I started with Headspace‘s ten minute guided meditation (Take 10)  just a few months back. I’m now on day 20 of a longer, Take 20 minutes guided meditation.  My meditation is far from perfect (none are, according to many veteran meditation practitioners) but I plan on continuing this habit. If you are wondering what made me take on this habit, here’s why:

1. Laser sharp focus to what I value most– family, career, education, finances and advocacies. I could analyze efforts and results calmly and start with actionable steps right away.  Finding balance between too much analysing and decision making paralysis also improved noticeably!
2. Decluttered my life – together with journaling, I’ve cut down excesses like unnecessary expenses and mindless going outs.  I also had some success on achieving my low information diet goals like reducing TV time and social media glut. For example, I managed to take off  1,000+ friends on FB without noticeable effects on my social media advocacies.
3. Balanced Optimism– I’m taking every information as constructive as possible, avoid whining or debating minutiae and would rather find solutions or actionable steps.
4. Boost in energy level with less caffeine.  Brought my caffeine sensitivity level down (3 cups) but added a kicking hour to my productive day.
5. Patience– able to could withstand mean people, events or happenings longer. I empathize more than before. 🙂
6. Creative thinking and doing. I went back to actively finding solutions myself to challenges I used to outsource before. Read on reports and papers meticulously than before. Renewed interest in fixing things around- appliances, furnitures and hacking ones I needed. I also had more time to read books!

My routine is so simple I could meditate while inside a bus, inside my parked car or just about anywhere you’re comfortably seated!  So give meditation a shot! Take the simplest meditation to follow and stick to it even just for ten days.

Interested what or how I do my meditation routine? Stay tuned for my next post on this.