Goals and Meditation

     As we move through the year many of us are taking another look at the goals we set for ourselves and are working on implementing them.  Kim of Leland Avenue Studio wrote a post about her goal to meditate. She has found meditation really helps her creativity.  If you don't know Kim's blog it is worth checking out. She writes really thoughtful posts on the creative process.  She also makes beautiful and creative quilts.

     Anyhow Kim's post reminded me that I have wanted to write a post about goals, and some habits that I have found to help me meet my goals.  As it happens Meditation is one of the things I find helpful.

      I have practised meditation off and on for many years. I think my son who is 27 now was about 10 when I started. I have a memory of him plonking down beside me and trying it out for himself.  I am lucky to have a really good meditation leader in my city.  He follows a Tibetan Buddhist practice but the groups he leads are usually non denominational.  Years ago when I started a meditating his advice was to set aside 20 minutes a day.  His goal is to help as many people as he can to use meditation for stress relief and he now suggests aiming for 5 minutes a day.   The repetition is the important thing not the length of time. When we meet as a group we meditate for 20 minutes. 
     
  I'm finding that 5 minutes is not quite enough for me so for now I am aiming for 10 minutes a day.  Meditation helps to calm me down and helps me to deal with the stresses of my day. That in turn frees my heart and imagination  to work on other things that I love.  It also helps me to be brave and to take risks.

     The other daily practices I have found to be useful came from this article here written by Neil Pasricha. He suggests starting each morning by letting go of something negative, by noting something you are grateful for, and by focussing on three attainable goals for the day. You write all of these down in a journal.  I use my Quilters Planner. It takes a couple of minutes to do this.  I find that like meditation, these practices help me to clear my mind and move forward.  I don't use them all the time but when I do I am able to accomplish so much more and move towards my bigger goals.

   I started my day with a 10 minute meditation session followed by the journal exercises. It has been hard for me to sit down and get to this task. My cold/flu has left me feeling a bit fragile and I have had an incident with a friend on my mind. I found that the meditation and excercises helped me to focus and I managed to start working on my February Goal of finishing the quilting on this quilt.   But before I could do this I had to do this.

     
     I cleared and cleaned my sewing table to help the task go more smoothly.  I worked on my quilting in the evening as well and I am feeling like I just might be able to accomplish this goal this month.

     For the next while I will be joining Kim in working on meditating every day. What do you do to help you meet your goals?