What Are You Looking For?

Find an approach to mindfulness that suits you.

Everyone knows about mindfulness, but few can confidently say what it is.

Being “mindful” can refer to meditating daily, watching your step as you board a subway, portion control, managing chronic anxiety, posting deep-sounding aphorisms on social media, arriving on time, and chewing Oreos slowly.¹

With apologies to Ben Lehrer for rewriting his description of why people hate poetry,

Many more people agree they hate mindfulness than can agree what mindfulness is. I, too, dislike it, and have largely organized my life around it and do not experience that as a contradiction because mindfulness and the hatred of mindfulness are for me inextricable.

The widespread misinterpretations and misleading marketing of mindfulness don’t diminish its value. I’m committed to practicing it for the rest of my life, even though I'm not a big fan of the term.

Mindfulness isn’t the answer to everything. It’s not magic, but it’s not bullshit either. I see it as exercising our attention to respond to life more effectively.

Physical exercise builds strength, endurance, and flexibility. Attention exercises build flexible focus, perceptual clarity, and adaptive composure.

If you’re interested in the potential benefits of consistent mindfulness practice, here are four reasons you might initially feel frustrated by my attentional fitness approach.

You’re looking for relaxation on demand.

Pampering is profitable. While passive forms of relaxation may be appealing, purchased versions tend to dissipate quickly. This is equally true for a martini as it is for a massage. We enjoy them while they last, but we need another one to feel relaxed.

While it may not be as popular, developing the ability to detect and savor pleasant sensations—regardless of the circumstances—can be much more empowering than simply seeking temporary relief.

This approach encourages you to rely less on ideal conditions and to cultivate your ability to redirect your attention intentionally. Although this takes significant practice, it is achievable if you stick to it, and it doesn’t take as long as you might assume.

At the very least, it makes you less susceptible to giving up on mindfulness when you struggle to go from feeling stressed to deeply relaxed in under ten minutes using an app.

You’re looking for ways to turn off your mind.

I understand the allure of a silent mind, but you’re not a machine with a mental processing switch. You’re a living, breathing organism that can turn food into energy, pull oxygen out of the air to distribute throughout your body, and predict how your actions will impact your future—without fully comprehending how any of these processes work.

Humans are messy, vulnerable, and resilient. Mindfulness helps us manage our survival instincts. Even though our predictions are often inaccurate, this ability is still impressive. We often get caught up in our imagination, worrying, ruminating, and obsessing over various thoughts. Sometimes, we even take quizzes to determine which Pixar character resembles us the most.

While you can’t turn your thoughts or feelings off, you can learn to relate to them with greater intimacy and less internal friction. This doesn’t happen overnight. As with any fundamentally life-altering skill, it takes longer than you’d prefer, but time will pass whether or not you work on these skills.

The world could use more people who are willing to make even a little progress in this area.

You’re looking for the right way to practice.

If you ask a physical therapist or personal trainer if there’s one exercise that would work for everyone in every circumstance, they would laugh. Studying physiology, field testing various exercises over several years, and customizing programs to fit individual needs are what make their expertise so valuable.

Anyone whose pain has decreased or whose strength or range of motion has increased due to sticking to a customized program will tell you they would never have traded it for a one-size-fits-all exercise plan—even though it felt like a slog at times.²

It’s the same with attentional fitness.

There are a number of ways to explore mindfulness—with or without a daily meditation routine.

You don’t need to contort yourself to fit someone’s definition of mindfulness. You just have to find exercises that are right for you.

Working with an experienced coach can help.³

You’re looking for an enlightened guru who was a monk.

I’ve never lived in a monastery, and I'm not Buddhist or even vegetarian.

I’m an unapologetic work in progress, deeply dedicated to developing skills that allow me to inhabit life more fully. I’m convinced that more people would benefit from improving their attention skills if fewer obstacles existed. I do my best to address the many common ones that do.

Monasteries have always been crucibles for transformation. They only look like escapes to people on the outside. But once you learn to recognize them, you can find or create monasteries in every key aspect of life: marriage, work, parenting, caregiving, aging, being sick, and dying.

It’s not uncommon to respond to these intimidating challenges by numbing out and trying to endure them. Luckily for us, artists, poets, and other wise people throughout time have scribbled down their notes on what helped them feel more alive and even grow through inevitable difficulties.

Contemplative practices like mindfulness are part of what they’ve repeatedly discovered across all cultures and historical periods. Their insights are riddled with paradoxical perspective shifts. They dare us to make counter-instinctual leaps into wonder, joy, discomfort, and uncertainty.

And while mindfulness currently seems like something you’re supposed to practice alone, it’s part of a larger, more profound human tradition of encouraging each other to thrive.

I don’t want to convince you to do what has worked for me, but I’d love to work together to discover what works best for you. There are more options than you probably realize.

Even when I guide a formal mindfulness exercise, I’m only trying to clarify different techniques and practice options to spark your enthusiasm for experimentation so you can eventually become your own mindfulness coach.

It’s easy to give up. I really hope you won’t.

1. Byron, E. (2019, July 23). Are Oreos part of a mindful diet? Snack makers promote chewing thoughtfully, The Wall Street Journal.

2. I wrote a piece for the Ten Percent Happier newsletter a few years ago on this topic, Embracing the Suck.

3. I know a guy who can help.