Sit happens: Hello stillness, my old friend...

It takes 10,000 hours of practise to gain mastery of a skill. Or so the oft-quoted motivation goes. While the marvellous maxim sounds inspiring, like most simplistic soundbites, it's not entirely reflected in actual practice.

After a recent run of reading Malcolm Gladwell's brilliant books (the 10,000 hour rule is found in Outliers), I began to wonder what 10,000 hours of practise looks like. To reach 10,000 hours of practise takes a whopping three hours of practise every day...for just over nine years.

Three hours of practise every day seemed like a lot, until I considered the average daily time we spend on our phones can range between three and six hours. That doesn't include time frittered away elsewhere (checking emails, attending junk meetings, and so on).

As for many of us, this year has been a busy one for me and, for many people, self-care seemed to transform into a mythical creature as 2020 turned our norms upside down and cranked the stress levels all the way up to 11.

During a recent online session teaching meditation, it dawned on me that I hadn't meditated properly in a long while. Aside from 5-10 minute guided exercises in counselling sessions, I forgot the last time I sat down and meditated for a longer period.

I began meditating by accident, kind of. When I was in my early teens (and my hamstrings were still elastic), I took a karate class and the instructor would begin and end each training with a five-minute breath meditation. I preferred this to being kicked in the face and asked the instructor what purpose this breathing exercise served. He handed me a book on Zen meditation and so began my foray into meditation.

Back then, I used to suffer from regular headaches, and my social anxiety was through the roof. I was a big admirer of the author J.D. Salinger ('Catcher in the Rye') at school and, when a teacher asked why, I replied, "Because he lived as a recluse after publishing the book!"

I would practise meditation every day, partly thinking that, if I mastered the practice, the Shaolin monks would have to adopt me. Some time after, I realised the headaches had all but disappeared, and I was able to socialise without worrying what everyone thought of my socks. My mind became sharper, too, which was great since it led to fewer kicks to the face during sparring. It was like a superpower (I'm not a fan of anything being called a superpower, but meditation was transformative for me).

Throughout 2020, my meditation practice has taken a back seat, and while I'm sure three hours per day for nine years is a bit ambitious for me, I've decided to set my first New Year's Resolution since I was about 10 (giving up cookies lasted an impressive three days) and will aim to commit to three hours of meditation practice every day from January 1. I'll be attempting this for a few reasons:

1) Leading by example I regularly encourage clients to schedule time for self-care, whatever that means to them, and yet I don't heed my own guidance nearly enough. I appreciate that my clients face all sorts of struggles finding time for themselves, and so I really wanted to test that out for myself. I'm sure there'll be days when I'm too busy, challenges arise, or I simply can't be bothered to meditate. I want to see - and document - how I deal with whatever arises, and plan to write a monthly article on my progress and setbacks.

2) Being my own case study During my stays at Amaravati Buddhist monastery, the daily schedule included six hours of formal meditation practice. I can remember what that feels like much in the same way my uncle remembers his football trials as a young athlete decades ago. Returning seriously to meditation will help me reconnect to the practice and get a deeper sense of the benefits, challenges, and risks. I'll document these, too, and share how it affects me over time. (Much of the research into mindfulness uses a measure of one-two hours total time of meditation per week for 6-12 weeks. I'll be curious to see what comes with a three-hour daily practice over the course of a year.

3) Doing what I enjoy - and not waiting for motivation Something I tell my clients is, "Those changes you'd like to make sound wonderful...and they can only come about if you commit to working toward them." Although I am busy these days, I'm not so busy that I couldn't find time for Barack Obama if he wanted to chat for a few hours each day. How much more important is my health? Meditation is something I enjoy - and it's beneficial for our mental and physical well-being - and so, instead of waiting around for motivation to show up, this Resolution will help strengthen my discipline muscle when it comes to self-care.

4) A reminder that it's OK to not always get it right I know there will be days I don't manage the three hours of meditation...and that's fine. Too often, we're hard on ourselves to the point where nothing less than perfection will do, which requires being something more than human. This idea isn't a competition to see if I can outdo myself. It's a reminder to slow down, to acknowledge that it's not only OK but essential to take time out, and if that means one hour instead of three on some days, that's perfectly fine. I hope also that whatever I share can inspire people to find more time for themselves, too. That could mean going for a walk or run, time spent with family, chilling out with a movie or two, or simply relaxing by doing absolutely nothing at all.

I imagine this experiment of mine will throw up all kinds of interesting outcomes. While I don't plan on having a schedule, finding the time should be easy enough. An hour at lunchtime, two hours in the evening, and I should still have an hour or two to read, or wrestle (mindfully) with the dog.

But what I'm most looking forward to is reconnecting to a more substantial meditation practice, not least of all because it'll provide me with an opportunity to be more mindful and compassionate of people's struggles as they figure out how to be less "on the go". It might even improve my patience in the face of traffic jams and reduce my sadness as I glimpse the bottom of the cendol bowl...if that happens, I'll know meditation really is a superpower.

Sandy is a licensed and practising mental health counsellor in Malaysia. He's also the 'Sunny Side Up' columnist for The Star newspaper, author of 'Mindfulness and Emotions', and maintains an online therapy practice called MindfulSpace Therapy. He is unsure why he writes in third-person.