Future Habits Archives - The Future Mindset

why you probably have been doing meditation all wrong — Shot of a young man meditating at home

Have you ever thought meditating is difficult and not for you?

I have too had my up and downs with meditation. The feeling of uncertainty that I’m doing it all wrong. Puts me off doing it further and I feel most people who try meditation have these feelings too.

For me, I imagined meditation as clearing all my thoughts away and being in stillness. Hoping to be transcended to higher consciousness.

Furthering my research on the subject of meditation I have come to the conclusion that meditation is made up of two practices.

Being consious of thoughts and sounds that are around you
Rewiring your brain through visulisation

I hope by sharing my findings in more detail it can help you on your meditation journey.

Using The Meditation Forse For Good

When I think of meditating. Yoda always comes to mind. When I was 8 I wanted to be a Jedi Knight and use the force for good. Unfortunately, meditation hasn’t given me Jedi mind powers yet.

But research has proved that meditating is a great way to exercise the brain. Every time you meditate and you are conscious of sounds or a thought. You have just done 1 rep which equates to meditation being the biceps of the mind.

Over time the part of the brain that’s self-aware gets stronger. This helps you to be more disciplined with anything you want to focus on. From food cravings or noticing when you get distracted. It can even help identify negative thought patterns that hold you back.

By understanding that when you meditate hearing sounds of cars going by the window or worrying about a job interview is exactly what meditation is for. To be engaged and conscious of everything around you.

I used to be annoyed by this and made meditating like pulling a seat belt too hard again and again. When I realised that sounds and thoughts are part of meditation it became an enjoyable experience. I started hearing morning bird sounds more clearly and any fearful or worrying thoughts I could let pass by or address later with journalling.

Be Consious Of The Now

The world we live in today is full of distractions like never before. Hours, days, months and years can pass by like a flash without any change in our circumstances due to the distraction we face.

The time for self-reflection, ideas to flourish and new paths to pave is blocked by the constant noise from the outside world. What meditation can help with is not blocking out all the noise but being aware of it. By being aware you can now start thinking. When you start thinking you are one with yourself.

The distractions we have around us is like being hooked up to the matrix. When we meditate it’s like taking the red pill where we see our life clearly for what it is.

This is life-changing and affects people on all different levels. For me, meditation helped me become a less reactive person, more productive and increased my self-belief.

When I understood meditation is just about being conscious of the thoughts and sounds that are around me. It allowed me to be present every day.

Train The Brain Muscle Daily

When it comes to meditation I hear a lot of people say it’s not for them after just doing it once or twice. It’s like they expect something spectacular to change for them in that one sitting. Like anything worthwhile, it takes time and consistency.

Developing a meditation routine is the most important thing you can do. Just like exercising or learning a new skill, it takes practice with highs and lows along the way.

I choose to do mine upon awakening where I can focus on the quietness of the morning sounds and shape my thoughts for the day.

But as long as it gets done is all that matters.

How Meditation Can Shape Your Future

Dr Joe Dispenza has taken meditation to another level. Where you can utilise meditation for visualisation of your future self.

This focus on creating the experiences you want to come true is explained by accessing the quantum zone. For further detail on accessing the quantum zone through meditation. His book Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself is a must-read.

Entering a meditative state where you can visualise how a skill is developed or how you will entertain your guests at an event. Has been proven to shape the brain to perform this task just as effectively as if you practised it in real life.

Understanding our body is just a vessel and utilising meditation to work on the skill we want to develop and the experiences we want to have. Is a proven technique that can be highly utilised through meditation.

I have many experiences myself of picturing the future I want for it to come true. Meditating via visualisation techniques is like a director creating a movie.

What I Understand Now

I understand now that meditation is for everyone and it’s easy to get started. It felt like it was for a certain type of person and really hard but understanding that this is not true helped me enjoy meditating.

For anyone on their meditation journey here’s some of the things I do to get started and help myself make the most out of meditating.

Ask yourself what you want out of meditation
Set out a daily routine you can easily do every day
Be conscious of the sounds and your thoughts around you and embrace the good and release the bad
Utilise journalling straight after to get your thoughts onto paper to forgive, release, create or remember
Pick a separate time of the day to meditate on your future self.

Finally, mediation is not about being perfect or stopping all noise from outside and inside your mind. Meditation is about being conscious of our past to learn lessons and let go of unwanting emotions. The present to feel them now and create the future you feel and believe to be true.

Any questions or help just ask away in the comments or more personally contact me at adam@thefuturemindset.com

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Why You Can’t-Wait For Motivation

Motivation is a fickle entity. When you have it you have days of endless energy at your disposal and when it’s gone it’s the complete opposite.

Achieving motivation is crucial for anything to be achieved with the right mindset. But why is it so dam hard to replicate?

I was never taught the winning formula of how to achieve motivation. I suspect many people don’t know themselves if you asked them. But without a doubt, motivation is important and you will find countless stories of what motivation can do to change peoples lives.

