How to start meditating

Summary

The video emphasizes the importance of consistent meditation for self-improvement, contrasting two characters: Jeffrey, who avoids meditating due to confusion, and Adonis, who perseveres despite initial challenges. It likens meditation to a workout, explaining that each realization of unmindfulness is like a 'rep' for the brain. The speaker encourages viewers to meditate daily, treating it as a lifelong habit, much like eating or sleeping, and reminds them that persistence is key to gaining mindfulness benefits over time. The video ends with a call to action for viewers to commit to meditation and self-improvement.

Takeaways

• 🧘‍♂️ Meditation is essential for self-improvement, but many struggle to understand or practice it consistently.
• 🤔 Beginners often feel confused and frustrated when starting meditation, which is a normal part of the process.
• 💪 Consistent practice is crucial; showing up every day, even if it feels ineffective, is better than not practicing at all.
• 🏀 Meditation is like practicing a sport; even if you don't fully understand it, just practicing will lead to improvement over time.
• 📱 Using a meditation app like Medito can help guide daily practice, making it easier to stay consistent.
• 🦎 Meditation helps reduce the influence of the 'lizard brain,' the part of us that makes impulsive and unproductive decisions.
• 🏋️‍♀️ Each time you refocus during meditation, it's like doing a 'rep' for the brain, strengthening your mindfulness.
• 💡 Recognizing moments of unmindfulness and gently refocusing without judgment is the key to effective meditation practice.
• 🔄 The goal is to make meditation a lifelong habit, just like eating and sleeping, even if there are challenging days.
• 👴 Imagine meditating every day for the rest of your life; consistency is what will bring long-term benefits and mindfulness.

Q & A

What is Jeffrey's main issue with meditation?

Jeffrey doesn't fully understand how to meditate and feels frustrated because it doesn't seem to work for him, so he avoids it.

How did Adonis initially feel about meditation, and what helped him continue?

Adonis was confused when he first started meditating but accepted that he wouldn't understand everything right away. He kept practicing, and meditation eventually changed his life.

What is the analogy used to explain the importance of showing up for meditation practice?

The analogy compares a basketball player who shows up to practice, even if they don't fully understand the plays, with a player who avoids practice because they don't know what to do. The player who shows up consistently will improve more.

What is the suggested mindset for approaching meditation?

The mindset is to keep showing up to practice even if you don't know exactly what to do, as progress comes from consistent practice.

What app does the speaker recommend for meditation practice?

The speaker recommends using the Medito app for guided meditation practice.

How does meditation affect the 'lizard brain,' and why is it important for self-improvement?

Meditation reduces the power of the 'lizard brain,' which is responsible for impulsive behaviors like eating junk food or procrastinating. By meditating, you strengthen your ability to control these impulses, aiding self-improvement.

What is the purpose of the mindfulness framework described in the script?

The mindfulness framework is a simple four-step process to help people practice meditation. It focuses on realizing when you're unmindful and bringing your attention back to the present moment as a form of mental exercise.

How does the 'plus one rep' concept work in meditation, and what does it represent?

Each time you realize you're distracted and bring your attention back to the present moment, it's considered 'one rep,' similar to a bicep curl for the brain. This process strengthens mindfulness over time.

What is the long-term goal of meditation, according to the script?

The long-term goal is to meditate every day for the rest of your life, making meditation as normal and consistent as eating and sleeping.

What visualization exercise does the speaker recommend, and why?

The speaker recommends visualizing yourself meditating every day for the rest of your life, even in old age. This helps solidify meditation as a lifelong habit, reinforcing its importance.

Outlines

00:00

😕 Struggling with Meditation vs. Consistent Practice

The paragraph contrasts Jeffrey, who is frustrated by his inability to understand meditation and therefore avoids it, with Adonis, who continues meditating despite initial confusion. Over time, Adonis finds that regular practice transforms his life. The key message is that persistence, even without full understanding, leads to success in meditation.

05:01

🏀 Showing Up Matters More Than Perfection

Using a basketball analogy, the narrator emphasizes the importance of consistently showing up to meditate, even if one is uncertain about the correct techniques. Improvement happens through practice, just like a player who may not fully understand the game still benefits from attending practice. The key takeaway is that perseverance, not perfection, drives growth.

🧠 Meditation: Reps for the Mind

Meditation is compared to performing mental exercises, similar to doing bicep curls for the brain. Each time someone realizes they are distracted and brings their focus back to the present moment, it’s akin to completing one mental 'rep.' The process is about training the mind to remain mindful and present, with distractions being opportunities to practice refocusing.

