What I'm Doing to Get Myself to Meditate

"The thing about meditation is: You become more and more you." - David Lynch

I am not a meditation person. In fact, I'm not a sit still and do nothing kind of person. Ask me to go to an in-person yoga class and the answer will be an emphatic No. I, like so many, have trouble sitting still. While I like quiet, I find doing the act of practicing stillness hard to take... which means I need meditation way more than the person who can do it with ease.

So I'm now in the process of building a case with myself on getting into a solid meditation practice... and the first place I'm going is to research. For me, if I can see data that shows me the benefits that are possible, I'm more likely to make something that, in my mind, is unpleasant, a habit that MUST be done. Tony Robbins talks about it- moving things from a 'should' to a MUST is how goals get accomplished.

Here are a few of the stats I'm using to convince myself to build a vigilantly consistent meditation practice:

1. In one study, 8 weeks of mindfulness meditation reduced the inflammation response caused by stress.

2. Meditation slows brain aging (particularly thinning of the prefrontal cortex)

3. Meditation lengthens attention span

4. Meditation lowers risk of cardiovascular disease

At the end of the day, meditation is good for everyone on all levels.

But the question becomes: How do you get yourself to do it consistently?

And here's the strategy I'm going to employ (pulling from James Clear's Atomic Habits): I'm going to habit stack. At least once a day (I'm not even going to try to schedule meditation at the same time every day- that's too much of a commitment for me at this moment), I'm going to link something I want to do with the thing I don't want to do (meditate) in a "In order to do that, I need to meditate first"). That way, I have to both schedule the 10 minutes (I'm starting with 10 minutes of meditation daily) and place it right before the activity I'm accustomed to and want to do... and then do that for six straight weeks.

After that, I can add more meditation time or change up the meditation approach but, first things first, I've got to get myself to do it...

I'd love to hear from you...

What's your take on meditation? How have you created a daily habit of meditation in your life? What are you doing to create a meditation habit?