6 Lessons from Meditation That Every Man Should Know

Meditation is your personal growth vehicle.

I first tried meditating in 2012, but quickly shunned it for two reasons. First, I felt like I was wasting my time. I couldn’t “clear my head” or achieve “thought zero” so I told myself meditating wasn’t for me. Second—and probably the stronger reason of the two—I thought it was for hippies.

What I ultimately learned was that meditation is precisely for those people who can’t turn off their brain.

I waxed and waned over the years in terms of a constant practice but now, I meditate every day, and if a day goes by where for some reason I don’t meditate, I miss it—and I notice it. I get slightly more frustrated, a little more impatient, and feel a little less at peace on the days I don’t meditate.

Meditation is a workout for the mind. It teaches you focus, it teaches you discipline, and it teaches you self-awareness.

You know how you do difficult things? By doing difficult things.

Want stronger focus? Meditate.

Want to understand yourself on a deeper level—the tricks your ego plays to distract you into taking the easy path? Meditate.

Want more self-discipline? A stronger mind? More mental fortitude? Meditate.

This is why meditation is a relationship with yourself, and if there’s one relationship that’s more important than any other relationship in your life, it’s the one you have with you.

When you have a healthy relationship with yourself, you embrace your strengths and weaknesses. You value who you are and where you came from. You take care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Having a better relationship with yourself sparks stronger relationships with other, because how you view and treat yourself influences how you do the same for others.

People who lack a relationship with themselves are more reactive than responsive. They ignore or suppress negative thoughts and emotions only for them to resurface in physical form later—including verbally—in ways that typically hurt other people. They lack self-control because you can’t control something you don’t understand.

I’ll write another article on the importance of having a strong relationship with your Self but for now, let’s stick with six lessons from meditation every man should know:

1. Meditation isn’t for hippies, it’s for warriors.

In the samurai culture, meditation was believed to develop a calm and clear mind, cultivate inner strength, and build resilience, all of which the samurai depended upon to become more skilled and virtuous warriors.

You may say, “Well that's great but I don’t wield a sword and I’m not going into battle.” Maybe that’s true physically—that you’re not physically going to war—but you absolutely go into battle every…single…day, with yourself. That’s what meditation prepares you for.

Meditation allows you to practice being uncomfortable, and in today’s world where withdrawing to the confines of safety to avoid struggling is ubiquitous, meditation offers a (free) chance to hone your personal edge (you are keeping an edge, aren’t you?). If you’re not keeping an edge, we need to talk.

2. Keep a meditation journal.

When I was a management consultant, there was a member on my team who was lacking in billable hours. The rest of the team billed their quota of 40 hours per week, but this member was consistently low in billable hours. To rectify this, I started sharing with the team the total weekly hours each member billed. Instead of telling this member, “Hey, you need to get off your ass and work more,” I let this person self-correct, because I knew the motivation and smarts were there. After a few weeks of posting everybody’s weekly hours so the team could see how they all measured up, the person who’s billable hours were lacking suddenly improved. What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed gets improved.

The same is true for meditation. When you hold yourself accountable for lessons to log, you start paying closer attention to what lessons you might learn.

3. Your ego is the enemy.

Aside from this being the title of a really great book, your ego distracts you from doing what you need in lieu of what you want.

Don’t want to sit there and focus on your breath? Don’t worry, your ego will find an excuse not to.

Don’t feel like meditating? It’s okay, your ego will give you 101 reasons why you should put it off.

When you avoid meditation, your subconscious mind combined with your thoughts snowball into an imbalance of mental intrigue driven by curiosity that causes your mind to wander in 8,000 different directions. You get overpowered by your own self. The irony is that