Here’s the deal: to make changes that last you have to find the benefits you receive from doing your desired behavior compelling.

There’s a huge chasm between what we believe is important and what is truly compelling enough to fit into our daily lives.

We easily endorse values (“good health”, “being patient”) and behaviors (eating well, taking time to relax, etc.) we believe are “important” but when it comes down to living our crazy busy lives not fit these behaviors in.

We live in such a fast-paced world and have so much on our plates that the only way we’ll keep a behavior up (especially if it takes any significant time to do) is if NOT doing it has sufficiently negative consequences and/or we find the benefits from our desired behavior deeply compelling.

I’ve been struggling, myself, to practice meditation regularly, since our son was born (almost 3 years ago). It’s felt important for me to do because I know about the benefits and remember feeling good about doing it in the past. But, that hasn’t been sufficient to GET ME to do it!

I don’t know if I read something from Pema Chodron (one of my heroes) or had an insight, but I felt a really deep knowing that daily meditation would truly impact my growing-crazier-by-day life in real ways that I would notice and benefit from.

I decided to experiment with a daily mid-day break of 5-10 minutes, or so, to stretch and meditate. Yes, at first pulling myself away from the computer and work was challenging. But, the duration is so short (and I often do it when I eat lunch) that “not having time” isn’t a barrier that is getting in my way.

So far, maybe 4-6 weeks into it, it’s going well! I haven’t done it every day but do it most. I both appreciate the act of self-care I’m doing as well as find that this meditation, even only five minutes, is helping to center me.

While “more might be better”, I’m not letting that mentality undermine my goal. My, albeit brief, daily meditation has become compelling enough to keep it up despite the craziness that life brings.

Is there anything that you’d like to try that could  BENEFIT YOUR DAILY LIFE AND BECOME DEEPLY COMPELLING TO YOU?

Would you be interested in trying it for,  say, even two minutes a day, just to see how you feel?