Meditating regularly offers significant benefits: it boosts happiness, enhances health, slows brain aging, increases intelligence, and reduces pain, stress, and depression. It also improves relationships, enhances effectiveness, and provides a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life.
You might think, “Great, but I don’t have the time to meditate,” or you might have tried meditating before but couldn’t maintain a regular practice. For years, I struggled to meditate daily, even though I knew and had experienced its benefits. I’d feel calm and happy after meditating, and retreats left me feeling blissful. Yet, keeping up the habit was tough. I’d start strong but eventually miss a day, then a few days, and sometimes weeks. Knowing others could meditate daily made me feel like a failure.
Now, I meditate nearly every day without fail. If I miss a day, I don’t feel shame. I just return to my regular meditation routine the next day. I’ve created a new online course called “Get Your Sit Together,” starting January 1, to share what I’ve learned about establishing a daily meditation practice.
The goal of the course is to help you become a consistent daily meditator. Ideally, you’ll meditate every day during the 28-day course. If you miss a day or two, it’s not a failure; it’s part of learning what can hinder developing a good habit. By the end of the course, the aim is for you to meditate daily. It’s okay if it takes a little time to build this habit.
In the course, you’ll learn several important things:
Initially, I thought a “real” meditation had to be 20-30 minutes or longer because that’s what I did in classes. This made it hard to fit meditation into my day, so I often skipped it. On the course, you’ll discover that even short meditations are valuable. We’ll have guided meditations lasting five minutes, three minutes, or even one minute. Short sessions make meditation feasible to fit into your daily routine.
I used to think I couldn’t meditate daily due to a lack of willpower, but it was actually a false self-view. I saw myself as someone who couldn’t maintain this habit. The course will help you change your self-perception to see yourself as a daily meditator. With the right mindset, meditating every day will quickly become a natural part of your routine.
Being accountable to ourselves and others helps in developing new habits. This can be as simple as marking each day you meditate on a calendar or sharing your progress in our supportive online community. It’s important to understand that missing a day isn’t a big deal; it’s just a minor stumble while developing a habit.
Planning is crucial. Identify opportunities to meditate for a few minutes each day, even on busy days. On slower days, plan as well to avoid thinking it’ll be easy and then forgetting.
Learn to recognize thoughts like “I’m too busy or tired to meditate” as resistance. Address this by negotiating with yourself—if you planned ten minutes but feel tired, start with five minutes and see how you feel.
One common mistake is not congratulating ourselves for meditating. Instead, we might criticize ourselves for not doing enough. Celebrating each session, no matter how short, encourages repetition. Feeling good about meditating will make your subconscious want to continue this habit.
While “Get Your Sit Together” focuses on daily meditation, the principles apply to developing any good habit. By following the course, participating in the community, and using the guided meditations, you’ll achieve the benefits of a regular meditation practice, becoming a happier, more fulfilled person.
So why not join me? Don’t wait until January 1. Head over to our Eventbrite page, enroll in “Get Your Sit Together,” and start a journey that will change your life.