“O Dear Muslims”

“O Dear Muslims”

“O Dear Muslims, if we were sincere

and tread the path of the righteous,

The living among us,

who didn’t know the path to the straight,

would have fallen in love,

with Islam the real faith.

If we practised Islam the true way,

Our manners were the best

in what we thought and what we said

Just by looking at us,

the unbelievers would have convert

to the religion of Islam

the perfect and true.

O Muslims, did we practise Islam

for ourselves and our family?

Did we not care for the

whole entire Ummah?

What will we say to our beloved

Prophet (SAW)

on Judgment Day?

He made so much effort

before he passed away.

Will he have a smile

on his face for us?

Or will he be unhappy

And his face turned away from us?

And won’t we feel disgrace and injustice?

O Dear Muslims, just don’t pray for yourselves

and family.

Pray for the entire Ummah.”

Good Habits For Basic Personal Development And Growth

Good Habits For Basic Personal Development And Growth

 Everything we do is the result of a habit that was previously taught to us. Unfortunately, not all the habits that we have are good, that’s why we are constantly trying to improve. The following is a list of practical habits that can make a huge difference in our lives. We should treat this list as a reference, and implement just one habit per month. This way we will have the time to fully absorb each of them, while still seeing significant improvements each month.

Health habits:

• Exercise 30 minutes every day. Especially if we don’t do much movement while working, it’s essential that we get some daily exercise. 30 minutes every day are the minimum recommended for optimal health.
• Eat breakfast every day. Breakfast is the more important meal of the day, yet so many people skip it.
• Sleep 8 hours. Sleep deprivation is never a good idea. We may think that we are gaining time by sleeping less, when in reality we are only gaining stress and tiredness. 8 hours are a good number of hours for most people, along with an optional 20 minutes nap after lunch (which is a Sunnah).
• Avoid snacking between meals. Snacking between meals is the best way to gain weight. If we are hungry, eat something concrete. Otherwise don’t. Update: for clarification, I mean don’t eat junk food between meals, but eating real food its ok.
• Eat five portions of fruits and vegetables every day. Our body and brain loves getting vegetables and fruit, so I highly recommend eating as much of them as possible. Five portions is the dose that’s usually recommended by many health associations.
• Eat fish. Fish is rich of omega 3 and other healthy elements. At least one meal per week of fish should be enough for getting all these nutrients.
• Drink one glass of water when we wake up. When we wake up, your body is dehydrated and needs liquid. Make the habit of drinking one glass of water after we wake up in the morning. Also, drink more during the day.
• Avoid soda. Soda is often one of the unhealthiest beverages we can find. Limit our consumption of soda as much as possible and our bodies will be grateful for that.
• Keep our body clean. I don’t advise spending your day in front of the mirror, but a minimum of personal care does never hurt.
• If we smoke, stop it. There’s no reason to smoke anymore, and quitting is possible.
• Take the stairs. This is just a hack that forces us to do a minimum of exercise. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs.

Productivity habits

• Use an inbox system. Make the habit of keeping track of all the ideas and things that comes to mind. We can use a notebook to do this, and then sync everything on our computer.
• Prioritize. If we have a list of things to do, where do we start? One way is to prioritize our list. If we are in doubt, ask ourselves: “If I could only accomplish one thing today, what would it be?”
• Plan, but not too much. Planning is important, and we should decide in advance what we are going to do today or this week. However, planning for more than a few weeks is usually inefficient, so I would not worry too much about that.
• Wake up early. Waking up early in the morning is a great way to gain extra time.(I am working on this 1 ;))
• Check your email only twice per day. Email can easily become an addiction, but it’s usually unnecessary to check it every 10 minutes. Make an effort and check our email only once or twice per day, see if the world will still rotate as before after we try this.
• Eliminate unimportant tasks. Being busy all day does not mean we are doing important stuff. Eliminate every activity that’s not important, and focus on what really matters.
• Clean off our desk and room. Having a clear room and desk is important to maintain focus and creativity.
• Automate. There are a lot of tasks that we need to perform every day or every week. Try to automate them as much as possible.
• Set strict deadlines. When we do something, decide in advance when we are going to stop. There’s a rule that states that we will fulfil all the time you have available for completing a task, so make an habit of setting strict deadlines for maximizing our productivity.
• Take one day off per week. Instead of working every day, take one day off per week (for example Sunday) where we are not going to turn on our computer use that time for doing recreational activities like going for a walk.

Personal Development habits:

• Read 1 book per week. Reading is a good way to keep our brain active. With just 30 minutes per day we should be able to read one book per week, or more than 50 books per year (I personally try to read about 5 paras from the Quran per day and I do feel so great when I do) .
• Solve puzzles. Quizzes, word games, etc. are all good ways to exercise our brain.
• Think positively. We are what we think, all the time.
• Make fast decisions. Instead of thinking for one hour wherever we are going to do something, make our decisions as fast as possible (usually less than 1 minute).
• Wait before buying. Waiting 48 hours before buying anything is a tremendous money saver, try it.
• Meditate 30 minutes per day. A great way to gain clearness and peace is through meditation. 30 minutes are not a lot, but enough to get you started with meditation.

Career habits:

• Start a blog. Blogging is one of the best ways to put our word out. It doesn’t have to be around a specific topic, even a personal blog will do (1 of the best things I have done so far :))
• Build a portfolio. If our job is creating stuff, building a portfolio is a great way to show what we are capable of. We can also contribute stuff for free if that applies to our work.

 What do you think? What are the habits that changed your life?