Consistency Builds Character

I'll begin my post with an analogy. If you want to start a business, what do you need first? Not money, before that. You need a business plan. Similar to your life, you need a plan to live a successful life.

"Failing to plan is planning to fail" - Benjamin Franklin -

However, sometimes (or most of the time), all the things we have planned remain plan, no implementation. Perhaps they are so big or so many that we find them difficult to implement. 

Three days ago, I attended a talk by Sheikh Abdulbary Yahya, entitled "Ambition - Journey of a Thousand Miles". From his name, you know he is a Muslim speaker (a great one btw), but his talk can be applied to anyone, regardless of their belief. However for Muslims in particular, I'll share some of the things he said at the second part of this post.

Start making your plan with small things!

The plan needs to be small to make it achievable. Not only small, there has to be regularity in it. Make your daily, weekly, and monthly plan! Sheikh shared a couple of examples of his own plan:

• Tidy up room for 3 minutes everyday
  
  Sheikh's mother and sister are "clean freaks". They always maintain everything in the house tidy and clean. So, he grew up as a spoiled child because he didn't need to clean anything in the house. They had done it. When he studied abroad (in Medina), the mess started to pile up. Of course his mother's gonna come to clean it. So, he made this plan: he would spend only 3 minutes to tidy up or clean his room every day. He did it. Eventually, his room's always clean and tidy, and he came to the point when he was looking for dirt/dust to spend the 3 minutes he had allocated. Finally he had to reduce it to 1 minute a day.

  
  
• Take 3 pieces of rubbish from the car
  
  Sheikh made this rule for his children. Everytime they are travelling by car, each one of his children has to take 3 pieces of rubbish from the car to be thrown away. The rubbish is like a ticket to get out of the car. This way, his car is always clean.

The point here is consistency. If you're consistent with your plan, it will become your habit. It's no longer a burden. Eventually, you won't even realize that it has become your character. If the plan is applied to your family, then it becomes your family character, and you won't need to remind them anymore.

Consistency is not only about doing your plan, but also doing it in time. For example, 5-minute exercise every day (daily plan); visiting a friend once a week (weekly plan); cooking for the whole family once a month (monthly plan); etc. You should stick to the time you've set for every plan. Try your best to be consistent in time of ease and hardship! How to do it? Do not choose deeds that are too difficult to do! Do not choose too many deeds! Once you succeed with the small plans, you can work it up.

"If you can do something consistently, it becomes your character. It won't be a burden anymore, you'll enjoy it." - Sheikh Abdulbary Yahya -

For Muslims

Here I'm writing several ideas shared by Sheikh regarding our spiritual plan.

As Muslims, we have to pray¹ 5 times a day. Why did Allah SWT order us to pray 5 times a day?² There is a wisdom behind it. It teaches us consistency (istiqomah), which is one of many principles in Islam. The 5 prayers have their specific times when they have to be performed. If we're consistent performing all the prayers in time, then we can take it to the next level, which is to pray no later than 10 minutes after Adzan (the calling for prayer, when the prayer time starts), for example. This could be our daily plan.

I'll tell you a story. Since embracing Islam, Abu Hurairah RA never missed the first takbeer of congregational prayer for 40 years. If you think it's easy, try it for 4 days only, it's hard! Especially when you're busy with study or work. However, you can include this in your monthly or 2-week plan.

Another story about Abu Hurairah RA; since he mentioned Muhammad SAW as his khalil (means intimate friend in Arabic), he never missed these 3 things:

1. fasting 3 days every month,
2. praying witr before going to sleep every night, and
3. praying 2 raka'at of Dhuha every day.

All of them are sunnah (not mandatory), but he was consistent doing those 3 until the day he died.

If we look at those 3 things above, they are achievable. We can start by doing no.2 as our daily plan. Note that those are Abu Hurairah's minimum requirements; he did more than those. For example, he fasted one day, off the next day, fasted again one day, off again, and so on.

Another thing Sheikh suggested was related to technology. We all know that we use computer/laptop/iPad almost every day (if not every day). So, what Sheikh does is that everytime he turns on his iPad, the first thing he does before doing anything else is reciting a page of Qur'an (the Qur'an application on iPad).

