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In verses 5 and 6 of Sura Inshirah (Expansion), the Quran states:

For truly with hardship comes ease! Truly with hardship comes (more) ease!

The scholars tell us that the verses means that

1) Whatever difficulties or troubles are encountered by men, Allah always provides a solution, a way out, a relief, a way to lead to ease and happiness, if we only follow His Path and show our Faith by patience and right action. The solution or relief does not merely come after the difficulty: it is provided right along with it.
And that the

2) Emphasis and repetition may imply that there is more ease than difficulty.
It is so easy for our attention to zoom in on what is wrong, what is troubling us and what is not quite right. It takes consciousness and intention to direct our attention to the ease that may still be present in our lives. If our knee is hurting, for example, we tend to focus only on the knee. What about our feet, our hands, our head and our organs which are pain free and working...

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...

Have you tried WOOPing your marriage goals? Here are some examples of implementation intentions for your marriage:

· If I come home and my spouse is home, I will go and greet them and engage in a 6-second kiss
· If it is afternoon at work, I will call or text my spouse to check in
· If we are in bed at the end of the day, I will put my phone out of reach
· If we are arguing, I will not engage in toxic talk
· If we are in the middle of conflict, I will breathe and stay engaged and not shut down
. If I am tempted to have a conversation with someone who could be a threat to my marriage, I will end the conversation immediately and speak to my spouse about it
· If my spouse wants to talk about something important, I will make time and bring it up
· If my spouse wants time alone I will not give them a hard time about it
· If my spouse asks me what is wrong I will be brave and tell them

· If I get up in the morning, then I immediately drink a glass of water, say my prayers and then start my morning routine.

· If I’m getting on my laptop for the first time in the morning, then I immediately start working on my most important task without checking email or Facebook, or anything else.

· If I feel myself procrastinating, then I immediately mentally contrast, feel motivated, and get started with the necessary task right afterwards.

· If it’s 2pm, then I do deep work without distractions for another 2 hours.

· If I don’t feel like doing what needs to get done, then I do it anyway

· If I am working on something important, then I turn notifications off on my computer and leave my phone in another room

Here are some examples of implantation examples for health and fitness goals

For the rest of this week, let’s practice coming up implementation intentions for various areas of our lives. 

Here are some general examples to get us going: 

• If I feel like hitting the snooze button, then I immediately jump out of bed as fast as I can.
• If I feel tempted to eat a chocolate, then I put it away and go brush my teeth.
• If I catch myself wasting time on Facebook, then I immediately close it and get back to what I was doing.

Simple, right? So now think of something you are struggling with and come up with an implementation intention.