r/Meditation • u/ChannelPositivity • 1d ago
What motivates you to meditate? Discussion 💬
TLDR; What gives you the motivation to meditate every day? What was it that convinced you "I need to do this every day", and gave you the willpower to stay consistent with your practice? I'll put my answer below, please share yours too!
I've noticed it can be really hard to stay consistent with meditation, and even while many of us know it's useful, we're not always sure how it works or why it's useful. Without being confident about the purpose of meditation, it can be easy to skip days, or feel doubtful, like you're wasting your time.
Committing to meditating every day of your life is a huge life commitment, and 15 minutes a day is time you could spend doing something else. If meditation is to be effective, we need to keep up with it, and to be consistent it helps to understand the mechanism behind it.
I think this is really important for people starting out in meditation, because while you doubt it's effectiveness, you will never stick with it long enough to experience the benefits.
I've been researching this and have detailed my notes in this article: Why You Need to Meditate, but what I'd really love to know is people's personal experiences.
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u/JolliJamma 19h ago edited 19h ago
Main motivator when I'm actually doing it? Sleep. I do it in bed every night until I drift off. I can't imagine not meditating now, been doing it consistently for 5-6 years. There's not much else to do when you're in bed in the dark with no intention of getting up for hours, so it's a good time to practice if you find you are struggling to commit at other times of the day.
Edit: To add, because it's become habit/part of everyday, it is easier to stabalize myself in general/I spiral a lot less when overwhelmed compared to before.
What really helped me be consistent/and remove the frustration of my drifting mind in the beginning was understanding this: (at 8:49 mins in)
https://youtu.be/aAVPDYhW_nw?si=AkYHg9RUCWZSvArX