2 Myths About Meditation + 5 Tips for Committing to a Meditation Practice

Are you having trouble committing to a meditation practice?

When you do sit down to meditate, do you often get distracted, feel frustrated—or descend into darkness?

You’re not alone.

Understanding what meditation is—and what it isn’t—can help you reset your expectations and set realistic goals for your practice.

2 Common Myths About Meditation

Myth #1: You have to do it for a long time. If you were a couch potato and you decided to train for a marathon, you wouldn’t kick off your training by running 20 miles. You’d start small. The same is true for meditation. You can start with three deep breaths a day. Or one minute a day. The key is to be honest with yourself about an approach to meditation that feels challenging yet doable. 

Myth #2: The voice in your head is too loud. If you feel like the negative voices in your mind are talking to you all the time, meditation can be especially helpful for you. As difficult as it can be, you want to listen to what your negative mind is telling you so you can gradually learn to separate yourself from it.

The goal is to observe the voice in your head as if you were a scientist. We’re used to having this voice constantly tell us things that make us feel badly about ourselves. With meditation, we learn to see this voice for what it is — and to practice taking away its power. As I like to tell my clients, you don’t always have to believe what you think.

Committing to Your Practice

Once you start a meditation practice, the most challenging part can be sticking with it. It’s difficult to keep doing something the negative voices in your head resist. It can also be hard to process the long-repressed feelings that often come up during meditation.

For better or worse, dark emotions are a natural part of the process. When you decide to grow, the ego/negative mind automatically resists. Why? Because even if you want your life to be better, it’s more comfortable to be in the known than the unknown.

So when you feel that resistance from your negative mind during meditation, it’s actually a sign that you’re getting somewhere. 

The Act is What Matters

If you start to feel frustrated, disconnected, or sad during meditation, the important thing to remember is that just the act of doing it is valuable. 

As a great meditation teacher once told me, “The goal is to accept everything you possibly can. All situations. All people, at all times. Including yourself.” 

In other words, try not to judge yourself for how you’re meditating. Instead, think of the act itself as part of the growth process. The fact that you’re putting energy and intention into accepting and improving yourself is what truly matters. 

Here’s another way to think about it: Every decision and action you take throughout the day is either moving you toward something positive or holding you back. Nothing is neutral. 

So when you make the decision to meditate, you’re deciding to move toward something positive, regardless of what happens during that time. 

Take Baby Steps

Taking baby steps is an important key to sticking with your meditation practice (or any growth practice). As with anything you want to change in your life, it’s important to begin slowly.

Start meditating for short periods of time. Make the goal attainable. When you think about doing it, it should feel easy, not overwhelming. When it starts to feel too easy, you can gradually add a minute or two to your practice.

Write it Down

Whether you’re meditating for one minute a day, doing a ten-minute guided meditation, or doing longer sits, it’s important to add your meditation sessions to your calendar.

Why? 

Treating meditation like an appointment makes it easier to be consistent about it. If you just promise yourself to meditate at some point, your mind will come up with a thousand reasons why there are more important things to do.

Classes or meetups can also help you deepen your commitment to your meditation practice. Meditating in a group with an instructor makes it easier to do longer sits—and experiment with different techniques. It can also help you create a schedule around your practice.

Reward Yourself

Every time you meditate, it’s important to acknowledge yourself. Take a moment to recognize yourself for following through on your commitment to calming your mind. This is what I call creating a positive momentum loop.

Many of us are used to being in a negative momentum loop, where we take a step in a positive direction but don’t acknowledge ourselves for it. When we meditate for five minutes, we tell ourselves it’s no big deal. Instead of recognizing ourselves for doing it, we move on to the next thing on our to-do list.

But what happens when you recognize yourself for making the choice to meditate? You feel a little bit better about yourself. Your mood goes up. And you’re more motivated to keep meditating.

Besides acknowledging yourself every time you meditate, it’s important to reward yourself in a tangible way when you complete a streak. If you meditate every day for a week, two weeks, or forty days, make a point to do something you love or treat yourself to something that makes you feel good. This way, you continue to feed your motivation to meditate by connecting it to other things that bring you joy.

Do you want to learn more about how build a meditation practice? In my new book, Life Launch, I write about how and why to meditate, along with exploring other practical yet profound ways to take care of your spirit. Download a sample chapter here.