How do you design a meditation course?

One of the most exciting, creative, and rewarding parts of being a meditation teacher is designing your own meditation course. Although it can seem intimidating, designing your own course gives you the opportunity to put your passions, skills, knowledge, and experience into a unique and fun learning format and share it with others. You have full creative licence to research and craft your content, the chance to share your favourite meditation techniques, the choice of where and how you will deliver your course and who your target audience is.

Meditation continues to grow in popularity largely as people seek ways to reduce stress and anxiety. Not surprisingly the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this growth across the world and the number of people who meditate globally is estimated to have tripled since 2012. In terms of training, over 2,500 meditation apps have been launched since 2015, and Google reports that the number of internet searches for meditation apps continues to rise every year (1).

While apps are a convenient and affordable way to learn and practice meditation, they lack the personalised guidance, group meditation, connection and learning, opportunity to ask questions and receive individualised teaching and support that a course can offer.

So, where to start?

Creating a meditation course may seem daunting, overwhelming, and maybe even impossible. As with any big project, however, the way to approach and accomplish it is step by step. As Desmond Tutu once wisely said, “there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.”

The following suggestions may be helpful or inspiring as you consider designing your meditation course. The key is to break this big and rewarding project into achievable steps so that you can create a course you are proud of and can continue to improve over time as you get it out there and teach it.

How to Design a Meditation Course (Step by Step)

Step 1: Decide on Your Course Topic.

Start by clarifying what, why and for whom your course will be created by asking some key questions: What are you passionate about? What skills do you have? What experience do you have? What things have you done that you have authority in? What meditation techniques or approaches do you love? Do your friends, family or colleagues ask you for help on specific topics? Have you solved a problem for someone or helped someone in an area they struggle with? Who do you want to teach and why?

Consider what you know, enjoy, and can help others with, ideally providing your students with a specific outcome or transformation. Who are your ideal students and what do you want them to learn? Remember that people enrol in courses because they want to change something about themselves or their life. The key to a good course is that there is a transformation for the student in the form of solving a significant problem, achieving a goal, or learning empowering skills and understanding.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

Considering the maxim, we are here to teach what we are here to learn, what have you learned from personal experience that has transformed your life and that you’d like to share with others? Creating a course on a topic that you are passionate about and know from personal experience can make teaching easier, your content and delivery authentic and your course unique. You might end up with 2 or 3 ideas here to take into the testing stage.

Step 2: Test Your Idea.

If you want to create a popular or profitable course, you will need to offer something that your audience wants to learn, in an accessible and affordable format. There is no point creating a course that no-one wants to enrol in. So, it can be very valuable to do some research and connect with your target audience to understand their needs directly before you spend time creating your course.

I’ve previously made the mistake of creating a course I thought people would love but turned out I was the only one interested in! At least, people were not interested enough to pay for and enrol in it. Before you put your heart and soul into designing your course, make sure your topic is something people want to learn about.

Do some market research to find out if your topic is something people are struggling with and whether they will come to you to learn about it. Search the internet and ask your target audience questions such as, “Do people already spend money to solve this problem, in the form of books, apps, services, etc…?” “Will they pay or come to me to learn about this?”

Step 3: Research Your Topic.

Once you have chosen your topic and assured yourself there is a market for it, the next step is to research and plan your course. This is an important step as sharing well researched and organised information helps to ensure your course content is not available anywhere else for free.

This is also an opportunity to be creative and brainstorm all the subtopics you want to include in your course, then research for the latest, evidence-based information. This enables you to be an expert in your chosen topic.

Step 4: Create a Course Outline.

To guide your students to their transformation, make a list of skills, techniques, and knowledge they need to have and and put them in the order they need to learn them – this becomes your outline that can continue to develop as you go. For example, after researching, you may have more ideas about subtopics you want to include in your course. Break these ideas down, put them in logical order and fit them into your outline. As you create your outline, you may start to consider what practices and content you will teach, what 1-2 key concepts each lesson might contain and therefore how long your course will be, what format will the course take, whether you will teach it online or in-person, and how big the class might be.

Step 5. Write Goals and Objectives.

Write down any learning goals and objectives for your course, at what stage you want your students to learn or achieve them and if and how you will evaluate student progress. These provide key milestones for the progression of your course, they will help shape each lesson and provide context, direction, focus, and encouragement for your students. Remember the overall transformation you are working towards and consider the main themes you will teach to get there.

Step 6: Create the Course Content.

The next step is to create the actual content.

What relevant information, techniques, practices, and ‘little wins’ will help your students achieve the learning goals and overall transformation? What content would make the course engaging and fun? What activities can you add to make the course interactive? What delivery methods will be most effective? What meditation skills and understanding do you most want your students to gain?

Flesh out your outline by writing down the process (step by step) that someone will need to go through to get the desired outcome or transformation your course provides and turn each step into a lesson (or section). Fill in the details and everything you want to add for each lesson. Have fun expressing your unique creativity and understanding.

Step 7: Finalise the Course Structure.

Does the course flow? Is there clear progression from lesson to lesson? Is the course too full of content and overwhelming? Can you trim it down to capture the most important points and skills to keep your course concise, practical and to the point? Is there sufficient space for reflection, group discussion and sharing? Is it a course you yourself would like to take?

Deciding that your course is finished and ready to launch is exciting and scary. Make it easier for yourself by remembering that your course is never really “finished” and can continue to evolve every time you teach it. Be brave, let go of perfectionism, get your course out there and make continuous improvements based on student feedback, your own experience in teaching it, and any new research or understanding that comes to light. Each time your run your course, expect to learn more and realise ways to make it better.

The last steps are to market, sell and teach your course. There is no point creating an outstanding course if nobody knows it exists! How will you let your target audience know about and enrol in your course?

While this is not an exhaustive list of things to consider, plan and prepare, it provides some helpful tips to get you started on accomplishing the fun and rewarding feat of designing a meditation course.

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Source:

(1) https://qz.com/1958593/covid-19-accelerated-the-worlds-embrace-of-meditation-apps/