Actually, a lot of people don’t know this. They hear the word calm and expect a completely calm mind. But the most powerful part of meditation is awareness.

Each time your mind wanders, it gives you a chance to become aware of where it wandered off to. It’s like a workout: the more your mind wanders, the more reps you get at being aware. When I train meditation as a productivity tool, I call each of these a mental pushup. You want to do lots of them.