Meditate Every Day. It'll Change Your Life.

One day, I developed a system that allowed me to meditate consistently every single morning. I've been using that system for the last 10 years and it’s changed my life.

I recently taught this system to my client, Ryan, who wanted to meditate more consistently. He's been meditating every single day since our conversation.

If we can do it, you can do it.

Let's look at the system through the lens of the three most common excuses that people use for not meditating consistently. Then I'll show you how to overcome each one.

Excuse #1: “I Don’t Have The Time.”

The first thing I'd say is this isn't so much about time, it's about priorities. We prioritize the things that are important to us. If working out is important to you, you're going to make time for it. If it's not important to you, you're not going to prioritize it.

There's this little saying in Zen, “If you don't have 20 minutes to meditate, you need 2 hours.” Something like that. And the idea is, if you feel like you're too busy in life, that's probably the time when meditation is going to benefit you the most.

The cool thing about meditation is it doesn't really take up-time. In a way, meditation creates more time. If you take a little bit of time in the morning to meditate, chances are you're going to be more productive with the time that you have left over for the rest of the day (versus if you're just unfocused, stressed, or worried).

At one point I just realized “I work out every day to train my body. Why wouldn’t I meditate every day to train my mind and emotions?”

The first thing we need to do is to lower the bar. I'd recommend you meditate for just 10 minutes a day. If you want to do more than that, you're already sitting and you're feeling good, feel free to do more. But if you feel like you need to do 20 or 30 minutes a day for it to count, it's going to be very hard to be consistent.

So, if you can only do two minutes, set the bar at two minutes. The point right now is to become consistent, to build the habit. It's not to perfect the habit or optimize the habit. So, first part of the system: 10 minutes a day.

Excuse #2: “Meditation Doesn’t Work For Me.”

You might have tried meditation. You could even make time for it. But there's this feeling like you're not good at it or you're not doing it well.

This is a very common misconception, and it comes from the idea that there's a problem with thinking. You notice yourself thinking, you get lost in thought, and you say, “Shit, I must not be a good meditator.”

But actually, noticing your thinking is the point. Noticing your thinking is a sign of progress in meditation. That's really all you're doing: noticing when you get distracted and coming back to your anchor, whether that's the breath, sound, feelings in your hands, etc.

Coming back to that anchor is like doing a bicep curl. That's you getting your reps in when it comes to meditation. Because think about this, you might not feel great after every workout. Some workouts you might feel good after, but some you might not. You might feel sore, you might feel tired. The thing about meditation is that it can bring up emotions. It can bring up feelings that you've been numbing. But now that you're sitting and not doing anything, they're going to come up.

You won't always feel better after meditation in the short term. The sign of success is simply to ask, “Am I returning back? Am I noticing my thinking?” If you're doing that, you can give yourself a pat on the back because you're doing it right.

The second part of the system is that we're just returning from thought. You can think of it as shitty meditation. That's the bar. So 10 minutes of shitty meditation, coming back from thought.

Excuse #2: “I Forget To Meditate.”

I used to, for a long time, just say, “All right, I’ve got to meditate tomorrow. I’ve got to remember to do that.” But the day would happen. Things would come up. And then, by the end of the day, it was too late. I was exhausted. I just wanted to go to bed.

Here's the fix for this: We’ve got to do meditation right at the beginning of the day. First thing in the morning, as soon as we wake up. If you don't do it then, it's very easy for it to get swept aside. That's our trigger. Do it first thing in the morning, right after you brush your teeth.

When I was coaching my client, Ryan on this, what we had him do was put a post-it note on the mirror so that, when he was brushing his teeth, he would immediately be reminded, “Okay, I’ve got to go meditate. I've made this commitment.” If you need to put a post-it note on the mirror or a post-it note on your phone so you don't pick that up and go down a rabbit hole, then do that.

If you don't do it first thing in the morning for some reason, but later in the day you remember, do it right then. That's your trigger. Stop what you're doing and take some breaths so you can check the box for that day.

Final Thoughts

Okay, so let's summarize this system:

• 10 minutes

• of coming back from thought

• every single morning

If you do those three things, you're going to be more consistent than 99% of meditators.

But here's the thing. You're still going to have some days where you're not going to feel like it. Where you're going to wake up, be a little bit tired, or want to jump into work. And for those times, you're going to need some discipline.

Everything I just taught you won't work as well unless you're able to cultivate a little bit of discipline. For that, check out the next video I have on Lazy Self Discipline.