Hold Yourself Accountable before The Final Day

Assalamualaikum WBT...

Alhamdulillah, after countless of time ignoring the whispers in my heart telling me to write, here I am now, writing up my thoughts. As I said before "Reading is like breathing in and writing is like breathing out". And before I suffocate myself, I should breath out to let more air in. 

Alhamdulillah, I am still alive, I am still breathing. I think I am witnessing myself transformed a little for the better, I hope. May Allah makes it easier for us to be a better servant each day. Insha-Allah.

Now, rather than punishing myself for my mistakes, I am more understanding, more forgiving to myself and focus more on the solution; on how to stand up again and be better each time. It may sound easy for some of you, but that is the most difficult thing for someone who has been struggling to manage their perfectionism which often backslashes. It took me years to accept the fact that I have that toxic perfectionism in me sometimes. But being understanding and forgiving to myself doesn’t mean I can escape to hold myself accountable for my wrongdoings.

I am on my long-life journey learning how to manage myself and change to be better. I have started a new habit recently, listening to podcasts by an amazing person; Aida Azlin, Mizi Wahid, Nur, Aiman Azlan etc. Why I need to listen to them all? Because they cover different topics. They have their own speciality. And my mind is always full of question, searching for answers. If you haven't heard about them yet, let me briefly introduce them. To the level of my knowledge and understanding, Aida Azlin focuses on 'Self-betterment Journey', Mizi Wahid and Nur focus on 'Self-discovery and how to have a good life', and Aiman Azlan is a youth mentor who covers topics on how to manage yourself, your day/time and also focus on preparing a right mindset/intention before entering Marriage life. Yes, I am in an Ocean full of questions related to those topics. 

So here are the list of things that I have been pondering in my head:

• Self-discovery 
• Perfectionism
• Expectation
• Self-betterment (Changing behaviour)
• Consistentcy (Istiqamah)
• Patience (Sabr)
• Tawakkal (Submission)

Phase 1; the first three (Perfection - Expectation - Self-discovery) requires us to reflect on ourselves.

Phase 2; the last three is to act upon the reflection. 

Self-discovery

In my self-discovery journey, I figured that I am struggling to understand and manage these two; Perfectionism and Expectation. 

Perfectionism

Sometimes you do realize your are being perfectionist, but you just can't stop yourself. You keep falling into the same trap over and over again. Then, I asked myself, why? Why are you repeating the same mistake? Why can't you stop destroying yourself? Hmm, probably because I still believe that being a perfectionist is not 100% wrong, I believe we need it too sometimes, provided it is not too much. But the problem is, how do I measure when is perfectionism is good and when is it toxic? Maybe I just got it all wrong, maybe there isn't any good perfectionism et al?

Let me share a bit about perfectionism. I listened to this podcast "Is My Strive To Be Perfect Destroying My Life?" Nur's said: "Have you been in a situation where:

• You are replaying your mistakes in your mind over and over again, punishing yourself for the mistakes instead of learning what you could do better next time.
• Do you face a challenge in celebrating your wins, feeling you are not good enough to be celebrated for?
• Have you found yourself procrastinating a lot on your tasks because, in your mind, the situation is not ideal enough to do the task, waiting for it to be perfect before you can start doing your task? You have this all or nothing attitude.
• Do you have trouble making a decision in your life, having the fear of failing on getting it all wrong, you keep thinking about it and end up putting yourself in a situation of indecisiveness?"

So, my answer is/was yes to all of them. If you answered yes to most of it too, then we shared the same problems. But, the good news is, we do have a cure for this. To find out, please listen to the 'The Good Life' podcast. Really good. 

What I want to share here is about a quote, “Practice makes perfect” that isn’t correct. Because only Allah SWT is Perfect. Instead of saying practice makes perfect, say “practice makes you better”. This quotes has struck me, I feel like, yeah, that sounds so much better, and less pressure. Forget about making things perfect, instead focus on making it better each time. Let's strive to be better each day.

I just love to see that happy face :) Istanbul- 2015

Expectation 

(I wrote about this in my previous post - this is the summary of it)

I asked myself, is it wrong to have expectation? When is expectation is healthy and when is it toxic? It's a very thin line between those two, that we often fell into the second frame of expectation, which is very unhealthy and could cause a lot of disappointment.  I feel the need to transform and restructure my mind. I should replace "expectation" with "hope". 

"Have hope rather than expectations and you will tend not to be as disappointed."

More importantly, set the centre of your hope to our Lord, Allah SWT, The One The Al-Mighty The Most Powerful.

I just remembered few verses I read a couple of days ago, the story of Prophet Zakaria and Mariam:

Nothing is impossible for Allah SWT. We shall always think good of Allah and jangan putus asa dari RahmatNya. 

