This is a great question, and I can relate. As a little boy, I enjoyed prayer times in worship. Everyone went quiet and still. I would close my eyes and bow my head and fill my mind with all kinds of exciting adventures. I battled dragons, rode dirt bikes, and won many baseball games. I would open my eyes and think, Are they still going? As I grew older, intense conviction called my attention back to the real purpose of prayer—talking to God. But I still needed to learn how.

Thankfully, my childhood church had a catechism with this question: “What rule has God given for our direction in prayer?” Slowly, throughout my life, I have learned how to apply the answer to my prayer life. “The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called, the Lord’s prayer.”

First, we have the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9–13 to help us pray. Start there. Just pray the words as Jesus gives them. In time, start applying Jesus’s words in your life. A young lady who had grown up praying in tongues came to me for help with her prayer life. She told me that she prayed in a tongue whenever she did not know how to pray. I encouraged her to follow the Lord’s Prayer. She came back excited two weeks later and said, “Praying through this is so much better!” As Jesus told us, “Pray, then, in this way.”

Second, we can greatly enrich our prayers by following the patterns found in the Psalms. Again, begin by simply praying the actual words of the Psalms. In time, start putting the ideas and images of the Psalms into your own words and experiences. Be careful to reshape your thoughts and feelings to follow the language of the psalm, and don’t just pick the psalm or passage that says what you want it to. Pray through Psalm 23 but also Psalm 88. The Psalms will train you to pray dynamically, moving from problem to solution.

Third, our prayers really improve when they grow immediately and constantly from whatever Scripture passage happens to be on our minds or open on our laps. In daily devotions, end your Bible reading by taking a few choice words or phrases as guides for your morning prayer time. Let Scripture tell you what you should pray for and how you should pray for it. This connects the Bible to your life, but it also teaches you to see your life through the language of the Bible. To get a better sense of the Bible’s relationship to our prayer life, take a look at Donald Whitney’s Praying the Scriptures or Gordon Keddie’s Prayers of the Bible.

Last, including our bodies in the experience of prayer can improve our focus. Prayer journals abound, but a piece of paper also works well. Start writing requests and praises. Be sure to include answers to prayer for thanksgiving. A small group I know would record prayer requests and review previous lists a year later to see how God had been working.

In addition to writing, consider praying with lifted hands (1 Tim. 2:8) or kneeling (1 King 8:58), as physical posture sometimes helps with mental focus. Likewise, if possible, pray out loud. Vocalizing our thoughts and feelings concentrates our attention, helping us experience prayer as a conversation with God. For more on that idea, you can read Wayne Spear’s book Talking to God: A Theology of Prayer. Also, pray with others. My prayer life is greatly enhanced when I hear the heart of others as they stir me to further prayer myself.

With an overactive imagination, I never struggled with prayer meetings or prayer times. But, I have always needed to grow in giving more disciplined and thoughtful attention to God when praying. In keeping with the teaching of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, I have found that the Bible, especially the Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer, have been the best tools for teaching me to pray. Open your Bible and pray in this way.