So we know clearly in all our lives that motivation is important because every time we have achieved anything important or done anything we have found interesting we have been motivated to do it.

So how do we get motivated? Do we wait patiently for it to come our way? Without being conscious of doing it I’m sure we have all been suspect of waiting around for something to happen. I know I have. Persuading myself that I will be motivated later while I procrastinate in my short term motivation.

When it comes to motivation the harder and challenging the task is the slower the motivation will come your way.

Planning Creates Action

That’s why to achieve a motivation state for any challenging task that’s worthwhile you have to plan for it and foremost make it easy.

Now motivation is like playing games, going surfing or anything that you just enjoy doing. It’s going to come easier for you. I have never had to plan to watch a football match or play on my PS4 but I had to plan to complete my degree and I had to plan to write this article today. The reason why is that comfortability is a natural feeling. It’s a feeling of safety but anything challenging is a serious threat to comfortability and makes us enter the uncomfortable zone. This zone is where we need to be to progress at anything in our life that’s worthwhile but expecting to be logical and be readily motivated to do it is another story.

Plan For It To Be Easy

This goal then is to make everything you do easy to start. There can be no friction of difficulty as the chances of you doing it in percentage terms goes further down the harder the task gets.

That’s why planning your route and how you start is so important to unlocking motivation straight away.

For example, when it comes to completing my assignments or writing this article I plan to start easy. I plan to write 500 words a day. For me, that is an easy amount to get started but also worthwhile to complete. But when I first started it was 200 words a day to get me started.

Another example is when I have to do strength training. I plan to start easy by saying I will just do 10 minutes.

When it comes to planning for yourself it has to be easy for you and that’s different for everybody.

Once the plan is made easy it’s time to take action!!

Action Creates Motivation

Once you have planned the route you want to take. The next step is to take action. Action is the magic formula and most important to achieve motivation. Without action, there is no motivation. That’s why it’s important to have a simple formula to take action whenever you can.

The best way to take action is to just start. With the mind predicting every pain and downfall you can have. It’s still in the pit lane doing nothing but when you take action you are out on the track making things happen.

Action is the biggest hurdle to anyone happiness and success. It’s the hardest part because it takes effort but it’s also the most rewarding because it offers up results.

The Hurdle To Taking Action

The biggest hurdle to taking action is procrastination. The moment when you start lying to yourself that your future self will do it later.

Imagining a more disciplined and overall better person will make better decisions. This is all false and an illusion your mind tricks you into believing. The reason being the person you are tomorrow is going to be the same person thinking the same thoughts of putting it off.

The only way you can change your situation is by taking action immediately. When you can make it a habit to take action quickly all the time in your life. You will start to see amazing returns.

The skill to just get started makes things happen.

The best way to do this is to make starting easy and fun.

The opposite and what most people tend to think for example going to the gym is the traffic they will be in to get there and how hard it will be. The chances of you taking action to go are questionable for a lot of people with gym memberships.

But when you make the journey a time of listening to your favourite songs and podcasts as well as saying I’m just going to do 10 minutes and give my best. Well, that tricks the mind into thinking this is easy and fun and very comfortable.

9/10 times when you are into your workout and have all the chemicals released makes you want to carry on and do the hours workout.

Planning to get to the starting blocks is one thing but taking action to get there and just start is the hardest but most rewarding aspect to gain motivation.

Discipline Maintains Motivation

Planning and taking action when you start something new is quite easy. The new job, the new partner or the new training schedule are all exciting when they’re in their infancy. But what makes motivation last is discipline.

Discipline is the secret sauce that brings to life the person you want to become. It’s all good doing something for a day but doing it 365 days in a row is challenging. Some days will wake not feeling our best but when we disciplined to execute the plan with action you will feel accomplishment in our life. Along the way motivation will keep popping up like a long lost friend who you pick up where you left off.

There are so many things in my life where I a not motivated to do at the moment but when I follow through I actually enjoy the thing I didn’t want to do.

That’s why we should never rely just on our emotions in the moment because they don’t always tell the correct story.

How To Make It A Habit

Motivation You Have To Create It by taking action

To make this a habit you have to want to make it a habit and follow this simple system of;

Planning for it to be easy.

Make taking action easy and fun.

Be disciplined to do it when you don’t want to.

To be able to achieve all the things you want in life takes time. There is no magic wand that creates it. The mind has a powerful role to play and being self-aware to plan take action and be disciplined with your habits. You wistart to see the goals you set out to achieve, be achieved. That’s satifing because all we want to do in life is achieve the things we set out to do.

This helps to never live a life of major regret for not trying.

PLEASE COMMENT AND SHARE YOUR STORIES

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A Final Word From The Future Mindset

I hope you enjoyed today’s article The Guide To Why You Can’t-Wait For Motivation You Have To Create It. I hope the article has helped in some way.

If you want to take your mindset to the next level how about scheduling a 30-min discovery session to chat about your current status, results you want, and next steps. Don’t hesitate to contact me at adam@thefuturemindset.com

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