🚶‍♂️ Building a Habit of Mindfulness

The more you meditate, the quicker you become aware of unmindfulness, making it almost second nature to refocus on the present. The narrator encourages adopting meditation as a lifelong habit, much like eating or sleeping, emphasizing the importance of persistence even during difficult times. Consistency over time is key to gaining lasting benefits from meditation.

🔄 Meditation as a Lifelong Commitment

The paragraph invites the reader to visualize their life with daily meditation, even as years and decades pass. The goal is to normalize meditation as a consistent habit, like eating or sleeping. Despite occasional difficulties, meditation should be seen as an unbreakable routine that brings lifelong benefits.

📢 Final Call to Action and Coaching Services

In the final paragraph, the narrator encourages viewers to subscribe to the channel and highlights free and paid self-improvement coaching services. A motivational message concludes the section, urging viewers to persist with hard work, especially when it's difficult.

Keywords

💡Meditation

Meditation refers to the practice of focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity to achieve mental clarity and emotional calmness. In the video, meditation is presented as a key self-improvement habit, one that Jeffrey struggles with while Adonis practices daily. The core message emphasizes the importance of consistently 'showing up to practice' even when the benefits are not immediately apparent.

💡Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the mental state achieved by focusing on the present moment, often through meditation. It involves being aware of one's thoughts, feelings, and surroundings without judgment. In the video, mindfulness is described as the 'gains' from meditation, similar to how muscle gains come from working out. It highlights that the goal of meditation is to increase mindfulness, enabling individuals to remain present and reduce the influence of distractions.

💡Unmindfulness

Unmindfulness refers to moments when the mind drifts away from the present, often into daydreaming or distraction. The video explains that recognizing these moments of unmindfulness is a key part of meditation. Each realization of unmindfulness is like a 'rep' in a mental workout, helping the individual refocus on the present, akin to building mental strength.

💡Lizard brain

The 'lizard brain' refers to the primal, instinctive part of the brain responsible for survival behaviors such as fear, aggression, and basic needs. The video explains that this part of the brain is responsible for self-sabotaging behaviors like avoiding workouts or eating junk food. Meditation is described as a tool to reduce the influence of the lizard brain, helping individuals overcome bad habits and improve self-discipline.

💡Self-improvement

Self-improvement refers to efforts aimed at improving one's character, habits, and skills. In the video, self-improvement is the central theme, with meditation being presented as the most crucial and effective habit for overall personal growth. The speaker connects meditation to reducing bad habits and achieving mindfulness, both of which are necessary for self-improvement.

💡Practice

Practice is the act of repeatedly performing an activity or exercise to improve proficiency. In the context of the video, practice refers to regularly meditating even when one feels unsure or doesn't fully understand the process. The speaker compares this to a basketball player who shows up for practice even without full mastery, emphasizing that consistent practice leads to progress.

💡Realizations of unmindfulness

Realizations of unmindfulness are moments during meditation when one becomes aware that their mind has wandered away from the present moment. The video frames these realizations as opportunities for growth, likening them to 'reps' in a mental workout. Each time someone refocuses on the present after a realization, they strengthen their mindfulness.

💡Focus

Focus is the act of concentrating attention on a specific object or task. In the video, focus is a critical aspect of meditation, where one must continually bring attention back to the present moment. The speaker explains that maintaining focus on sensory experiences, like the breath, helps to counteract the wandering mind and reinforces mindfulness.

💡Habit

A habit is a routine behavior that is performed regularly, often automatically. The video emphasizes that meditation should be approached as a lifelong habit, like eating or sleeping. The speaker stresses that for meditation to have lasting benefits, one must make it a consistent daily practice, even during difficult periods.

💡Visualization

Visualization is the process of creating a mental image of a desired outcome. The video includes a guided visualization exercise where the viewer imagines themselves meditating consistently throughout their life. This exercise reinforces the idea that meditation is a lifelong practice, and encourages the viewer to internalize the commitment to meditate daily.

Highlights

Jeffrey doesn’t meditate because he doesn’t fully understand how, despite hearing how important it is.

Adonis meditates every day, acknowledging initial confusion but persisting through practice.

The basketball analogy explains that showing up to practice, even without full understanding, leads to improvement.

Meditation reduces the power of the 'lizard brain', which is responsible for habits like junk food and procrastination.

Meditation is compared to a gym workout, with mindfulness as the resulting gains.

Mindfulness framework includes the concept of 'realizations of unmindfulness,' where one notices they’ve lost focus.

Each time you bring your focus back to the present, it counts as one 'rep' or exercise for the brain.

Use senses like breath, sounds, or touch to anchor yourself in the present moment during meditation.

With practice, realizations of unmindfulness occur more frequently, helping to improve focus and presence.

Visualization exercise: Imagine yourself meditating consistently throughout your life, making it a lifelong habit.

