Meditation Part 1: Owner of your time

Two years ago, I started meditating daily and it's changed my approach to life. This is the first step in starting that journey.

Before establishing a consistent practice, I would struggle to string together more than 3 or 4 straight days of a five-minute meditation. Here's a view (June & July 2022) from the Balance App I use:

I was able to sit still meditating for 5, 10 or even 15 minutes at a time but why was it so hard to do that regularly? In a day where there's 1,440 minutes, why did taking 5 minutes of that (or less than 0.4% of the total day) feel like I was signing away my life and completely upending my day?

We know the benefits of meditating regularly (even traditional medicine/science fully agrees), yet only 20% of adults do so. The Mayo Clinic has published a great overview of meditation impact here. Some of the key benefits they highlight - lower stress, lower blood pressure, reduced negative feelings, heightened creativity, more patience, and better sleep. If those benefits were in pill-form (risk-free), I wonder what percentage of people would take it? I definitely would.

So why was it so difficult for me to take 0.4% of the day to get all those benefits?

I didn't own my time.

Do you own your time?

At that point in 2022, I didn't realize how many distractions I had allowed to pull my attention away. Valuable attention that I wanted to give to something I knew would benefit my long-term well-being; the opportunity cost was massive. When I realized I was choosing short-term reactions over a long-term health benefit, I knew I wasn't the true owner of my time.

For me it was a lack of boundaries (at least the starting place). The terminally online world is open 24/7/365, and certainly has its benefits but can be extremely detrimental for people-pleasing folks, like me, who struggle with boundaries. I thought constant task-switching, quick responses, and an "always able mindset" meant I was more valuable, but it didn't feel that way to me... The idea of being more valuable to others wasn't aligning with my own values. The sheer fact that I didn't feel like I could fit 5 minutes of meditation into my daily routine proved that point - how would I make larger impacts in life if I couldn't make a healthy 0.4% adjustment to my day?

To make room for change and growth, I had to start with what was closest to me. The things, people, and activities with access that occupy my daily time. Here are a few of those realizations that started to change my perception and ownership of time:

Owning your time

1. Set your daily sights - Identify one meaningful item you want to accomplish for the day. Leave room for flexibility but make sure unplanned items that come up throughout the day don't fully pull you too far from accomplishing what you desire. Reflection: What's the most important thing to accomplish today?
2. Build notification boundaries - Silencing all pop-up notifications & noises (Outlook, iMessage, WhatsApp, other Apps). Decide when you're working towards your daily goals to close down the 24/7 communication channels for full focus. I also stopped replying immediately to any message, unless it was urgent by my own definition. Reflection: How often are you switching tasks because someone else asked?
3. Identify daily unconscious habits - Things you don't realize you do every day (scrolling news, checking the stock market again, social media, YouTube, Netflix), aka the 'total consumption time'. I started by just becoming aware of that total amount of time each day and then slowly adjusting over time. Reflection: What daily activities are so deeply ingrained that you don't even think about them?
4. Review social commitments - I said yes to a lot of things and realized I wasn't thinking about what I was forgoing, fearing I'd let other people down. Whether it was drinks after a meeting or a longer than anticipated phone call - I started to realize I was putting most other things ahead of what I had wanted to accomplish that day. If I haven't accomplished what I've wanted for the day, I now politely decline. Reflection: What could you spend time on if you said "no" to an activity?

Having an idea of where you want to go seems obvious but is easily overlooked with all the inputs thrown into the mix throughout the day.

With a clear view for each day and stronger boundaries with technology and communication, I not only found the time for daily meditation, I also started to feel when I needed it.

Hope this helps you to refocus back to what you value.

Reflection Question: What's the most important thing you want to accomplish today?