The most common barrier to accomplishing anything new is, "I Can't Do It." Get up 10 minutes early each day and practice for 5 minutes. After a month get up 15 minutes early and practice for 10 minutes

You can practice 5 minutes in a car, at your desk or on a bus. Keep your eyes open and no one will know what you’re doing.

Inspiration can be tricky, it will pop into your mind seemingly out of nowhere. And inspiration often pops up while we are in mindfulness practice.

How can you ignore a great new idea making its way along your thought stream? It's best to treat all thoughts the same, acknowledge them by saying "Thinking" (to yourself) and gently bringing yourself back to your breath.

Of course if you get a thought that could change the world by all means write it down, otherwise go back to your breath.

The number one thing you can do to move beyond sleepiness is to sit erect on a cushion or chair. Slouching often contributes to sleepiness, so sit up straight while you practice.

The second remedy for sleepiness is to practice meditation with your eyes slight open. Let your eye lids find a comfortable spot of being half open and allow yourself to gaze without focusing on what you're seeing.

Discomfort can be a great teacher within your practice, but pain is not something to endure. The practice is not about being a hero. Try different postures, cushions and chairs to find something that won’t wreck your joints.

Often our mind will create discomfort as a way to get us to abandon the practice. You can watch the discomfort as part of your practice as long as it is tolerable.

A great way to integrate practice time into your day is to take a handful of breaks during the day and watch your breath.

Make these mini breaks something special that you don't share with anyone. The time becomes a 5 minute sanctuary from the distractions and stresses of the day.

Every 90 minutes stop and practice for 5 minutes. Short mindful breaks will increase your focus and your productivity.

Oh, and another benefit to mini mindful breaks is that other people will find you easier to communicate with and you'll find it easier to communicate with yourself.

Few of us want to practice (at least in the beginning). Use your resistance as an object to focus your breath on. Breathe in resistance and as you breathe out let it go. Don’t judge it as either good or bad, give it room to take up all the room it wants within your breath.

Everyone of us find themselves in the "I Don't Want Too" space from time to time. Try smiling at the absurdity of blocking yourself from such a positive activity like mindfulness practice. Once you've acknowledged yourself as the source of resistance take a step forward.

Emotions will come and go as you practice and as with physical pain there is no need to be a hero when uncomfortable emotions wash over you (and they will). Mindfulness practice opens doors to feelings and thoughts, but they are not you. Your thoughts and emotions only define you if you agree with them.

While you practice give your emotions and thoughts room to express themselves, they will go on their way when the next thought or emotion comes into view.

Use your thoughts and emotions within your practice but don’t torture yourself thinking you’ll conquer your emotions, judgement and control is not what mindfulness is about.

At some point we all obsess within practice, after all we are sitting quietly with our thoughts running free. 🙂 Try acknowledging your thoughts and shift your attention back to your breath.

Try talking out loud explaining to your self that your are obsessing and it’s just thoughts running wild. Come back to your breath.

Be compassionate with yourself and with the person or object your obsessing about.

When I say distractions I’m pointing toward external distractions such as loud neighbors, screaming kids, television, cell notifications and not the noise inside our own heads.

But if fireworks went off while you practiced mindfulness and you weren’t distracted, would that be considered a distraction? Maybe something is only a distraction if we grab hold of it with our mind. Ask yourself, is the distraction coming from outside the window or inside my head?

If the noise from life is distracting you while you are learning mindfulness try not labeling it as anything at all. When a car goes by your open window watch the sound in your mind come and watch it leave without attaching to it.