S01E18 – How to Keep Going When Things Don’t Go To Plan!

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Episode 18 Welcome to the Muslim life hackers podcast, the weekly podcast providing you with tips and tricks on how to hack your life and maximize its potential. And now for your hosts Mithra maroof and maheen Malik.

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As we said, the crisis see

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Assalamu alaikum Muslim life hackers, this is me for America here with the 18th episode of the Muslim life hackers podcast. In this podcast, I'm going to be speaking to you about how to keep going when things don't go to plan. And now, you may be wondering, something's not right with this podcast. Well, you know what, you're actually right. Something isn't right. Someone's missing in today's podcast, my co host maheen isn't with me, and nurse, she hasn't been kidnapped. She's not sick. In fact, she's perfectly well from the law. But we actually wanted to do something different with the podcast and wanted to give it a try. Have one of us speak behind the mic instead of both of

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us. And so today's my turn, and next week, inshallah maheen will be taking it on. So we'd like to know what you think about this, a tweet to us? Well, if you're on Twitter, you can tweet and it's m life hackers is our handle. Or you can comment on our show notes found at Muslim life hackers.com slash 18. And in case you're wondering, no, we're not getting rid of the episode in which we're both behind the mic. Well, we haven't decided on that yet. But we want to see how this goes. And it should be interesting. So let's get started with it. What do I mean by how to keep going when things don't go to plan? What do I mean by things not going to play, I'll give you an example. There was a

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time in which

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there was there was something that happened to me not too long ago, I woke up really late one day, and it wasn't something that happens Normally, I had a really late start to the day. And what happened was that it was holiday time. And you know, with holiday times, there's like functions happening, there's weddings happening. And it's normal to have a late night here and there. And so that was one of those nights, and I ended up sleeping really late, and I woke up, I started my day really late. So I woke up to pray. And then I went back to sleep. And then I woke up really late. And what happened was like, things didn't go to plan, because I only have activities that I have to

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do projects that I have to work on during the morning hours. And since it was a holiday as well, I didn't have anywhere to go. So it wasn't that, you know, I was expected to be anywhere. And so it was it was just so if I slipped in, then the only only loss was loss on my part plus that I couldn't get something done during those times. And it was really frustrating for me that day, because morning times is when I get things done like straight after the fudger prayer all the way until mid morning. They're really the golden hours. And when I lose those hours, I mean, I feel, I feel like oh my god, I lost my whole day. That's how it feels like to be at that point. And I'm sure that you

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can relate to to an example like this. Another example that comes to mind of things don't go, things not going to plan is when you're sitting down and working on a project. And then instead of working on that project, you decide to go in to read so many articles and get on social media, and you do everything except work on what you plan to do. So that's also something that in which things didn't go to plan. After that setback, how you react really determines what's to come, here are three things to keep in mind so that you can be able to get back into action. when things don't go to plan. The first thing you need to realize is that you acknowledge that you made a mistake. And you

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ask yourself the question, what can I learn from this? And what measures can I put in place to prevent this from happening, if that's possible? And one things on what what's good about asking questions is that you can be able to shift your mindset because when you ask a question, your mind starts thinking and it at times it can get you away from the situation that's at hand. And the moment that you shift your mindset and your thinking, then that's a moment in which your actions can also be influenced as well, because when a setback happens, you don't want to do anything and you're like, Oh, I don't want to do anything and you feel really demotivated. But once you take a step back

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and you think about things, then you can be in a better position to be able to get back into it. As soon as you make as soon as you make a mistake and things don't go to plan. So what you're doing with this particular question is that you're turning this into a learning opportunity, an opportunity in which you're gaining something. So you take a lesson from this. And the lesson doesn't have to be like, you know, tomorrow's next discovery or something. It can just be a reminder for yourself. Even if you had this lesson from just last week or something, maybe you forgot it, and maybe you need to be reminded again. So in my case, I was thinking okay, so what's my lesson? Let me

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see. Let me see. And I thought

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Okay, listen for me, because I woke up really late because I need to be practical with my planning. So that means that if I sleep late, I need to adjust the next day to reflect that, if it means giving myself more hours to sleep. So maybe that after I wake up for the morning prayer fudger prayer, then I should sleep a bit, and then get up back again. Because that day, that night, I slept very late. So, I mean, this has been very practical with yourself. I mean, you can't expect to sleep at 2am one day and expect everything to go well the next day and wake up at 5am. And start your day. I mean, unless this is the schedule for you, unless this is how you run but but in the case in which

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you're normally sleeping early, and you're waking up early, then it's just not going to happen. And you really need to be honest with yourself, can you do it, because Always remember that setting the bar too high, you're preparing yourself for failure. And change happens through consistent improvements every day. So in this case, I just, I just realized that, okay, so I need to make sure that I adjust the next day to reflect when I sleep very late. And then I can meet a bit better position to stop the days, because there is a difference between planning something and things going wrong. And there's a difference between, you know, knowing that you're going to wake up late, and

