Mindfulness: A step-by-step guide

Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash

There are probably over 10k articles on Medium all about how beneficial mindfulness can be; not just for your focus and attention, but also for your emotional intelligence. I’m not here to negate that, but this also isn’t a story about why it’s great for you. This is a step-by-step guide to making mindfulness meditation a daily practice, and the best apps to help you along the way.

Creating a new habit is hard. Where do I start?

If sticking with your idea of perfection was the norm, no one would make a New Years' resolution. Having the thought isn’t the hard part — there are all kinds of lofty goals I have in mind for my “perfect self.” The biggest hurdle is in the repetition (and as Ryan Holiday and the Stoics would say: “The obstacle is the way”). There is no right or wrong way to create a habit out of a goal, but there are some cheat codes you might find useful:

1. Start small. Adding something to your life can be intimidating and challenging — you don’t need to make your life harder by trying to start with an hour of meditation every morning at 5 am. Try starting with a 3-minute meditation focusing on your breath. This could be sitting still, closing your eyes, and observing the feeling of breathing in and out. When you lose focus and find that you’re thinking about what you’re doing at work later…