The most important thing to remember about the second Key is that even the most ‘gold standard’ methods are not applicable to everyone. You have to find the method or methods within them that will work for you.

Researchers saw that many Finders had tried several of the gold-standard forms of meditation, while at the same time often telling them that only one or two worked for them. The interesting thing was that it was never the same one or two from person to person.

So, this meant that although people had tried these various, effective forms of meditation and other methods, different ones had worked for different people. This simple observation is quite shocking on one hand, and yet completely commonsense on the other.

The best way to sum it up is that different methods, work for different people, at different times. At any given time, it’s likely that only a small number of methods will work for you. As you use them, and as you simply live your life, “you” are going to change. You will probably fall out of alignment with one or more of these methods, and need to find new ones.

Even this isn’t permanent, as you continue to change over time, you can come back into alignment with methods that stopped working for you. And, methods that had never worked previously can start working. Sometimes people think that as they go along with this process, it’s like scratching items off a large list, and that once an item is scratched off, it’s scratched off forever. Nothing could be further from the truth.

On the contrary, it’s a good idea to occasionally re-try major, gold-standard methods that weren’t working the last time you tried them, and maybe have never worked for you, because you never know when they might start working.

It’s actually even more complicated than this, because not all of each method may be effective for you. It’s very possible that, in your case, only a part of a technique may be effective. The most effective method may be a combination of parts of different methods combined into a highly effective new method that is only relevant for you.

Or it may be two or three methods that are used in a specific order, or at very specific times. In other words, customization is the key. Because one size doesn’t fit all, you should expect to put in a little time to figure out what will work best for you. Right about now you’re probably asking yourself how to do that. Simply put, you have to try them.

The most successful scientific experiment at transitioning people to higher levels of consciousness used a protocol that transitioned about 70% of research participants to higher levels of consciousness. Their success came down to participants systematically trying the gold-standard methods we uncovered and modified, in a highly specific and structured way. You can easily adopt a similar structure on your own, and here we’re going to give you the important elements so you can do just that.

Although this may seem surprising, generally one week is enough time for you to know whether you are aligned with a method or not. Alignment can be tricky to learn on your own, but here are some guideposts to help you. It can show up as:

• Increases in wellbeing
• Less reactivity
• Better emotional regulation
• Less tendency to be drawn into thoughts
• A quieting of the inner critical voice in your head
• A greater sense of presence or being in the moment
• Fewer memories from the past arising – and their having less emotional charge when they do
• And other related types of things…

It doesn’t matter if these things are happening inside of meditation, or during the rest of your day. In fact, generally progress indicators that come from outside of practice sessions are better, according to the science.

It’s important to not mistake simple relaxation for progress. There are many ways to relax, and many meditation methods can relax you. But, when it comes to reaching higher levels of consciousness, relaxation is not necessarily progress. The opposite of relaxation that people also sometimes mistake for progress, is the ability to stay focused.

The types of gains scientists measured when people transition to higher levels of consciousness in wellbeing, stress, depression, anxiety, cognitive capacity, meaning, loneliness, and more did not come from relaxation or focus. If that were the case, other types of relaxation exercises, and even exercise itself, would produce similar, deep and lasting effects — as would training your brain to focus with things like mental puzzles.

If you experience relaxation or focus when you meditate, but then find yourself stressed out again not long after you stop, that’s a sign that you’re not making any real progress. You want to make progress towards powerful changes that last well beyond your practice sessions, and into even the most difficult and stressful situations in your life.

The amount of time you spend practicing is critically important. You should be able to determine if a type of meditation is working for you in as little as a week, if you put in enough time.

If you use the technique for an hour a day, a week is plenty. If you use it for 20 to 30 minutes per day, it might take as long as 4-6 weeks to get a proper understanding of whether it is truly working, or just relaxing you.

If the opposite of some or all of the types of things just mentioned show up and persist as you try a method out, it’s probably not the right method for you – and you should consider moving on and trying a different one.

But, here’s the hitch. It’s important to give a method enough time, because you can have a rocky start with a method you’re aligned with and have it turn out great towards the end of the trial period. You won’t know unless you push through. If you’re doing an hour a day, that means pushing through for an entire week. A method might feel out of alignment for 5 or even 6 days, but then suddenly start to work.

Research revealed that length of meditation time REALLY matters. By far the best way to test a method out is to give it at least an hour a day for a week. That may sound like a lot, but here’s what scientists have learned.

As you approach the 40 minute mark you may notice practicing getting especially difficult. It turns out that this is a key threshold for progress towards higher levels of consciousness, rather than just relaxation or focus. 

If you stick with it and apply yourself for the whole hour, the real magic will start to happen after about the 40-45 minute mark. So, an hour of meditation gets you about 15 minutes in this sweet spot. 

If you’re meditating for less time, you’re probably still mostly just meditating for relaxation or focus. You’ll need to do a lot more of it to try to get some moments in the sweet spot, which is why it may take up to a month or more for you to be able to sense if a method is right for you.

What happens when you’ve found a method that seems to be working great, and all of a sudden it stops working? We’ll discuss that next in Key #3 …