#066 Purpose and Direction in Life

In this article we focus on how to create things you want in your life, even when you have certain obstacles or things holding you back or sometimes making you feel stuck.

You wonder why it keeps happening, no matter how hard you work and how diligently you strive to overcome your obstacles. 

I also focus on some of the things that make you and I successful people. 

In the core of your being, you are successful because Allah (swt) says in Surah Aal e Imran verse 110: 

كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ

You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. 

This verse is always at the forefront of my mind because it reminds us who we are, what we’re doing, and what we’re about to create in this world that’s going to serve us in the Akhira and in the Dunya.

In the whole trajectory of your life.

You and I, regardless of what obstacles we have, can overcome them.

But what holds us back? And how do we actually get beyond this and take our lives to the next step?

It’s not even the obstacles around you. It’s not even all of the circumstances that you find yourself in, all of the things you don’t like about your life.

If you look at your life without all of the emotions, you’re going to find that you love so many things in your life.

Your career, your achievements, you look at your family, your children, your siblings, your parents.

You know how you’ve been living your life and you can be in love with your life. 

However, when we get stuck in a situation, the mind gets derailed very often. And in that derailment, we’re left feeling insecure, agitated, frustrated, or confused. 

Feeling emotions that we don’t even recognise. Sometimes we don’t even think we’re feeling a thing. 

You call it an off mood or confusion because we don’t like what we’re in. We don’t want to look at it and we rather want to distract ourselves. 

So we run to more work or more activities, more productivity. 

When you get so caught up in all of that, you lose the path and you land in confusion in the end. 

ACHIEVING SUCCESS WITHOUT HAVING TO WAIT YEARS 

To make success inevitable, we must define our goals and create a clear pathway to them.

We’re not talking just short-term success, we’re talking about long-term success. 

Now, there are steps you should be taking, and areas you should focus on so that you make your life and the results that you want in your life inevitable. 

Regardless of whether it’s in your relationships, in your mental health, in your wealth, whatever you’re focused on.

You have to focus on this for at least the next 30 days of your life.

If you’ve been following the Million Muslim Minds Transformation programme, you’re familiar with a lot of this.

If you haven’t been following, then you want to bolster your foundation and watch it. It’s a free programme, so go to:

https://themuslimlifecoach.org/  and sign up for the programme.

It’s going to impact your life.

Back to the inevitability factor.

Define what success means to you, both in the short and long term, in areas like career, relationships, health, and wealth.

The first thing you need is direction and defining a clear pathway. There are a couple of factors involved. 

Number one is defining where you’re headed. You need to know where you’re going. 

If you don’t make a decision, then you’re forever going to be wandering through life. 

This is what happens to most of us. We get super productive and super busy taking on lots of things. 

From the outside, we look highly successful. Everyone else is telling you how amazing you are because you do so many things and you achieve so much, but on the inside, you don’t feel like you’re getting what you want. 

That’s often because we take on so many things and we don’t have a direction. So the first thing you need to do is define what success is for you.

LIFE WARNING: KNOW WHO TO TRUST 

Whatever area of your life you’re looking at. Define what success is for you. 

Once you know what that is, you need a clear pathway to that success. 

Knowing what it is and then knowing a clear pathway to it is important. 

Part of the pathway is that you’re going to need some trust and not a lack of it. Because often, we don’t trust ourselves.

Even though we don’t say it. 

Without saying it, we don’t trust Allah. And you know this because you’re constantly feeling insecure.

This is not something to beat yourself up over but it’s something to start working on when you recognise it. 

When we don’t trust Allah and we’re constantly feeling insecure, then that spiritual factor is what we need to focus on.

This is what we do in the Nafs Transformation Programme. This is what the Coach Certification programme is about. 

This is what all of my programmes are about, but especially the Million Muslim Minds programme.

The spirituality factor is imperative in every element of success that you want in life.

So again, define what that success is, where it is, how it is.

Define a clear path to that. Once you know that, then you need to get to work managing the Nafs, managing the self, all the way to that ultimate goal that you want.

But it’s not sufficient that you’re forever miserable all the way there.

You want to have a great journey all the way there. The way to understand this is that you’re on a pathway. 

