Understanding all the benefits of meditation is easy. You know it’s great for mental health, helps prevent depression and anxiety, boosts happiness and intelligence, slows brain aging, and even improves physical health. Despite knowing all this, starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice can be challenging. You might begin enthusiastically but soon find yourself missing days or even weeks.
This struggle stems from habits. Not meditating is your default; it’s what you’ve done most of your life. Developing a new habit of regular meditation competes with your well-established routines and is undoubtedly tough. However, there are strategies to make it easier. Here are seven tips to help you establish a consistent daily meditation habit.
A common mistake when starting a daily meditation habit is to aim too high. Many think a “proper” session should be 20, 30, or 40 minutes long. While it’s admirable to have such goals, busy days can make these durations impractical. Instead, it’s okay to meditate for just five minutes a day. This small, manageable goal ensures you don’t skip days, helping you steer clear of old habits of not meditating.
Forget sitting for lengthy periods at the start. Just commit to five minutes each day. Five minutes is easy to fit into your schedule, and once you’ve established this daily habit, extending the time becomes more manageable.
Rethink how you define a “day” for your meditation practice. Rather than viewing a day as running from midnight to midnight, consider it from wake-up to bedtime. This mindset allows you to meditate even during hectic days when you return home late, fitting in a quick session before sleep.
Eventually, a daily habit becomes automatic, much like brushing your teeth. In the early stages of forming a meditation habit, reminders are crucial. Use a prominent paper calendar, ideally placed in a high-traffic area like your fridge door, to remind you. Digital reminders often require extra steps to see, creating barriers. A paper calendar is visible with zero effort.
A calendar also serves as a progress tracker. Mark each meditation day with a large check mark. Green markers are great as the color represents success. Forming a chain of check marks is motivating—you won’t want to break the streak!
Develop a personal mantra to help reshape your self-image. If you struggle with consistency, create and repeatedly tell yourself, “I meditate every day. It’s just what I do.” Say it during activities like showering, driving, or before sleeping. This mantra will gradually change your self-view, reinforcing your daily meditation habit.
Using guided meditations can be beneficial, especially when establishing a new habit. They require less effort on your part and can help build new skills and perspectives. Even experienced meditators find value in guided sessions during their practice.
Any meditation session is beneficial, even if it feels distracted. The key is to meditate, regardless of how scattered your focus might be. The only bad meditation sessions are the ones you skip.
Reward yourself after each meditation to reinforce the habit. Simple acknowledgments, like verbally congratulating yourself or marking your calendar, associate the habit with positive feelings. The pleasant aftermath of meditating will motivate you to continue, similar to the rewarding feeling of brushing your teeth.
These seven tips can ease you into a solid daily meditation practice, benefiting your life profoundly. For more in-depth strategies, consider exploring my 28-day online course “Get Your Sit Together,” available to supporters of Wildmind’s Meditation Initiative.
You have all the tools you need to become a daily meditator. Good luck!