I’ve completely transformed myself and my life as as a result of learning to meditate.
It is without doubt THE most important skill I have developed over the years.
Here are 5 ways it can help transform your life.
1. Calm Your Mind So You’re Less Stressed & Can Cope With Your Busy Schedule
During the day you’re thinking about all the things you need to do: your daily responsibilities, responding to emails at work, what you’re having for your next meal etc.
You’ve got all these things occupying your mind that you ‘need’ to think about, that you ‘need’ to get done and the result is that there is no calmness or stillness internally because your mind is constantly on the go.
Meditation helps you take a break from all that thinking and all that doing.
By choosing to spend a few minutes each day focusing on the breath you calm and still the mind.
When your mind is calmer, you’ll feel less stressed and able to handle your day with more clarity so you can get more done in less time
2. Become More Focused & Productive So You Accomplish Your Goals
When you meditate you focus your attention on the present moment using the breath.
Through regular practice you train your brain to be more focused and more familiar with returning to the present moment.
This helps you stay more present and focused in daily life. When you are less distracted, you can be more effective and productive. Meeting deadlines becomes easier and achieving goals becomes faster.
Becoming more focused doesn’t happen instantly because the mind tends to be very busy thinking about lots of different things.
It takes time and regular practice to build this skill hence why you want to make meditation a habit, rather than something you do now and again.
During meditation you notice thoughts appearing and then gently let go of them.
3. Stop The Negative Thought Spiral & Beating Yourself up Over Mistakes
This can help you let go of more challenging thoughts throughout your day.
Thoughts about something you said to someone that you wish you hadn’t and now you can’t stop thinking about it.
Thoughts where you criticise yourself because you made a mistake at work or in a job interview and now you can’t seem to let it go.
When you allow thoughts like these to continuously play out, you can start to create a story which shapes a negative view of the way you see yourself.
By training yourself to notice thoughts and let go of them, you learn to become less attached to them, enabling you to escape the negative spiral.
4. Become More Disciplined & Make and Make Choices That Help You Stick To Your Healthy Habits
Meditation teaches you to catch your thoughts, pause and then make a choice about how you wish to respond.
Rather than hitting the snooze button, you think about the consequences of making that choice.
You take a moment to think about how going to the gym will make you feel good, get you in better shape and get you energised for the rest of your day.
Now instead of hitting snooze repeatedly, you’re jumping out of bed and sticking to your goal of getting fitter and healthier.
The same goes if you’ve had a bad day. Instead of reaching for crappy food or booze to make you feel good in the moment, you are more likely to catch yourself and think about the consequences of your choice.
5. Be In Control Of Your Emotions So You’re Nicer To Be Around
Let’s say your partner tells you that you did something wrong in the hope that you won’t do it again next time.
Instead of taking the feedback as a way to improve, maybe you take it personally and snap back at them for criticising you.
Meditation develops the art of awareness and the ability to pause and choose your response.
This is how the practice can help you catch that emotion as it arises and enable you to respond to it in a more measured and positive way.
Either by having a dialogue with your partner where you discuss the issue or to let the feelings go and accept you did something wrong and move on.
What I love about meditation is that it can be done anytime, anywhere.
And once you master the basics it can bring so many more benefits than the ^^ 5 listed above.
All human beings have an innate desire to overcome suffering, to find happiness. Training the mind to think differently, through meditation, is one important way to avoid suffering and be happy.
– Dalai Lama
Joe : )
Interested in learning how to meditate?