A habit building blueprint

🍿5 thoughts on how I'm building my meditation habit.

Hola! Welcome to the 160th consecutive edition of the newsletter.

For this edition I’m going to write about a single topic — a behind the scenes look at how I am building a meditation habit after a decade of failed attempts.

Below is a breakdown of my approach.

But please keep this in mind.

While I am talking about building a meditation habit, the principles I share can and should be applied to any habit you want to build.

You down with that? Great! Let’s start with…

The backstory…

I have long wanted to build a meditation habit, but have never had any lasting success.

I did manage a 2 month streak a few years ago, doing 30 minutes a day, but there was so much resistance around it that I stopped and haven’t attempted to try again until now.

My big takeaway from my last failure was that I started TOO BIG. Thirty minutes was way beyond my capabilities. As a result, I had to constantly use force to make myself meditate.

Force, in any area of life, can do wonders in the short-term. But it doesn’t scale long-term, because it requires a tremendous amount of energy, that eventually burns us out.

So here are the steps I have taken to avoid meditation burn out this time.

Takeaway — Force doesn’t scale long term. 

1/ Start smaller.

Small is relative, but the first step is to start where you are at.

In my case, 1 minute was too easy and 30 minutes was too hard.

But 5 minutes was just right — enough to stretch me, but not enough to break me.

And that’s the key. Find a threshold that pushes you to grow, but won’t break you.

Takeaway — When building a new habit find your beginners sweet spot that will stretch you, but won’t break you.

2/ Create a protocol.

Design something that fits your philosophy, psychology and abilities.

First, I decided to make the habit a 3-for-1 activity.

While doing my 5-minute meditation, I would also take an HRV reading and practice my breath work — 4 count in and 6 out.

Second, I added a few tools to help me focus.

I’m easily distracted when I meditate, so for each session I wear silicon ear plugs to block out ambient noise and a sleep mask to block out light.

That combination has done wonders for my focus.

3/ Design your own rules.

A big mistake we make when adopting habits is to follow the “rules” that others have set.

That never works for me, and probably not for you either.

The only way I can succeed with anything is to tweak the existing rules so they are unique to me.

So my meditation rule is simple.

Focus on my breathing and observe the thoughts that pop into my head.

That’s it.

Takeaway — Design rules that work for your DNA.

4/ Create a habit directive.

My mediation practice revealed a bugaboo I have been making with my habit approach my whole life.

Anytime I adopt a new habit, my goal is to complete it sometime before the day comes to a close.

But that open-ended approach wreaks havoc on the brain.

The brain thrives on clarity.

My previous approach offered zero clarity.

So I created something called The Habit Directive, based off insights I learned from James Clear’s work in Atomic Habits.

There are 3 essential steps and one optional step to A Habit Directive…

• Identify the habit.

• Identify the habit trigger.

• Identify the habit duration?

• Identify other habits I might be able to bundle with it (optional)

Here is what my meditation habit directive looks like.

I will do a 5-minute meditation after my first coffee, while taking an HRV reading and doing breath work practice - 4 count in, 6 count out.

This directive creates absolute clarity for my brain, thus skewing the odds of success in my favour.

Fun Fact — Studies show that habit directives improve success dramatically.

Five. Record and reflect.

My goal is to make this a lifetime habit.

So it’s important I record and reflect on my results.

Recording…

I’m using an app called, Habit list.

Every time I achieve my 5-minute meditation goal I record it in the app.

It logs my streak, which presently stands at 11 days in a row.

Reflecting…

It’s not enough to just do a habit. I have to think deeply about all aspects of it, so I can maximize its impact on my life.

So when ideas come up, like The Habit Directive, I make sure to log them in my 3-2-1 Successful Body Journal which I have created in an app called Notion.

I’m still early on this journey, but I like the protocol I have in place. It is the most intentional I have ever been with a new habit.

Takeaway — What gets measured gets managed. What gets managed, gets mastered.

Next steps…

I’m only 11 days into my new protocol, so it’s way too early to jump to any conclusions.

At this point, my goals are simple.

• don’t break the chain.

• get 30 days in a row.

• tweak my meditation philosophy and habit directive as new information comes to light.

• observe changes in my life, if any, as a result of this habit.

• keep it at 5 minutes for the next 30 days and then reassess my goals

• apply the blueprint to other habits

• take it one day at time

Takeaway — Start with what you know, then grow as you go.

*****

That’s it for today. 🙏 Thanks for reading.

Let me know what you thought of this format.

Keep being awesome my friend.

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