40Days to transform my life!

Feel like you are letting yourself down? Know you can do better but aren't sure how? Make great resolutions but don't follow through? Sounds just like me. Which is why I am resolving to commit 40Days to making a lasting difference to my life, insha Allah. This blog is the online home of my personal 40Day Challenge - you can join me or simply follow my progress (or lack of it!).

Saturday, April 02, 2011

My 10 Habits

Asalaamu alaikum,

As part of my 40Days to transformation, I have picked 10 habits that are related to mind, body, soul and family.

With regards my soul, I pledge to:

1. Spend 10 minutes a day with the Qur'an (reading, reciting, memorising, reading tafseer)

2. Do one act of kindness from the Sunnah every day (smiling, salaam, gift, writing to or calling a relative or sister, giving charity etc.) with a purified intention

3. Pray with longer surahs, with more khushoo', on time

With regards my mind, I pledge to:

4. Write 500 words a day (work on my blog, journal, article, or books)

With regards my body, I pledge to:

5. Exercise for 15-30 minutes each day

6. Do a week-long detox

7. Dress 'properly', from head to toe, every day - no 'New Muslim Tramp' here!

With regards my family, I pledge to:

8. Revive our ailing star chart system

9. Share a book with my children for 15 minutes each day

10. Do an act of kindness for the Hubster every day



Pheew!! Is this going to be hard?? Not with a solid intention, much du'a and the support of my sisters!

What are your 10 habits, sisters? Please share them with us or write them down where you can SEE them!

Wasalaam

Na'ima B.

5 comments:

Bilqees said...

As salamualaikum,

Jazakallah for this, a wonderful forum to remind and motivate us.
My 10 habits are similar to yours, jazakallah for the inspiration. Here they are.

1. Make my salah`s on time, no matter where I am and how busy I think I am.
2. Spend 5 minutes with the Quran (increasing the minutes by 2 every week)
3. Give something away three times a week in Sadaqa.
4. Read a novel from front to back.
5. Memorize my times tables again:)
6. Run for 10 minutes (increasing the time by 5 minutes every week)in the morning, 5 days a week.
7. Read to my little ones for 10 minutes before bed.
8. Organize and participate in a `girly` activity with my only daughter twice a week.
9. Reestablish family game night.
10. Go on a date with my husband a week (and make it mandatory :) )

Inshallah I can kept there up and make them into real habits.
May Allah subhanawatalalah give us the strength to do what we intended and may He have mercy on us and bless us in this life and the next... ameen

Na'ima B. Robert said...

Salaam, Bilqees,

I'm loving your resolutions - and I am with you on story time, game time and date night. These things are so important for building strong relationships within the family and creating good memories, masha Allah. Please keep us updated on how these go day by day.
Love
N
xxx

Bilqees said...

As salamualaikum,
I`m finding it difficult praying my Salah`s when they come in. This would guarantee not missing them or praying them at the last minute. I`m going to try an alarm tomorrow inshallah (athan alarm). Even with the alarm it`s a mind set that I need to change. I`m making dua.. :)

Anonymous said...

Assalamu alaykum wa rohmatulloh

I found out about this a bit late, but inshaAllah very excited to be part of it :)

Here are my 10 resolutions. I'm hoping announcing them publicly and leaving a comment regularly will help me a big time to stick to them inshaAllah :)

1. With regards to salah- I want to go for specific changes like a)alternate the surahs for each prayer b)my biggest weakness is to find time and motivation to offer prophetic dhikr after prayers, specificly saying subhanAllah 33 times, Alhamdulillah 33 times, Allahu Akbar 34 times followed by duas inshaAllah.

2. I used to sit 20-30 mins after fajr and isha reading the morning and night time duas and prophetic prayers. It has been a long time since I gave up this action. IsnhaAllah I want to revive this with a purified intention

3. Improve my relationship with Quran. Currently we spend 30-40 minutes with kids on memorization and tafseer. But inshaAllah I want to set up a separate time for my own memorization (again I have neglected my own self)

4. Get my an hour of walking each day, no matter of the weather. If no walking, then find an excuse to keep active inside the house, do some spring cleaning, hoovering the stairs, cleaning bathrooms, gardening inshaAllah anything that burns off my energy :). Also keep up the swimming on Sundays with my girls inshaAllah.

5. With regards to diet, drink more water, eat dates when I feel low on sugar :), use less salt, do less baking (we never buy cakes,biscuits or indeed anything sugary/creamy from the shops, but then end up doing lots of baking at home lol)

6. Improve my relationships with children. We do have 40 minutes quran time and about 30 minutes circle time (we read books, practice arabic vocabulary, talk about weather, plan a project etc)each day. But I am too tough and strict on them when they misbehave. SubhanAllah, I loose my temper so easily and find myself shouting at them and even hitting them at times when they do something wrong. InshaAllah I want to give this up and try to restrain myself from shouting, hitting or showing my emotions when I am angry with them. Sis Rose's advice was a big help, may Allah reward her and sis Naima for sharing it.

7. Improve my relationship with my husband. This is one of my biggest mistakes as well- I often feel I am neglecting my husband at the cost of my children or other household duties. I feel I am not making enough effort to look and speak nicely for him, offer his tea/dinner on time with manners befitting muslimah. InshaAllah I want to make effort by putting on some nice clothes andperfume on for his return from work, make a special time with him after kids' bedtime inshaAllah, may Allah help me and guide me on this.

8. Spend less time virtually, on facebook/twitter and inshaAllah make an effort to do more visiting/inviting sisters and other family friends, do real socializing instead of virtual socializing lol.

9. Post on 40days Transformation regularly. inshaAllah this will help me to ensure I'm still motivated and on track. I'd love to read other sisters' success and how they are getting on inshaAllah if then can do so. Big jazakAllah :)

10. Attend a sisters' circle on the weekends regularly. (it is offered in one of our local masjids and I have only been able to go 2 times in the past 5 months. SubhanAllah this cirlce is really good, it is good enough to sit in the company of all the knowledgeable sisters who come)

Sorry, this is a bit long. As this is my first post, I wanted to give a little explanation for each point as I am going to have come back to my initial post to remind myself of each one's importance and why I chose them and why I shouldnt give them up)

May Allah help us and guide us all. May Allah make these easy for us inshaAllah.

UmmSumayya

Bilqees said...

As salamualaikum,
Alhamdulailah I feel like I made a bit of a break through with regard to my salah. I decided to use my eldest son as my alarm and have my kids make the athan. We used to pray together (myself and the kids) when they were smaller and I don't know what changed, but we stopped and I started praying by myself and they prayed together. Maybe it was because I got to involved with the baby. What ever the reason it really messed up my salah pattern. With Fajr and Isha lead by my husband and making a jamah with the kids for the other salah, I feel like I'm on track inshallah.
ws