Before Yael Shy wrote What Now: Meditation For Your Twenties and Beyond, she founded MindfulNYU, the largest campus-wide mindfulness initiative in the country. It's hard to imagine a time when Shy struggled with meditation, but to hear her tell the story of accomplishing this big goal, being mindful wasn't always easy.

Shy had reservations about meditation when she was first introduced to the practice in college. But a few factors during Shy's years at NYU led her to feel she was lacking the tools to cope with her stress; anxiety from 9/11, a break-up and her parents' divorce made Shy hunt for a solution.

Everything changed when she decided to go on a meditation retreat.

"It transformed my life," Shy explains. "It helped me see the roots of a lot of what my anxiety was built on."

From that retreat, Shy grew her own practice. In 2009, she co-launched MindfulNYU as a small group that met to meditate. Every week, that group's numbers increased and today it's become something special. Mindful NYU offers classes every day of the week, offers sub-groups, retreats, workshops and yoga twice a day every day.

I've never really committed to a regular meditation practice. Sure, I enjoy five minutes of meditation at the end of a yoga class, but I'm not one to throw down a meditation pillow on my own. The growth of this community at NYU makes me wonder - What don't I know about this practice that seems to be so eye-opening for everyone who makes it a habit?

The biggest misconception about meditation, Yael says, is that it's about being Zen.

"It can be excruciatingly difficult to be with what is, even if you don't like it," Shy said. "Even if you want to escape with all of your mind, it's a commitment to come back. Because that's where there's a chance for healing and freedom."

The analogy Shy uses is one in the gym setting. In the same way the gym doesn't always feel great when you're there - we've all had those workouts that level us or make us think we're weak and over-exhausted - you know that you're ultimately getting stronger with every workout. Although meditation can be difficult when you're doing it, you're strengthening a different muscle by making the commitment to sit through the tough stuff, notice your thoughts and when your thoughts stray, set the intention to come back.

Practically speaking, she also knows how hard it is to show up for meditation. A regular practice can easily be interrupted by life, but Shy offered a two tips to establish the habit for yourself.

Because we're wired to want to see the fruits of our effort - and meditation doesn't easily lend itself to that kind of sense of accomplishment - create checklists for yourself that help you feel accomplished. That comes down to the logistics of meditation (i.e. where you sit, when you'll sit, how you build your schedule in a way that gives you time for it every day).

The second piece of the equation is to write down why you think it's important to meditate. Write that down on a piece of paper when you're invested in spending the time. That way, when the thought comes to mind that something else is more worth your time, you'll have your handwriting ready to help you remember why you're committing to the practice.

JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talk to high achievers about their goals. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me, I have Maggie Umberger and Kristen Geil.

MU: Good morning Jeana.

JAC: Good morning

KG: Hi, Jeana.

JAC: Hello Kristen.

JAC: Maggie. You talk to Yael Shy.

MU: I did. I got to speak with Yael Shy, who is the author of What Now: Meditation for your 20s and beyond. And she's also the founder of Mindful NYU, which just happens to be the largest campus wide mindfulness initiative in the country. And we got to talking about what is mindfulness and how do we define that in this day and age where it really is important, but we talked about like the should of feeling like you should meditate and what are those expectations and really what you can get out of making a commitment to do it.

KG: I know I'm not alone when I say this but in theory I would love to have a meditation practice, it sounds very relaxing. But in reality I always find that I want to do something else. I want to be more active. And it just seems a little boring to be honest. And I know that’s something that Yael has dealt with when trying to bring this to campuses because sometimes it just seems like I don't want to do it task. Can you talk a little bit about how Yael views meditation and how she's sort of reconciled that to make it more accessible to everybody?

MU: She came up with this really cool analogy for me to hear where you go to the gym all the time because you know you're doing something good for you but you don't always have a good time when you're at the gym. Sometimes you really hate that five minute plank that the instructor asks you to hold. And it can get really uncomfortable and really agitating and frustrating. And she equated meditation, like the actual time that you're sitting down to do it, as that potentially agitating and frustrating. But you have to have this belief and this understanding within you that you're doing something good for you that will benefit you down the line. And so that put it in perspective for me is because I think I have this really not so realistic perspective of what meditation is, that it's a Zen environment and everyone who does it is incredibly happy and just calm.

But that was a cool point for us to talk and sort of jump off talking about goals with, because she did mention saying like just because you meditate doesn't mean you are Zen and calm and have no direction and goals. It's just a mindset and frame of how you approach those goals which which she then continue to talk about in the podcast.

JAC: And she had one key piece of advice for people who want to start a meditation practice. Can you talk a little bit about that.

MU: She gave some really sound advice about lots of steps within our interview to take to make sure that you can hold yourself accountable. But the one piece that really stuck out to me was something I've never thought to do before, which is to write down for yourself why you're doing this. So in the moments when you aren't sure that it's worth your time or that you know there's something more fun to do. You can look at that piece of paper and you can read what you wrote about what that meditation practice, and why you're setting that as a goal for yourself to stick with it.

JAC: And here is Maggie with Yael.

MU: Great, so Yael, thank you so much for joining me on the #WeGotGoals podcast. It is so wonderful to get to talk to you.

YS: I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me Maggie.

MU: Absolutely. So Yael,  you are about to launch a book called What Now: Meditation for your 20s and beyond. And you're also the founder and director of mindful NYU which is the largest campus wide mindfulness initiative in the country. That’s huge. I'm very interested how you came upon mindfulness and how it started at NYU which is in the middle of the biggest craziest busiest city in the world.