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then starting your day from there, because what's happening is that you're you're more motivated to start your day. And you're you acknowledge that, you know, you may not get the same amount of hours as you normally get from the other days. But at least in the second case, when you knew that you're going to wake up late, you know, you can just get straight into action. And you don't have to, you know, have any setbacks. So that was a lesson that you could take the next time. Another lesson you can also take is that, for example, you're working on a project and you got all distracted and got got on social media. And you know, you didn't get to work on that project, he can stand up and you'd

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be like, Okay, what do I learn from this, and then you can just go get yourself out of that situation, walk around a bit, and then you can be like, okay, maybe I'll sit back on the computer again. And this time, I'll write down clearly what I need to know what I need to do in order to complete this project or get some progress on it. And I'll also turn off my internet. So I can just start writing, it may not work for all projects, because understand some projects do need research on the internet as well. But if that's possible, then this is something that you can learn from. And this also becomes a learning opportunity. So this is one thing that you can ask yourself, so pretty

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much acknowledge that you made a mistake and ask yourself the question, what can I learn from this? And what measures can I put in place in order to prevent this from happening? The second thing is that, pretend you're starving, okay? Pretend you're starving, and there is nothing, nothing to eat. And you looked everywhere, you looked everywhere, you looked everywhere, you couldn't find anything to eat, and you're really, really starving. And as you kept looking, you found something, you found this basket. And inside the basket, you found some food, and you noticed that a lot of the food was like gone off. But then, you know, in your desperation, you kept looking in that basket to see if

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there's anything else. And you found that at the bottom, there were some food that hadn't, that didn't go off yet. And they were perfectly fine an edible. So I asked you at this point are you going to throw away everything Are you going to throw away the whole basket because some of the food was caught off, or he is going to you know, take what is arable and eat that and just make use of what's left? Pretty much. And every single person, if you ask them this common sense, they would eat what they can, and then you know, discard the rest. So in the same way of the example of consuming, you know, whatever's left in that basket, if that's the case, when you waste when a portion of your

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time has been wasted, or you wake up late, or it's gone, then you're going to throw away what's left in the remainder of the day, you know, the opportunities that may be waiting for you if you made use of it. So rather than wasting the rest of your day, you know, throwing away what's left to be dangerous thinking about oh, my God, everything went wrong. So I'm just going to watch TV and not do anything. I'm just going to watch you know, these videos on YouTube are not to anything that that's like you're just you know, throwing away what's remaining of your day. And what you need to do is put yourself in that perspective of that basket in which your food was gone. And what is the food

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was left, then you would make use of it to make use of what what remains in your day. Because it's precious. It's as precious as the time that you've, you've lost earlier. So rather than thinking about what is gone, make use of what's to come. And when you think when you look at it that way, it's a good way to get back into action again and get some stuff done. The third and final thing you need to keep in mind is give it your best. I mean, when you're in that situation, you can ask yourself what can I do today to make the rest of the day a success. So depending on what's left in the day, or depending on what time you have

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have left, then do something, even if it's something a little bit, maybe you can, you know, do a small progress on the project you're working on. Or maybe you can do another task that you've been putting off, that would take less time than the other tasks that you did have planned for that day. Because even if it's something smaller, say, cleaning up your room, or having a workspace with no visual clutter, or they're just cleaning things up a bit, so it can make you more enthusiastic for the next time, if you get the opportunity to be able to work on your project or your tasks or whatever you you had to do, then that's better than nothing, it's at least you got something done,

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and you can, because at the end of the day, you can be like, Okay, today, I learned to listen, and I also got something done. Even if it's something smaller than Believe me, it puts you in a better state, mentally, it puts you in a better state. And it's really motivating to end off at a good note, even if you started off at a bad note. So these are three things that you can keep in mind to get yourself back in action. I'm actually interested to know, what are some things that you do when things don't go according to plan, I would really love to hear from you. You can comment on our show notes, find them at Muslim life hackers.com slash 18. Finally, one thing is for those who don't

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know, if you're listening to this podcast on our Muslim life, hackers website or somewhere else, then did you know that there is a mobile app, or we actually released a mobile app just last month, and in this app, you can get direct access to all the podcast episodes that we have created. And we have an app for Android or Apple devices. So you can just go get the app by going to Muslim life hackers.com slash app a PP, and you can download it, it's free, and it's super cool. I actually got one for my phone and tablet. And if you get a response and leave a review while you're at it will really appreciate it. Finally, I just want to leave you with an inspiring quote. It goes like this.

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If you fail to plan you plan to fail. So until next time, aim high take action, and be awesome.

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Sweet