The pathway is like a rainbow. There’s the honey pot or the golden pot or whatever it is that you put at the end of the rainbow.

But your pathway is the rainbow, so you’re not going to have a miserable time all the way there.

The rainbow is full of colour, full of life, and you’re going to enjoy it all the way there. 

Think about it like that. This is how you’ve got to do it.

It’s a very clear, distinct pathway and you know what it is because you’ve defined it. 

THE TOOLKIT FOR YOUR JOURNEY

The next thing you need is the toolkit to support that journey. 

Imagine you’re going on a journey and throughout that entire journey you’re going to need a bunch of stuff. 

To travel somewhere, we would take a change of clothing and food and nourishment, stuff for the kids, and stuff for the journey. 

You’re not taking it for the end because that’s your destination but you’re taking it for the journey. So you need a toolkit for that journey.

These are the tools that will support your journey; they will support your every step, all the way to the end destination.

It’s so imperative to have this. When you don’t have your tools, then wherever you are, you feel directionless. 

Whenever you get stuck, or you get obstacles, you don’t know what to do.

This is what  the Science of  the Nafs is. This is what this is all about. It’s the toolkit for life because it’s based on the Quran and Sunnah.

Revelation was meant to give you the tools for life. So this is what we do. 

Whenever you come up against your inevitable steps on your journey, then you’re going to have a bunch of things that go wrong. 

It’s okay and that’s pretty normal. 

But most of us don’t expect that, because our toolkit doesn’t have the tools to help us make that journey.

And we start to self-sabotage. We start to get all upset, we freak out and mess up our relationships and mess up our health, our wealth, and everything that we look at.

We start allowing that internal disarray to become external and impact our lives.

So you must go back to  the ultimate, which is to manage your heart and to manage your intellectual mind.

Those two things are distinctly different but they’re intricately connected.

You’ve got to learn how to manage both of them. 

One thing that always happens to most people when you’re on your journey is you get stuck with fear. 

The fear of staying stuck is one of the biggest reasons people stay stuck. 

You’ve got to recognise that and you need to use the tools. 

This message is to you coaches and therapists who are trained in the science, that are using these very tools to overcome every fear, every feeling of being stuck. 

These are the tools that I talk to you about regularly. 

Embrace them, use them, and empower yourself to overcome all of your fear, all of your feeling stuck, and all of your self-sabotaging behaviour.

Manage yourself all the way through your journey, so that you make the right decisions and you take the right actions.

It’s going to lead you to the end result that you want. It’s going to lead you to the place that you’re headed.

But here’s what people do.

People convince themselves that they’re stuck, that the fear is warranted, or that it’s going to happen.

They forecast a catastrophic future and because they do that, they frighten the hell out of themselves.

And instead of taking steps forward, we take steps backward.

This is why it’s so imperative that you have your tools and there are many tools in the Science of the Nafs.

The foundation of all of them is that spiritual connection. This will lead to an emotional calm that prevails in your life.

The next one is the psychological, which is your mind. If you don’t focus on the psychological, then your experience of life is going to be all over the place. 

You’re going to be blown around like the wind.

Your mind needs to be under your command, and not the other way around. 

In the Science of the Nafs, we focus on spirituality, on psychology, so that your mind is under your command and not the other way around. 

Then, of course, the physiological, the material. You determine your outcome in life  and then you go to work with a clear path to take you to your results. 

And along the way, you also need Sabrun Jameel which is beautiful patience.

Patience. 

There are different ways we can look at this. Frame this in your mind as something that you’re going to do.

It’s an action.

It’s not just something that happens to you or comes to you. It’s something that you do. 

That’s why throughout the Quran and Sunnah, Allah(swt) teaches us through Revelation that this is something you do. It’s an action. 

It’s something that we pursue. 

So that means you’re going to focus on restraining yourself where you need to and you’re going to focus on pursuing where you need to.

This type of patience keeps you on the path of creating the life that you need and want. 

In the midst of that, you’re always going to have the rope of Allah to hold on to. That’s going to give you the security all the way through it.

That’s going to give you your replenishment and all of the good stuff that comes to us.

If you pursue this, you’ve got your destination, your goals, and your actual life that you’re headed toward.

So the future is bright if you want it to be.

