When I first started meditating, thoughts always got in my way.

They’d pull my attention and make me wander off into stories about the past.

If I tried to double down by focusing harder on my breath, my thoughts would pull my attention even more.

Eventually, I stumbled into a different method that I could use whenever my thoughts wouldn’t stop.

It starts with using the thoughts as fuel for a different practice.

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Practicing like athletes

When I stumbled into this method, it was somewhat of a fluke.

I read an article about how Kobe practices, and it gave me an idea. Kobe uses the concept of deliberate practice to level up his game. Why not use it for meditation?

I set up my practice with a very simple practice loop, trying to make it as simple as how Kobe practiced free throws. Here’s what I did:

1. I’d watch only for when thoughts would come up.
2. Once my attention wandered and I noticed it, I’d give myself a point.
3. Then, I’d bring my attention back to watching for thoughts (NOT back to the breath) and start again.

Each time I did this, it would be like Kobe sinking a shot.

What happened was interesting: The moment I focused my attention onto thoughts, for a brief moment, my thoughts stopped.

Wtf?

Go ahead, and try it.

Take a moment, and see if you can watch for the next thought that shows up in your mind.

You can close your eyes if it helps.

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What you might find is that at the moment you bring your attention to watch your thoughts, your thoughts will stop for a brief moment.

Hmmm.

The more I did this, the better I got at catching when my thoughts would wander. (Benefit #1)

Then, I went back to my “normal” practice of focusing on the breath. My thoughts didn’t pull my attention as much AND I’d recover more quickly when my thoughts did wander. (Benefit #2)

Most importantly, these benefits then transferred into my day. I was able to better notice when I’d be lost in thought or distracted during the day, which then let me bring my focus back to whatever I was working on. (Benefit #3)

All of this came from a simple shift in my practice.

Thought Hunting

This is an alternative to the traditional practice of sitting with your eyes closed, focusing on your breath, and then bringing back the attention when it wanders away.  (boring!)

Instead, we focus our attention onto our thought stream.

1. Direct your attention to only your thoughts. Not breath, not body, JUST thoughts. You can close your eyes if it helps.
2. Watch for the first thought that comes up.
3. As soon you notice a big thought pulling your mind away — one of those big attention-pulling thoughts, like an argument, a daydream, a fantasy, etc. — give yourself a “point” (Like…”Hey! I caught one! 1!”) and then bring your attention back to watching thoughts (NOT back to the breath).
4. Do this again for the next big thought wander that comes up. “Ah! There the mind goes again…2!” or “Ooh, there’s another one. 2!”
5. Repeat this for 10 points. This is the equivalent of a mental push-up.

Sometimes a thought will pull you for a really long time — like minutes long or even the entire session. No worries — you still get a point for catching it. Once you do, come back to watching thoughts.

Focusing can be tiring — remember to breathe and take breaks between sets if necessary.

The more you do this, the more you’ll:

1. 1. Get good at catching when your attention wanders (during meditation practice and during your day).
   2. Get familiar with the types of thoughts that your mind wanders into (both the productive ones and the non-productive ones).
   3. Have longer stretches of time where your thoughts (briefly) stay quiet.

Why does this work?

The data is sparse, and the science is rocky, but bear with me.

The #1 rule of learning anything is that nothing tells you better than your own experience — so try it, and if it works for you, keep it.

When you direct your attention onto an observational task (like focusing your attention towards watching thoughts), you activate a network of your brain structures called the task positive network (TPN).

The task positive network is mutually exclusive with the default mode network, a network of brain structures related to wandering thoughts, daydreaming, ruminating etc.

In other words, if you can focus your attention onto an observational task, like focusing on your breath, your DMN activity decreases and thus the chatter of thoughts in your head decreases with it.

Why focus on thoughts instead of the breath?

Think of “normal” meditation — focusing on your breath, and bringing your attention back when it wanders.

When we practice focusing on the breath, we normally attempt to focus our attention on two “places” — the 1st place is the physical sensation of the breath and the 2nd place is the “location” of your thoughts when they wander.