With all the routines that have been planned, one might ask, "How to make it not feel robotic?" Try to focus on the quality of your deeds too, not just quantity. For example, when you recite a page of Qur'an, read and understand the meaning too! This way, you learn something that can be applied in your life.

Once you get used to your new habit, please be careful! The plan you've been doing is your personal plan. Do not force others to do exactly what you do! If you do so, it becomes bid'ah.

There are many other ideas we could include in our plan. Some of them are:

• giving €5 every week for shadaqah,
• praying at mosque at least once a week,
• reciting surah Al-Kahfi every Friday,
• performing sunnah prayer (qabliyah and/or ba'diyah) every day,
• etc.

Now you have a good number of ideas for your plan. Of course you're allowed to be creative as long as your plan only contains good deeds. Just remember: start from small things, be consistent, and work it up! :)

¹"prayer" or "pray" is actually not the precise word to describe the prayer Muslims do as it has specific rules and procedures regarding movements and recitations (unlike "pray" in general). So, in Islam the prayer is called "shalat/salah". However, for reading convenience, I'm using the word "prayer" or "pray" in this post .

²The wisdom behind the revelation of the mandatory prayers can be read in this post: http://zahraeyes.blogspot.ie/2012/11/the-wisdom-behind-isra-miraj.html.

 

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The Wisdom behind Isra' Mi'raj

The order to perform mandatory prayers¹ was conveyed to Prophet Muhammad SAW during Isra' Mi'raj. Those who don't know what Isra' Mi'raj is can read it here: wikipedia and IslamiCity.

All Muslims know that the number of mandatory prayers per day was 50 at first. However on the way back, Muhammad SAW met Prophet Moses AS (peace be upon him). He advised Muhammad SAW to go back to to ask for reduction. There's no way Muslims would be able to perform 50 prayers every single day. So, Muhammad SAW went back to do what Moses AS suggested. Basically, Muhammad SAW went back and forth asking from Allah SWT for reduction as Moses AS kept telling him that the number was too many. In the end, 5 is the final number of mandatory prayers Muslims must do, until this day.

Now, read this carefully. Allah SWT is God. Did He not know that Moses AS would tell Muhammad SAW to go back and forth asking for reduction from Allah SWT? Of course Allah SWT knew, He's the Almighty and the All-knowing. So, why did He do this? Why didn't He order 5 the first time? Why did He start from 50?

There's a wisdom behind this. If we had to pray 50 times every single day, how much time left for anything except praying? Let's do the computation roughly: 24 hours / 50 prayers = 2 or 3 prayers per hour. Thus, you would only have a few minutes to eat, study, work, and sleep! Imagine you sleep for a few minutes and then have to wake up to pray. You see that most of our time would be spent in prayer if we had to perform it 50 times a day. It shows that Allah SWT wants us to constantly worship Him. That's the purpose of our life. However, Allah SWT is the most merciful (one of His 99 names/attributes). He knows that we won't be able to perform 50 prayers a day. So, He reduced it to 5.

The order to pray was the only revelation that was conveyed from Allah SWT directly to Muhammad SAW (other revelations were delivered to Muhammad SAW through the angel Gabriel). Why was that? There's also a wisdom behind this. By praying, we, as His creation, can worship Him directly, pray to Him directly, confess our mistakes/sins to Him directly, ask for forgiveness from Him directly, ask for anything from Him directly, without any intermediary whatsoever. No human-being can be an intermediary between you and God. It's like having a direct plug-in to your Creator. He's the most powerful, the Almighty, the All-knowing, so your relationship with Him doesn't need anyone/anything in between.

¹"prayer" or "pray" is actually not the precise word to describe the prayer Muslims do as it has specific rules and procedures regarding movements and recitations (unlike "pray" in general). So, in Islam the prayer is called "shalat/salah". However, for reading convenience, I'm using the word "prayer" or "pray" in this post.

Source of the picture above: http://bahesti.wordpress.com.

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