yourself to start meditating every day from now on. Set your intention that you will meditate every day.

 

According to research completed at Duke University, approximately 40 percent of the actions we take every day is because of our habits.

 

Habits are important, and what separates those who achieve and those who truly get by are that those who achieve consistently do the things that enable them to be successful.

 

The only thing that stands between you and getting what you want, for example, reducing your stress is to create the right habits.

 

For those who want to learn to reduce their stress the creation of a meditation habit is a must. A meditation habit is a systematic, proven strategy to meditate every day. A meditation habit will change your life.

 

To help reduce your stress, you need to make meditating a habit and meditate consistently.

 

Take a moment and make a promise to yourself, take an oath to start meditating every day. Firmly set your intention that you will do this and not quit.

 

A meditation habit requires both a short-term commitment and a long-term commitment. Your long-term commitment will allow you to be accountable.

 

The Easy to Meditate coaching program will help you create your life changing meditation habit.

 

Think same time, same place, every day, and you will be well on your way.

 

You may have relaxing experiences right away when your start, or it may take days, weeks or even months. Either way, it is ok.

 

Practice makes perfect, and the idea behind creating a habit is to actually practice. In other words, if you want to create a meditation habit you have to meditate daily, not occasionally, or when you feel the need. Part of the Easy to Meditate system is the “time out” meditation, which is the quick and responsive meditation that you can use when you feel you need a quick time out or reset.

 

Anything worth doing is done and achieved through work. If you feel your stress and sometimes it overwhelms you, isn’t it worth it to find a simple and easy to use tool to reduce or eliminate that stress?

 

Personally, while I started feeling a sense of calm, it took a few weeks to develop my daily practice, my meditation habit, and to feel the benefits of my practice.

 

Originally, I imagined myself sitting quietly with my legs crossed, dressed like a monk when I first inquired about and learned how to meditate.

 

Meditation for the beginner can seem daunting and perceived as dull.

Not with Easy to Meditate though.

 

I believe in an easy and safe meditation practice. That is why I created this super simple way to meditate that anyone can use.

 

And I really don’t believe in getting hurt when meditating, whether it be by falling, walking into traffic, falling off a ledge or down the stairs.

 

It makes absolutely no sense to have a dangerous meditation practice. That means no walking meditation and no dancing meditation.  No roadside meditating.

 

Ok?

 

Getting started learning to meditate using Easy to Meditate is quite easy.

 

If it was difficult, it might simply add more stress to your life, and that is something that you do not want to be part of.

 

You learn to meditate, by meditating.

 

The silence and diminished stress you will experience when you meditate are so attractive and welcome, that you will naturally want to meditate for longer periods.

 

Looking for more ways to start dealing with your stress? Listen to this past episode of the Meditation NOT Medicine Podcast where I interviewed Holistic Health expert, Suzi Vine, from the Happified Podcast. One of our key takeaways was that small changes can become big differences in the future, and being small changes makes it easier and more sustainable.