Alhamdulillah Allah buka pintu mata hati ini untuk memahami dan menerima these new concept; perfectionism and expectation. 

That is part of my self-discovery journey. 

Now I have transformed those two words in my vocabulary; from

Perfect to Be better

Expectation to Hope

Before this, I wasn't fully aware that self-discovery is very important. Not until I listened to The Good Life podcast, episode "When Do I Know Enough Is Enough?", by Mizi Wahid and Nur. 

I came to realize that it is very important to know yourself; Who I am? What I want in life? Where is my limit? What makes me happy? What is my strength and weakness? 

Knowing the answers to those questions would make choices in life so much clearer and hence easier to make.  But, it's not guaranteed that the path you chose would be easy all the time though. Sometimes you got to choose the rough path, but it would be so much more bearable, more easy to handle and the battle is far more meaningful because that decision was made in line with what you want in life and after you considered your strength and weakness. And more importantly, you will know when enough is enough, as you know yourself better now. 

What scares us the most and what stops us from taking the rough path even it is good for us, is because we scared we might lose ourself in the battle, we might found ourself trap and continue falling, because we don't have the courage to get ourself out of it or we feel it's now too late to leave. That should not happen if we know ourself, that will help rings the bell to tell you when enough is enough. Or maybe that is not often the case, but at least we have tried our best, in our capacity. 

And, yes, self-discovery is a never-ending journey. Each day you get to know a new side in you if you reflect on yourself. Because the discovery is a mixture of the good and the bad side of ourself, we need to keep an open mind to be able to accept the outcome and be prepared to make the change. 

Self-Betterment (Changing behaviour)

Here is the thing, change, the action. We now know a little more about ourself from the self-discovery journey, we realize there are things we should change. Because discovery alone doesn't stop there, we need to take action and make the change happen. This is the hardest part so far. 

That's me, just started going to the gym, because now we need more action!

I have started my self-betterment journey a long time ago. If you read my previous post https://disy90.blogspot.com/2018/08/hijrah.html I explained the journey there. Alhamdulillah, thank you Allah for guiding me to the path closer to You. The journey never gets easier, no matter how long have you been in the journey or how many challenges you have gone through. But I must say it is rewarding and worth the efforts. That is simply the rule in self-betterment journey. Once you passed one test, another test awaits and it gets tougher. Isn't that what we want? To be better. As things get harder, you are actually one step further and higher in your self-betterment journey. 

As I go through the journey, here what I learnt: 

1) Don't get disappointed too much when you failed to change. Try again! It's natural to feel disappointed. But, each time, pick up yourself and stand up again. Learnt from your failure and keep going. 

2) I found that the more I know about myself, the quicker I admit my flaws, the easier it gets to go through the challenges. Why? Because now I am more aware of what I want, my strength and my weakness. So, it's easier to execute and customize the solution using every strength I have. I find it's easier to seek help from others as I am aware of my weaknesses and thus I need help. In short, you are more strategize to handle the problems. Hehe... I hope I am like this each time. 

But, not all the time though. Maybe because I am in the process of building my strength through the test. Thus, it will be tough. Just hang in there, have patience and have faith that someday you will get through it.

Then, I asked myself, what can I do within my capabilities to make the change happen easier next time? 

Changing behaviour is the toughest one in life, but the outcome is so much worth it. Changing behaviour means you need to change the way you think and see things. It requires you to change your psychology and of course, must have a strong and correct intention; tell yourself, "I want to change to be ..... because of ..... ". What you want and your intention must be clear enough before you can execute the change. 

Now, how do I change my mind? My way of thinking?

A psychologist once told me if you can't make you mind change fully but you already know what you want, change your physical first, shake your body first, go for exercise, run or do whatever sports you like. That will help release certain hormones that will help shake and wake up your mind. 

The second most important is through changing your environment. Change what you feed to your mind, change what you see, change what you listen to. Change your surrounding to be in line and with your goal. Change to the environment that will support your transitional process. Accept the fact that it would be awkward, it would not be easy at the beginning, but that's what will help you achieve your goal. 

Be prepared and be willing to do anything it takes to make the change happen. 

Consistent (Istiqamah)

Here comes another challenging thing to make the change, Istiqamah. 

Now we have executed the change. We now feel quite a comfortable and happy with the 'new' me, new life that I have longed for. But it didn't stop there, life is full of ups and downs. We will be tested continuously; how consistent we are in the change. It is best to take one small step each time, but consistent and permanent rather than one big change that will only last for weeks or months. Because the most regular constant deeds even though it is small is the deeds most loved by Allah. 

