Have the rare willpower to timely meditate once a day?

Many of us in the west run around trying to get more done in less time. Speed and hectic seem to be the go-to tools to accomplish this feat. Focus and balance are important to perform well under stress in sports as well as business. Yet we often overlook that stopping, cleansing our mind from clutter and focusing might be just the way to achieve these means. I outlined in this post how I started meditating and how it impacted my life. Let me know in the comments what you do to stay focused and keep your mind healthy.

Tools of Titans

In 2017 I got the book Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris on my usual airport book shopping sprees (which also, uncharacteristically, involved books for my son and fiancée too as we were travelling together to Rio). One thing which runs like a red line through this book is the power of meditation or routine repeated every day which resembles it. This made me think on how to implement this in my own life. Hence I had been a stressed mess lately with a very short fuse. Very unpleasant to be around as you would never know when I would go off.

Practice Focus

The first thing I started to do is to enjoy my moments more. This involves putting down the phone more, getting the earbuds out more and appreciate the food that is on the table or the first sip of tea of the day (which this book also changed to bulletproof tea by the way). It is not necessarily meditation but helps to practice focus. When you walk to your daily train commute try to listen to the birds. If you listen to music focus on that one beat or snare of your favourite song and how it is built rather than listening mindlessly listen to the same playlist repeatedly. Another tip out of Ferris’s book which is easy to implement is to pick some random people during the day. Once you picked them, in your head, which them all the best for their lives and that they fulfil their dreams and reach their goals. This will immediately make you feel better and sets you on a trajectory of positive reinforcement. All of these things are warm up habits which do not disrupt your current habits and schedule. The next thing will change everything

How to meditate

The best time to meditate just like exercising is before anyone else in your house got up. For me, that is before six o clock. I get up and go down into the living room, turn on the PlayStation and run YouTube on the big screen. At first, I picked Alan Watts lectures but after experimenting with them a little I found them to be too negative and cynical to drive results and get me set up best for the day. Therefore, I changed to a motivational video called “end laziness”. The main factor for this video is the duration of a bit over ten minutes which is the time Ferris recommends to meditate. I sit down and cross my legs, close my eyes and roll the video. While I am in this position I try as good as I can to focus on the audio of the video. Do not be discouraged if your mind wanders at first, keep at it and refocus. The more you do it the better you will get. There are also others ways which a faster and more impactful but these usually involve drugs, going into seclusion in a monastery or using floating therapy. For the average joe like you and me who have not yet radically changed their lives yet, I feel like this is the best bet.

Personal experience

Since I started meditating in the mornings I could get my Pin squat up from 250kg to 280g in the first week and committed myself to producing a blog post a day, which is a commitment I kept. I also feel like that I am on a longer fuse even though I have a wedding coming up, a person to evict from my house and work on options to leave Ireland to achieve our family life goes. I am still figuring things are meditation out. I made it a habit, which is a great start and success, change and development are all about beginnings.

Keep track of your meditation

If you struggle to incorporate a new practice like meditation into your life it helps to track your progress. With most things, I have done in my life like running, lifting and meditating I observe the first noticeable changes within seven days. A new habit is usually formed after sticking to it for thirty days (in case you did not notice that is why there are so many 30-day challenges around, apart from it neatly aligning with a month). For this purpose, you will find a download of a little 30-day worksheet at the end of this post for free. Print it out and put it on your fridge. Cross off the days you meditated and pat yourself on the back. This is way more satisfying the keeping track of things in an app and is more likely to set you up to succeed. All related to how the brain works.

Conclusion

Meditating helped quickly to become calmer and get the tasks of the days done quicker with more focus. I am convinced that the 10 minutes in the morning are well invested in being a more pleasant person to be around and be happier with my life and it is not hard to do.