Meditation should become as normal as eating or sleeping, even though those too can sometimes be difficult.

You need to have the mindset that meditation is a habit for life, not something to quit during tough times.

Even when meditation feels difficult, the key is to keep showing up to practice.

The YouTuber offers self-improvement coaching and emphasizes doing the hard work, especially when it's challenging.

Meditation practice is described as a lifelong commitment, essential for achieving mindfulness gains over time.

Transcripts

jeffrey doesn't fully understand how to

meditate

and so he just doesn't meditate he hears

how important meditation is all the time

and he gets annoyed that it just doesn't

seem to work for him

adonis adonis meditates every single day

when he first started meditation he was

confused

but it made sense to him that he

wouldn't completely understand when he

first started

so he just kept showing up to practice

and soon enough

meditation changed his life

[Music]

[Applause]

oh

[Music]

oh

[Music]

yep

[Music]

oh don't die

oh my god oh gosh should we pause it

three three

two one go oh

god oh my god

to start meditating just show up to

practice

imagine this analogy the basketball

player

who shows up to practice and is kind of

bad

he doesn't really understand the plays

he he's not being coached properly

he is still doing infinitely better than

the other basketball player who refused

to show up to practice because this this

other player

didn't know the 100 of what to do

which one is going to improve more

that's the very important mindset with

meditation

you will not know exactly what to do but

you've got to keep showing up to

practice

just download one of the meditation apps

i recommend medito maybe i'll have it

linked in the description

and just open it up every single day

just follow one of the meditations as

best as you can in your

self-improvements

you know what to do but you just don't

do it

the reason why you don't work out the

reason why you eat the junk food or you

spend too long watching youtube

is because of your lizard brain

meditation reduces the power of the

lizard brain

it's truly truly remarkable meditation

is the best

most important most effective habit for

your self-improvements

i want you now to think of meditation as

the workout the gym workout

and mindfulness as the gains we meditate

to increase our levels of mindfulness

and so

here is what i call the mindfulness

framework it's a simple four-step

process of meditation

now on the screen look at the bottom

right section

realizations of unmindfulness this is

where you will begin

in the framework either if you're in a

meditation session or you're going about

your normal day you'll start in the

bottom right with a realization

of unmindfulness that literally means

that you'll get the thought

that you were daydreaming that you

weren't mindful that is the realization

all you have to do after that point is

to be non-judgmental to that don't get

annoyed and say oh

oh i was i was deep in thought again

simply just reconcentrate

back onto the present moment and this is

the yellow part of the framework

plus one rep means one repetition every

time that you divert your focus back

onto the present moment after you've

just had a realization of unmindfulness

is like one rep one bicep curl for the

brain and that's all we're doing that's

exactly how meditation works it's like

doing bicep

curls for the brain and this is the one

rep of the process

so you'll bring the focus back onto the

present moments using the five senses

and the most common one is just the

feelings of our breath you can do it to

sounds you can do it to

the clothes on your skin anything that's

happening right now in real life in the

present moment

you bring your focus onto that and

before you know it you've lost your

focus now when your mind wanders into

thought

at first you aren't really aware of it

because you're fully just into the

thought

and eventually you'll get the

realization of unmindfulness again and

that's literally just your message to

say oh

let me focus back onto the present

moment and feel something

the more you meditate the more

realizations of

unmindfulness you will get and

eventually you'll get them so quickly

that it doesn't exactly feel like a

whole thing it's almost just normal

to constantly remind yourself to come

into the present moment and to feel

something and to hear something

i invite you now to do a visualization

with me a very important visualization

so close your eyes

you want the benefits of meditation

forever and so you need to meditate

forever so imagine yourself going

through your life right now your

day-to-day life

the months go by the years go by and

every single day you're meditating years

are going by decades are going by you

are old now

and you're still meditating and everyone

around you finds it quite strange maybe

a little bit funny that you're the guy

who meditates

if you want the benefits for life you

have to meditate

for life we want the behavior of

meditation to feel so consistent

and so normal as eating and sleeping

does and sometimes

eating and sleeping is difficult

sometimes we do get eating and sleeping

problems

but we always have that safe knowledge

that eventually we will begin to eat

and sleep again that's what you need to

have with meditation sometimes

meditation is profoundly difficult but

you must have the knowledge that this is

a habit that you will never quit you

will try to meditate

every single day for the rest of your

life just keep showing up to practice

if you want to see more videos from an

unconventional small youtuber i suggest

you scroll down and click on the

subscription and the

post notification buttons right now i do

self-improvement coaching i help people

for free and i also do like

a paid version of that if you want my

one-to-one help scroll down to the

coaching link

and just click on that and you can have

a look do the hard work especially when

you don't feel like it