That's certainly common and I find it tough getting to the stage of hypnagogia myself but the trick is to observe it as passively as possible. Counting and such, in my opinion, is too active of a method, too much concentration, which keeps one from getting closer to sleep.

Thus, what I do is let myself lay there going to sleep normally for a certain amount of time with my thoughts wandering all over the place until I'm just naturally relaxed and really sleepy. By that time I'm either still aware enough to just start passively waiting for hypnagogia or (just as what happened last night) I get a hypnic snap and snap out of hypnagogia accidentally. After such a snap or upon realizing that I'm relaxed and tired enough I simply lay there with my thoughts wandering but observe them very...carefully. I don't give much thought to the thoughts in my head, I merely let them flow and try to be aware of them in what way I can.