I hit a personal milestone today. 100 consecutive days of meditation.
It’s been a journey to get here. I did my Yoga Teacher Training in 2017 and have had this as a goal every year since then, but I’ve only gotten close to hitting it once - last year. I was in San Francisco for a brief quarantine vacation when I hit day 96 and then the next day I just…forgot. Whether it was because I was out of my usual routine or because I was distracted by the fires that were ravaging the area at the time, I simply forgot and failed just short of hitting my goal.
I brushed myself off and tried again…and then failed again…and then again.
It was a humbling experience, but it inadvertently reminded me of some of the lessons I learned during my training - that sometimes we will fall short of of the expectations we have for ourselves and sometimes we will fail and not be as strong or as flexible as we were the day before, and that’s ok. Because we are not fixed beings, and what’s most important is to honor and give grace to where we were are in the present moment, wherever that may be.
I knew that my failures often happened when I was out of town and out of my usual morning routine, and so I did a lot of digging into what I could do differently to change my outcome. I tried making a consistent meditation practice a New Year’s Resolution (for 3 years - didn’t work), I tried habit tracker apps to gamify my streak and encourage competition with myself (temporarily worked, but didn’t stick), and I tried reward systems, like treating myself to dessert (also not sustainable because I have a high risk of diabetes).
So what finally worked? Visualizing the future version of me who DOES meditate everyday - what she would do, what she would think, how she would feel - and acting accordingly.
Would this version of me wake up too late to squeeze in even just a 5-minute meditation before work? No. Would she talk herself out of meditating because she just didn’t have the time? Also no. Would she keep her promise to herself, knowing that meditation has the most positive effect on her overall mental health and wellness? Yes. Having a clear vision of who I want to become gave me more motivation and incentive to follow through, rather than just having it be an arbitrary goal without a tangible reason why behind it.
And so here we are, 100 days later. I know I’ll probably slip up again - I’ll get busy or distracted, life will take over, and I’ll ruin my streak again, but at least now I know I’ve hit this milestone once, I can do it again.
There is power in brushing ourselves off after failure and in keeping the promises we make to ourselves. Both actions prove to us that we are capable of doing what we say we will do, and both help us get closer to the versions of ourselves we want to become next.