But it will be dark if you don’t purposely want it. 

You have to determine your life. You have to determine how that trajectory is. 

I want to leave you with a couple of questions to think about. 

It’s going to help you to clear your mind. 

First of all, ask yourself, What is the end goal that I want? 

What does that destination look like? 

That end goal, whatever your destination is. What you want in your life. And not just long term but short term too.

HOW TO REACH YOUR DESTINATION AND ENJOY THE JOURNEY

We want to hit two birds with one stone. So when we’re planning this, we want to clearly define what that’s going to look like and how that’s going to be. 

Send some time thinking about this because it’s going to help you clear out all of the junk that prevents us from making this happen.

Most of that junk is internal, a lot of fears, lots of different stuff that goes on inside of us. 

But you need to be clear on this.

Where is that? What is that? How is that? 

Think it through. This requires you to put some thought into it. 

You have to put your heart under the intellectual mind if you like, and the heart is the driver of your life.

But the intellectual capacity that you have, you have to use both of these to create the results that you want in your mind before it even happens.

The second question to ask is, what tools do I need?

What do I need to make that journey, to make my life easier, to make the path much smoother? 

What are the tools that I need to harness and master, to put to work everything that I’ve decided on and to create the day-to-day momentum that will take me there? 

Remember, the tools are not for when you get there. When you’re there, you’re there. But the tools are to help you go from here to there. 

What are those tools?  You need to put thought into this.

The Nafs Transformation is based on exactly that. It helps you to tool up and understand every aspect of your life.

It helps you to get to that place. 

We’re talking about the next 12 months, not the next 20 years.

You start doing it now. Because you want to create day-to-day momentum in your life that takes you to the destination that you’ve decided upon.

Ask yourself, Who am I going to become today, such that I become the person that traverses this path and gets to the destination that I’ve decided upon, whatever that goal is, whatever that place is?

Who have I got to become today? Decide upon that. 

You’ve got to put some thought into it. And the most powerful thing is you’re going to harness all of your energy, all of your mind, your time, your wealth, and everything into it because this is your life.

This is who you’re becoming. That person you’re going to become is going to take this path all the way there and here’s a suggestion.

A lot of people, when thinking about achieving their goals, and achieving their dreams, they think of no pain, no gain. 

But who on Earth wants to gain or experience extreme pain? 

No one does.

When we tell ourselves no pain, no gain, it means we’re forever experiencing pain, and the pain actually prevents us from taking the path. 

Decide instead, on the journey that’s going to be enjoyable.

Decide to have fun on the journey.

You want to think, I’m actually going to enjoy my journey. I’m going to love my life. I’m going to do it every day.

I’m going to enjoy the path the whole way.

That’s what we want.

We want you to create a clear pathway that reaches the desired  destination but you enjoy the path just as much as you enjoy the destination. 

It’s very important. 

The last question to ask yourself is:

Have I harnessed the power of my spiritual and emotional connections?

That’s what helps to avoid self-sabotage, procrastination, and all this perfectionism that keeps us from the things that we want. 

Have you harnessed this?

Truly take this into account because this is the most important thing, as you’re making that journey. 

You’ve got to be deliberate about this every single day.

These questions are essential.

Go over this, understand it, put time into this, and you can create the life that you want and the changes that you want.

You’ll start creating all of those things that you want if you’re willing to do the work. 

Doing the work means doing the work in your mind and mastering the tools that help you get the results that you want.

I’ve spent my entire life tooling up, going through this journey, and understanding everything I’ve shared with you here. 

It’s all about the journey that you make day to day. Don’t yourself up for a miserable journey, just so that you can achieve a goal. 

You’ll get to that goal, and you’ll achieve it but you’ll feel no joy in the process. So set yourself up to have the best journey. 

The future has not yet come to pass. Today’s the day we make this all happen. Today’s the day that you tool up and you master your skills. 

Today’s the day that you do imperfect. You have a messy day but you clear up that mess. 

Each day goes by and your days get less messy. 

Before you know it, you’re creating the life that you want.

We indulge in all of the emotions that prevent us from the life that we want.

You have to step into your life and belief will drive you all the way there. Instead of indulging in your fear, indulge in your belief that will create the life you want. 

Love the journey and step into it.