I'm going to share the bit of information that finally convinced me to start meditating regularly. I learned it from reading The Willpower Instinct (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10865206-the-willpower-in...).

Meditation produces all of these wonderful side effects, but it's hard, what if I never get good at it? Well, it turns out that trying to meditate is just as effective as meditating! The reason for this is that every time you fail at meditating (when your mind wanders to something for a bit before you realize it and bring it back in line) you are just practicing refocusing your attention. That practice of deliberately focusing your attention is the key bit that brings all of the benefits! Whether you finally manage to focus for a large chunk of time is almost as immaterial as how long you hold up a bar bell at the top of a curl.