For the sake of practicing something like focus, focusing on two things does not make sense!

Instead, try focusing on just 1 “location” — just on your thoughts.

If we focus our attention on just 1 “location” (where our thoughts are), we can

1. More easily watch the thoughts and
2. More easily catch when those thoughts wander (since we’re only watching thoughts!)

Much easier than putting the attention onto 2 places, isn’t it?

How to make this useful today

There are two benefits to this method: 

1. You shut down unproductive thinking patterns.
2. You support a foundational muscle for focusing on your breath.

Benefit #1: You shut down unproductive thinking patterns.

Our minds think thousands of thoughts a day. Some of them are useful. Many of them are not.

The more you practice Thought Hunting, the more familiar you become with 1) the types of thoughts that distract you and 2) how productive (or not-so-productive) those thoughts are.

Then, when your mind wanders into a not-so-productive thought — e.g. anger, negativity, anxiety, or fear — you can catch yourself before you waste unnecessary time or energy on it.

Here’s how you can practice this:

1. Pick a non-productive thinking pattern. This can be fear, self-doubt, anxiety, anger, or anything else you want to work on.
2. Think of the next time you’re going to experience that emotion. Maybe it’s at work. Maybe it’s around a specific person. Maybe it’s right before a meeting or before a presentation or before you start on something difficult, like a work task or a project.
3. Be on the lookout as you walk into that situation. The next time that situation comes up, observe the thoughts that come up before your mind gets carried away by the emotional storm.

If you can just notice and acknowledge the thought (gently, without judging yourself), you’re already winning. Bonus points if you can bring your attention back to whatever you’re doing.

Bonus: Naming or labeling the emotion (called affect labeling) has been shown to help decrease the intensity of it too. If you can acknowledge an unproductive thought, label it, and come back to the present, you give yourself a powerful tool to help with difficult emotions.

Benefit #2: You support a foundational muscle for concentration.

My first teachers (and first apps) usually had the same instructions for beginners: 

1. Focus your attention on the breath.
2. When your mind wanders, acknowledge where your mind wandered off to, and then bring your attention back to the breath.

Something I noticed over time is that most teachers teach us to focus on #1, but #2 is something that’s taught almost as a secondary thing.

“When your mind wanders, just bring your attention gently back to your breath.”

It sounds so easy, but if you’ve meditated for awhile, you know that it’s mental wandering that stops us most often from focusing on our breath.

What to do?

Try building up your ability to notice when thoughts wander first, since it’s wandering thoughts that stop us from focusing on our breath.

If we build up the muscle of noticing wandering thoughts first, this muscle will then support us with focusing on our breath.

The analogy is like learning to juggle. If we learn how to toss 1 ball perfectly first, then we can add on the 2nd ball. If we master juggling 2, then we’ll add the 3rd.

In this case, we’ll build our ability to notice wandering thoughts. Then, once we’ve get good at noticing wandering thoughts, we can add on focusing on the breath.

Leveling up breath focus

1. Do Thought Hunting for 2 sets of 10 points. Rest between sets if you need to. Remember to breathe.
2. Once you get good at focusing your attention on your thoughts, let your attention slide to both your thoughts and your breath (almost like your attention is straddling both your thoughts and your breath).
3. When you have this straddling routine stable without too much wandering, then shift your attention completely to your breath.

If you do this successfully, you’ll notice that you can focus on your breath longer than before and you’ll recover from wandering more quickly.

Practice makes perfect.

Recap

1. Thought Hunting — Focus your attention to watch for thoughts, not your breath.
2. Scoring points — When your attention wanders, notice it (give yourself a point), and gently bring your attention back to watching thoughts.
3. Shift to the breath — When you’re comfortable with Thought Hunting, move your focus to your breath.

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Extra credit

Don’t have time to meditate? Click here for 9 ways to take meditation into your day.

Looking for other ways you can make meditation practical? Click here for 3 ways you can make meditation practical in your life today.