As a yoga teacher, many people assume I’m naturally skilled at meditation — which always makes me smile, because the truth is quite different.
I’ve long found meditation difficult; although it seems simple to sit quietly and breathe, doing so often left me feeling restless, bored, or anxious.
During an especially hectic chapter of my life, I decided to try again. After weeks of experimenting, I discovered I had been approaching meditation the wrong way. Here’s what I learned along the way.
The Hardest Part Is Getting Started
“I don’t have time for this,” I muttered before sitting for the first meditation in a self-imposed monthlong challenge. I had convinced myself it would be awful before I’d even begun — like lacing up shoes for a long run and immediately telling myself how painful it would be.
The first week of daily meditation felt a lot like that: difficult, awkward, forced, and boring. That’s completely normal. The early sessions are often the hardest because you’re strengthening a new mental muscle — your brain’s capacity for quiet and focused attention. Since this is unfamiliar, start small and give yourself plenty of compassion.
Start with a Minute a Day
Teacher and speaker Kim Colegrove recommends beginning with just one minute a day so your body and mind can get used to sitting, allowing stillness, and practicing presence.
Joy Rains, author of Meditation Illuminated: Simple Ways to Manage Your Busy Mind, advises sitting upright without stiffness: keep your spine aligned with your head and neck, gently close your eyes, and release physical tension while keeping the mind alert. Choose an anchor — something neutral that won’t stimulate the mind: your breath, body sensations, a silently repeated word, or a tactile object like a smooth stone. Rest your attention on that anchor and gently bring it back whenever your mind wanders. For beginners, this redirection may happen very frequently, and that’s normal.
Educate Yourself on the Benefits
Meditation offers many benefits: it can help regulate emotions, support brain health as you age, improve sleep, and ease anxiety or depression. Because it’s accessible — needing no special gear beyond your body and a quiet spot — it’s worth trying even if you’re skeptical.
Erin Motz, a registered yoga teacher, points out that many people imagine meditation as reaching a permanent, stress-free “peak.” That expectation can be discouraging. Instead, redefine meditation as a practice you engage in rather than a final destination to achieve.
You’re Not Supposed to Be Perfect — Just Present
People often say they’re “bad” at meditation and drop it entirely. But improvement requires starting where you are and consistently practicing. You don’t need perfection — you just need to show up regularly and observe what happens each time.
Be Fidgety
It’s fine to be fidgety. Melissa McClain, a long-time meditator, encourages embracing movement during practice. Over time you may fidget less — a sign of growing ability to access calm and focus. Use restlessness as a measure of progress, not as a reason to stop. Mindfulness is about noticing the mind’s activity and gently returning to focus again and again; that repetition builds greater stretches of calm concentration.
It’s OK to Really Dislike Meditation at First
During my month of daily practice, no session felt instantly blissful or easy. I didn’t enjoy many of them, and that’s okay. Like eating vegetables or exercising, meditation can feel like something you don’t want to do in the moment but benefit from afterward. The more I practiced, the better I felt physically and emotionally.
Michael Bridge-Dickson reminds people that perceived barriers like lack of time or inability to “clear the mind” are common. Many assume you need long sessions to see benefits; in reality, short, consistent sessions can reduce stress rather than becoming another burden.
Let Your Mind Do What It Needs to Do
One major misconception is that meditation requires shutting off thoughts. Jenay Rose explains that awareness of your thinking is actually the goal: noticing when the mind wanders is the first step in developing a practice. Observing thoughts — rather than trying to eliminate them — makes meditation more accessible and realistic.
Don’t Aspire to an Empty Mind
Rather than fretting about a mind that jumps from thought to thought, reframe how you view your mental activity. Think of it as a dog circling, sniffing, and settling into a comfortable spot: the mind moves around before it can rest. With around 60,000 thoughts a day, expecting a completely empty mind is unrealistic. Jaime Pfeffer notes that even experienced meditators don’t always achieve thought-free states; noticing and returning to the present is itself meditation.
Experiment With Different Types of Meditation
There are many styles of meditation. Breath-focused mindfulness is common, while transcendental meditation uses mantras. Guided meditations, apps, and restorative yoga classes can help you find a format that resonates. Kim McIntyre recommends guided sessions for beginners because instruction helps people experience early benefits and reduces worry about “doing it right.”
Focus on Your Breath
Meditation may feel counterintuitive because it involves less doing and more being. The breath is a reliable anchor. I used a simple 1:1 inhale-to-exhale rhythm to stay grounded, while some teachers recommend counting breaths or using longer counts. Erin Motz suggests a 60-second breath exercise: inhale for eight counts, hold for eight, and exhale for 12 — adjust to comfort. Even one minute of this practice daily can help.
Figure Out When and Where You Prefer to Meditate
Many people find 5–10 minutes of daily practice manageable. Try meditating early in the day before checking email or watching the news, mid-afternoon as a reset, or before bed with a guided sleep meditation. Experiment to find the timing and setting that fits your routine and helps you stick with it.
Make It Part of Your Daily Routine
I had the most success when meditation became a nonnegotiable habit — for example, “When I wake up, I meditate for 10 minutes.” Treat it like brushing your teeth: remove the decision-making and just do it. Scheduling time and showing up consistently builds the mental muscle for presence; some days will be easier than others, but repetition matters.
Try Again and Notice Your Patterns
Meditation isn’t a goal to achieve but a practice to repeat. I often meditated for a few consecutive days, missed a couple, and then started again. Over time I learned to view each session as a new beginning. When my mind was distracted, I could observe and gently return. When the same negative thought repeated, meditation invited me to question it and choose whether to let it go.
Practice Patience
With patience, I began to see emotions and thoughts for what they are: noisy experiences I can observe rather than be swept away by. That perspective became valuable across many areas of life, but it took time to develop.
Veronica Parker reminds us to be gentle: meditation is a practice, not a sprint. Regular, patient practice gradually brings greater presence and stillness.