Narrated by 'Aisha [Volume 8, Book 76, Number 472, Sahih Bukhari]

The Prophet was asked, "What deeds are loved most by Allah?" He said, "The most regular constant deeds even though they may be few." He added, 'Don't take upon yourselves, except the deeds which are within your ability."

Through my self-betterment journey, I noticed, I need to be consistent with the change or the new habit for at least 3 months before I could see the impact it has in my life. The first few weeks would be a bit challenging; this is the time where you tend to fall out. You got to force yourself a little and continuously reminding yourself on your intention and your motivation to make the change. But, once you passed the 1st month, you started to feel more comfortable with the change. As you go on and on, you will start to see the positive impact, how it has transformed your life to be better. 

If we want to transform our lives to be better, be determined. Then, Istiqamah will come naturally. 

Patience

After all I realize, patience is indeed one of the most important value in life. There is one verse in Quran that I like the most whenever I am in a difficult situation. 

وَاسۡتَعِيۡنُوۡا بِالصَّبۡرِ وَالصَّلٰوةِ ؕ وَاِنَّهَا لَكَبِيۡرَةٌ اِلَّا عَلَى الۡخٰشِعِيۡنَۙ‏

And resort to patience and Prayer for help.  Truly Prayer is burdensome for all except the devout [2:45]

We have to accept that not everything in this world is within our capacity, we can’t fully understand everything that happened in life. Some we can understand, some need time to uncover, some we might never understand and just need to accept it as there is hikmah behind it later on.

Pray during the night to strengthen your heart. You would find calm and tranquillity. I think I've got what you feel sister Aida. That feeling of finally returning "home".  

As in making Dua’, 

"Allah Answers your prayers in 3 ways:

• He says YES and give it to you
• He says NO and give you better
• He says WAIT and gives you the best"

And that is also what it's like in life in catching our goals. Sometimes we have tried hard, but we haven't get it. At that time, reminds yourself about those 3 ways. Have full submission (tawakkal) to Allah SWT.

Tawakkal

Do we really understand what tawakkal is? And to implement it in our daily life? 

One day I listened to a talk in podcast by Mizi Wahid but I couldn’t recall which episode. He was talking about tawakkal; once you have submitted your affair to Allah, you have to got to be open and accept whatever comes after that. You have to accept and trust His Plan. 

The first step is to put every effort into it, ie discussion with the right person, asking for other people’s opinion, execute, act on in.

The second step is to have a full willingness to submit the outcome to Allah’s. Have faith that if the affair is best for you, Allah will grant your wish. But if it is not good for you, He will replace with something better. 

The third step is to accept the outcome open-heartedly, whatever the outcome would be; be it in your favour or not. Accept. 

وَعَسَىٰ أَنْ تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ ۖ وَعَسَىٰ أَنْ تُحِبُّوا شَيْئًا وَهُوَ شَرٌّ لَكُمْ ۗ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنْتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ  ٢١٦ …

…and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know [2:216]

.............................

It's been a long time since I wrote a long post like this. Those were purely based on my personal reflection from what I have experienced myself.

Self-discovery - Perfection - Expectation - Self-betterment - Istiqamah - Patience - Tawakkal 

Phase 1; the first three (Perfection - Expectation - Self-discovery) requires us to reflect on ourselves a lot. Phase 2; the last three is putting into action. 

Ok, switch language jap.

Fasa pertama ni adalah proses mengenal diri. Kita kenal baik dan buruk kita. Dalam proses ni, kena jujur pada diri dan  kena terbuka dalam menerima kelemahan diri. Lepas kita kenal mana sisi kita yang perlu di perbaiki, kita masuk fasa kedua pula, fasa proses tindakan kita untuk mengubah kelemahan, untuk menjadi insan yang lebih baik. Bagaimana? Gunakan kekuatan kita pula untuk rangka plan tindakan. :) 

OK lah, rasa sampai sini sajalah untuk coretan kali ini. 

I just wanted to genuinely say to myself, that it's OK.

I wanted to say that you have done well Nur, it's OK to make mistakes, to have bad days, to be less than perfect, to do what's best for you, and to be yourself. 

Let go of the past, admit your mistakes, accept your weaknesses, look back on your checklist (plan tindakan), and stand up again, keep going. Pick up the lessons from your past and learn from them. Don't give up until you reach the final day. 

And focus on the important thing in life. Don't lose your focus. It's OK to make mistakes, to have bad days, to be less than perfect, to do what's best for you, and to be yourself, but we need to hold ourselves accountable for our wrongdoings to keep us in the path straight, our ultimate goal, to be the best servant of Allah SWT. Before the final day. The day where each of us would be held accountable. InshaaAllah may Allah Helps us all in our journey. Keep smiling even on a rough-rainy day... :) And never lose hope in Allah SWT.

I would like to end with this beautiful doa:

Nur
Student Centre, UCL