MCI: The Daily Meditation
This is my first blog post pertaining to my MC’s (or Monthly Challenges).
In these monthly challenges, I will be experimenting with different habits, skills, diets, etc just to see what happens!
As a Brief Recap of what these MC’s are for:
I have been really enjoying my readings about top performance, self-help, productivity, habit-forming, etc, etc. One of my influences is a guy by the name of Tim Ferris. Super sick dude. Wrote some dope books. Talked about him in the last post and still highly recommend checking him out. (Another prominent dude who does a similar thing is Matt D’Avella! I’ll be mentioning his name a lot also. Again. Super dope dude. Check him out).
Something that I think comes along with all this reading is knowledge. And knowledge is great! BUT, without ACTION (or some sort of implementation), it is worthless.
In this series, I am going to be dedicated and disciplined to a practice for a month.
Some practices may stick and I will continue to push further//make it a habit…and some will suck and not be beneficial and I will drop them.
MO: Gain that XP and find out!!!
In these post’s I will be covering:
Why:
Why did I choose this habit? What were the outcomes I wanted to see?
How:
How did I do this? What helped me to stay disciplined for an entire month?
What:
What were the actual results? My thoughts, overall rating, and will I continue?
SO,
Let’s get into it.
December of 2020, I meditated every morning using the Calm app, on my phone.
During my personal studies of top performers, many had some sort of similar practice that was in the realm of mindfulness or meditation. It was what they claimed clears their mind, helps them focus, and helps them be more present.
All of those seem pretty healthy, right?
I had tried meditating before, however, it was on and off. I only turned to it when I was really stressed, and since it was not consistent, I never got to reap any of those long term benefits mentioned above.
And thus, the first MC was decided.
I already mentioned it, but I used the Calm app and used their guided meditations for about 10min every morning. (Huge shout out to my sister for letting me yoink her account for a month…. <3:)
On the app, I set a goal to meditate once every day. Once I completed it, it leaves a check-mark for that day.
I was working on campus, over the winter break. So, I was in a small room, by myself, with little responsibility, so that gave me some impetus to keep going. I set a daily reminder on my phone for 8 am, to remind me to meditate. (I also set one on the Calm app, to double remind me).
There were only two mornings, where I did not get a morning meditation, BUT, I did get it in before midnight…so I still got that checkmark for the day;)
I set my phone and speaker by my bedside. I would wake up, turn off the alarm, turn on the speaker, use the restroom, put on some pants and a shirt, then sit down in a “relaxed yet wakeful” position to meditate.
Sometimes, I would get changed, then grab a coffee, then meditate.
Either way, I tried to be as consistent with this routine as possible, so I could just wake up and automatically do it.
The only two times I missed the morning, I stayed the night at my home-home and had to make it up at night when I got back on campus.
So, what were the results?
Honestly, the first week flew by and was pretty easy. This was mainly because I was excited about embarking on this new challenge, and actually DOING.
As for what “types” of mediations I was doing (this would/should/could probably be in the “How” section lol..but I may edit it in-post…or just leave it lol) ANYWAY! I mostly did these groups of “themed” meditations such as “The Confidence Series,” “7 Days of Managing Stress, “Staying on Track,” and LeBron’s “Train Your Mind.” Most of these were 4-7 day meditations.
I felt this was great for me, especially for consistency (and also having something to reflect on for my journal challenge *eyes*)
So what did I experience after a month?
Here were my top 3 benefits:
1. It improved my Focus
Well, to be real. Truly meditating and being 100% in it…was pretty hard for me most of the time. Hard in the sense that I have a Monkey Mind and I would only really hone onto my breath 7-8-9 minutes into the session…then the meditation was over.
But, I think that was the point… Just like anything, it takes good, consistent, and intentional practice to get better at it. For me, the overall goal of each meditation was being able to observe my thoughts, or when I became distracted by them, being able to control and pull my attention back to something else; aka the breath.
When I get unfocused now, I find myself taking deep breaths, and this kind of pavlovian-ly makes me take a second to re-focus….(Unfortunately, I would love to just breathe deeply a couple of times and then be able to keep focus on anything lol…but I am nowhere near that…yet).
Also also…As I alluded to, after I meditated, I went straight into journaling. Subsequently, I would try to stay off my phone (as much as possible) and accomplish some sort of deep work before noon/lunchtime. Meditation was the start of this morning routine.
2. It helped me self-reflect
This was prompted mostly by the journaling challenge, but it really helped that many of the Calm app’s guided meditations were very topical/intentional in this sense. For example, if there were a guided mediation about self-confidence or being anxious that day–right after the meditation, I would journal down the lesson, how it made me feel, etc.
It was like I meditated and it gave me a free prompt to dig further into myself with.
3. It helped me to be more calm/present
Something that the Calm app already has built-in, are “Daily Check-ins.” Basically, it records what your mood is like before going into meditation and after. 98.67% of the time, even if my mood only increased by 50 bips (0.50%//aka half a percent;) and an increase is an increase and the time spent has always been worth it.
Lastly, I know that using apps or guided meditations may seem “noobish.” It’s not really TM (transcendental meditation) or mantra-based, or for an extended period of time, like an hour+ a day, BUT I think they are absolutely amazing for someone who wants to start being mindful or wants to try to meditate consistently.
Since, I am posting this about a month since the challenge lol, I can already say that I have been trying to implement this into a “more-permanent” routine//making this a daily habit. I took off a week in January because I was in Colorado, but since then, I have been trying to meditate every morning. The mornings I don’t meditate, I feel “off-balanced” or feel that I am “rushing around” and overall am just less present.
I now need that time to breathe and set myself up for the day.
I would, however, also like to push this habit further. I want to experiment with TM, Mantra-based, and just longer meditations. There are also mediations that allow your brain to be “Monkey-Minded” and are for idea creation and just help clear your mental cache!
TLDR: I think meditation is like any training or exercise…but for your mind. I hope the more I do it, the more mental “gainz” I can get and overall just have more control over my thoughts, mood, focus, and actions.
Ant Rating: 9.3/10 Would continue//Would recommend.