May 2022 is the tenth month since I started practicing meditation daily. I do transcendental meditation (TM), and the practice is 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening. It is the first thing I do when I wake up, and as a quick pause in my day later in the evening. So far, I have logged 192.5 hours in 519 sessions since I began my meditation practice in August 2021.

I signed up to learn transcendental meditation to remedy my anxiety and insomnia. I was desperate to sleep through the night and build better mental resiliency. After the initial course, I was worried if I could stick to it.

Then I incorporated two mindsets, which helped me build and maintain my daily meditation practice.

Mindset #1 To stop expecting immediate results

Mindset #2 To stop anticipating an outcome

As a multi-passionate individual, one of my challenges is to instill a habit long enough to experience the benefits. I have the curse of the shiny object syndrome, where chasing new interests are fun but sticking to them long enough to see the benefits are tough. What’s most damaging when I try to develop a habit and then fall through it is that it robs me of the confidence that I can accomplish bigger goals in life.

Meditation is a lifelong practice, there is no due date when forming the habit. By removing the anticipation of arriving at a certain point or seeing immediate results, I practice meditation as an end in itself. Instead I focus on building consistency and it has worked for me. 

What has helped you build lifelong habits?