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Continuing our theme of loving-respect towards parents, today’s verse is from Chapter 31, Sura Luqman where Allah says:

We have enjoined upon man goodness towards his parents: his mother bore him by bearing strain upon strain, and his utter dependence on her lasted two years: [Quran 31:14]

This verse also emphasises the children’s duty of loving-kindness, compassion and excellent courtesy (ehsaan) towards parents. The verse then shifts to the particular contribution of the mother in bringing up children. Islamic narrations are clear on the principle that the mother’s status for the child is higher than that of the father. This verse explains why.

Since the mother bears the child, nurses him and does the hard physical and emotional labour related to child-rearing, her contribution is recognized and acknowledged. The verse alludes to the hardships of pregnancy, labour and breast-feeding. This is the time when she is the one who is greatly impacted by the child. It is...

If you need to figure everything out before taking the first step, PLEASE STOP.

Continuously learning without application is a particularly dangerous rabbit hole to fall into (don’t ask me how I know). Researching and trying to find out more and more about something before putting it in practice makes us feel like we are taking action.

But knowledge rarely changes our lives. Only taking action on what we know can do that.

So here is a suggestion:

Take action on what you already know before learning anything else. Act before researching. Act before you feel like you are ready to take action.

You may be surprised to find that taking action on what you already know will make learning more and further research much more effective.

Do something. Make mistakes. Learn from your mistakes. Find out where you went wrong. Do better next time.

Ready. Fire. [Improve your] Aim. Get it?

Here are examples for using this idea:

I can’t read anything about fitness unless I have...

A great way to stay focused and not get distracted is to think about what you want to be true in x amount of time.

What do you want to be true in 30 days from now?

If I want my blood pressure and cholesterol numbers to be down by x amount, what should I be doing today to make that happen?

If I want to buy a new computer in 60 days, how much should I be saving today or how many extra hours a week should I be working to make that happen?

If I want to publish a book in three months, how much should I be writing today and every day to make that happen?

As Benjamin P. Hardy said:"Once you know what you want, it becomes painfully obvious what you don’t want. Thus, you won’t be seduced by the many good things in life distracting you from the better and best."

One reason we procrastinate is that we are overwhelmed. We have more on our to-do list than is humanely possible to do in one day. Deep down we know we cannot possibly accomplish it all. And since we don’t know which ones we should let go of, we simply give up.

Sound familiar?

[Research shows that we greatly over estimate what we can accomplish in one day. AND we greatly under estimate what we can accomplish in a month or a year]

So, what if you could only choose to put three things on your to do list on any given day? Which three things would you choose?

Hint: think about putting things that are related to your life’s purpose. Things that are important but not urgent. Things that will never get done unless they get scheduled.

It is past 11pm as I type this. My hitherto unblemished record of getting Daily Wisdom out consistently almost got tarnished.

But it was not because of procrastination.

Sometimes, I am not very good at judging how long other commitments are going to take and no matter how hard I try, I miss a deadline. Maybe I need to do a series on learning how to keep some margin in life!!

Thank you for your understanding!

We have been exploring examples for implementation intentions for different areas of our lives in order to give ourselves the best chance of reaching our goals in these areas. 

Here are some examples of implementation intentions for common obstacles in parenting. 

·     If my child drops something, I will help them clean it up without drama
·     If my child wants to tell me something, I will stop what I am doing and listen
·     If my child makes a mistake, I will take the time to give them feedback 
·     If my child wants to learn a new skill, I will train them
·     If my child asks a difficult question that makes me feel uncomfortable, I will be brave and engage in the conversation
·     If my children are fighting I will not join the chaos
·     If...

Yesterday we talked about how it is not enough to simply dream of an exciting future. 

Let me repeat that. 

It is not that dreaming of an ideal future is not important to manifest your dreams. 

It is. 

Very. 

However, it is not enough. So what’s missing?

You also need to visualize and plan for the work involved in achieving that goal or manifesting that dream.

Dr. Joe Dispenza in his book You are the Placebo, talks about how you can determine your future. One of the key ways, he explains, is through "mental rehearsing". 

[Controlling your destiny] "is possible through mental rehearsal. This technique is basically closing your eyes and repeatedly imagining performing an action, and mentally reviewing the future you want, all the while reminding yourself of who you no longer want to be (the old self) and who you do want to be. This process involves thinking about your future actions, mentally planning your choices,...

Do you remember the sensation created by the book The Secret? After it came out, many many people started visualizing what they wanted and what success looked like for them, on a regular basis, believing that it was the key to success.

Here’s the thing: it is important to dream. It is also valuable to allow yourself to dream big and let your imagination come up with what wild success looks like. And to feel the good feelings that come from dreaming about these successes.

But you should know one big caveat.

Research shows that when you indulge in this type of day dreaming, it releases all sorts of feel good chemicals and hormones in your brain and in your body. And your brain and body are tricked into feeling that you have already achieved this ….. which in turn dampens your motivation to take action towards your goal!

WHAT???

Yes. Your strategy for success may actually be holding you back from the very thing that you are chasing. (I have been down this rabbit hole many...

A couple of days ago we said that the good news about inspiration and motivation was that we all experience it from time to time.

Now here’s the bad news: inspiration and motivation does not last. Meditation teacher Eknath Easwaran puts it this way: people are often heroes at the beginning (the Sanskrit word for this is arambhashura) of a project and take it up with a fanfare of trumpets and enthusiasm but they soon find that their enthusiasm soon "tiptoes down the back stairs."

What this means is that it is perfectly normal for inspiration and motivation to wane over time. The problem is not that we lose motivation for a task but that we stop moving forward when this happens.

So, while inspiration is great to get a project going, it is not a good idea to count on inspiration to help us complete a project.

When inspiration and motivation abandon us (and they will), we do not have to abandon projects that matter. This is the time when we need to remind ourselves about our...

Last week we talked about how we need to get into action when we feel inspired.

This week let’s explore this idea of inspiration a little more.

Jim Rohn (who happens to be Tony Robbin’s mentor) talks about what he calls the law of diminishing intent. The law of diminishing intent, he explains, is that the likelihood of doing something diminishes the further away you get from the initial moment of inspiration.

In other words, if we don’t take action when we are feeling inspired, and delay it, it becomes much less likely that we will take action in the future. Our intention to take action diminishes with the passage of time.

This applies whether we are talking about working on our relationship,

starting a new project or doing something that we have always wanted to do.

The more an idea sits on our "someday list" the less likely it is that it will actually get done.

So here is what we need to do on capitalize on inspiration and motivation when it does strike: get in...