Season 2 Ep 12

You're listening to the productive milsim podcast season two episode 12

Assalamu alaikum productive Muslims. Welcome to the show. I'm your host me from Arif and I'm here with day 12 of the pre Ramadan boot camp. In today's episode, what I'm going to speak to you about is finding the what the hell effect. Now, you might be thinking what the hell they should trying to say. But let me explain. Many of you may have had this experience in which you set a goal, say for example, you say, I don't want to eat any sugar. And then in the morning, you have a small cookie, and you say to yourself, oops, I didn't mean to eat that cookie. And then there goes my sugar diet. Oh, well, what the hell. So since I've already blown my diet, I might as well have another cookie.

And then the next thing you know what? You're like, what the hell, I might as well just eat the whole job. And you do. So you see, what just happened was that you gave in the first time, and it was a very small mistake. And then that led to doing it again. And then you just kind of thought, Oh, well, you know what, I just messed up, I might as well just let go. Pretty much. Now this is what I mean by the what the hell effect. It's actually a psychological trait that occurs when you have a little slip, or you make a small mistake. And then the next thing you know, your self control is slipping away. And you see, this takes place in many areas of our life. So this includes our

spirituality. Say, for example, you tell yourself, I'm not going to backbite anymore, and then you start a conversation with a friend. And then the first sentence is a backbiting one of your colleague and then in the back of your mind, you're like, Oh, shut off. backbite but what the hell and then you just continue having a full backbiting conversation for the next 30 minutes. And Allah, Allah subhanho wa Taala tells us in the Quran, oh, you who believe to not follow the footsteps of the shaitan and whoever follows the footsteps of the shaitaan Indeed, he enjoined immorality and wrongdoing, and if and not for the favor of Allah upon you and his mercy, not one of you would have

been pure, ever. But Allah purifies whom He wills and Allah is most hearing and most knowing. Now this is from Surah 24 verse 21. So you notice in this verse how Allah mentions footsteps of the shaytan. So it's not that the shaytan would tell you immediately, you know, do that certain action or whatever, he will make you take a first step and then a second step and then the next thing you know, you are fully indulged in that scene. And now this is why the what the hell effect is very dangerous. It puts us on a slippery slope, and we end up becoming the worst self, the worst version of ourselves.

This is Matthias founder, productive muslim.com Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, and the practical tips within it, that I think you'll enjoy a production model an online course. This is a one stop course for all the practical tips you need to overcome your Ramadan challenges. For example, how do you manage your sleeping or bond when he is so late? or early? How do you manage your time will bond between work family and your spirituality, how to build good habits in Milan and destroy bad habits? Do Ramadan that lasts after Ramadan, how to manage your work and your work colleagues and so on and so forth? Check out this practice online course on productive Muslim academy.com that is productive

Muslim academy.com Thanks.

Now, when we put this into a Ramadan context, you start Ramadan fast really well. You're balancing between your spiritual physical and social productivity. And then five and 10, five to 10 days into Ramadan, you have a really bad day that makes everything go haywire. Say you miss a horde, or you overslept and you miss your prayers or you ate really unhealthy food that made you feel groggy and tired and then you fall for the what the hell effect that you might as well end up telling yourself what the hell I messed up this Ramadan, it's it's been tough. And let me just survive Ramadan this year, and I'll do better next year. But the reality is, you may not even get an opportunity to be

here next year to experience Ramadan. So this is why the what the hell effect is so dangerous, and it happens in many areas of our life. Now the question comes, what can we do to stop this? What the hell effect there are three things you can do that I'm going to list here. The first one is to fight the what the hell narrative in your mind. So you see, when you acknowledge that this thing exists, then instead of saying what the hell or if you find yourself saying this, then you can stop yourself and replace it with something else. So for example,

You made a mistake. And then instead of saying, oh, what the hell, let me just do it anyway. You can tell yourself, you know what, I'll forgive myself for this slip and stop this train of thought, so that I don't make this situation even worse. Or another thing you can tell yourself, when you make that mistake, you say, Okay, well look, every little bit helps. And so I'm just going to keep going and improving. So pretty much in this first point, watch what you're saying in your mind and control that narrative control what you're saying and say something better, and replace that with a positive talk. Now, the second way that you can stop this, what the hell effect is by setting specific short,

short term goals. So I'll give you an example to explain this. Let's say that you missed out on fudger in the morning, and you might be tempted to say, oh, what the hell, I can never pray on time. And so instead of having that you can tell yourself, okay, I just miss fudger. But my goal is that I am going to make it on time to pray for local prayer. Can I do it? All right, so let me try. So then do her comes, you pray on time, and then at the right time, you can tell yourself, okay, my next goal is that, I'm going to pray my answer to prayer on time. And so after comes and you pray, and you did it. So pretty much what is happening here is that you set these specific short term goals,

so that it builds emotional momentum. And you can be able to build up and experience these small wins, which in turn will motivate you back again and get you back on track to your original goal that you had. Now, the final thing of dealing with this, what the hell effect is by remembering that you're human, you see, this is something that many of us will be guilty of an idea I have as well. The thing is, at the end of the day, we are human beings, and we're not perfect, we are going to make mistakes. And that's just a part of our life. You see, you know, in in the story of our mother and father at Ramallah Salaam and how they made a mistake. But what happened was that they repented

after the mistakes. So the key here is to not let the little mistake turn into a big, continuous mistake. But rather, the key is to repent straightaway to understand the mercy and forgiveness of Allah, and correct it in time so that you don't continue going down. So now I want to put forward the question to you. Have you experienced the what the hell effect? Do let me know share your stories and examples below in our show notes. And the specific Show Notes for this episode is productive Muslim podcast.com slash s two e 12. And that stands for season two, Episode 12. And while you're at it, let me know how your three challenges went as well. So I look forward to reading

your comments. And I will speak to you all tomorrow in our next episode. Until then, remember, work hard and be sincere