End of Year Reflection and Goal Setting 2020-2021

I usually spend some time at the end of the year undertaking some kind of planning process. Some years this has been about setting a few clear goals, other years this has involved a detailed process of planning goals and actions for thee coming year. This year I decided to take it slowly and allocate one week to reflecting back on the year and one week to do some planning for the year ahead.

 

I have found that there is real power in taking time to think about worked and didn’t work and then articulating what it is you want going forward. I have often looked back at previous years plans and been surprised at the things that have been achieved even when they felt unrealistic or out of reach.

 

Over the years one of the things that as shifted in my planning process is that I have dropped many things that I think I should achieve and become more honest with myself about the things that I genuinely want - a more heart-centred approach that has me feeling more inspired and motivated.

 

This year, although I gave myself two weeks, in reality it was a few hours dotted here and there over the fortnight. For me the magic happens in the late hours at the end of the day. Once the kids are in bed and I have had a chance to rest and clear my head a little, I can start to think about things sensibly, or maybe daydream a little. For others the best time will be first thing in the morning before the day gets busy.

 

I break the process down into some key areas of my life to provide focus:

Faith

Family and relationships (including parenting and marriage)

Health

Self-development

Home

Career/Business/Work

Money/Finance

Community

Travel, Fun and Creative

 

These are the categories that make sense for me, but you may wish to include others or have a smaller number. For instance "home" may not be something included in the past, but with lockdowns and working from home, the way we feel about the spaces we live in and how they support us to function may be much more at the front of our minds in the coming year.

 

For each area I spent a little time thinking about what went well, what didn’t in the last year. I used my mini journal (about A6) and gave each theme a page each. This was enough to get some thoughts down and didn’t feel too daunting or like too much work, but in hindsight, it is worth spending more time and giving this process more space to really get to the heart of where you feel you are with each area. This gives you a really good understanding of the situation and creates a better foundation for deciding what you want to do next.

 

Once I had finished with looking back at 2020, I set aside a page for each theme going forward, using the following format:

The Big Goal - your priority for this area in the coming year, this should be what really matters and what you want the most.

Example: Faith - improve concentration and devotion in Sabah (prayer)

Habits - list the daily habits in this area, especially the ones that will help you achieve your goal.

Example: Faith - pray on time, make effort to pray your nawafil (non obligatory) prayers.

Goals - list your other goals for this area that you would like to work towards

Example: Faith - undertake Umrah (pilgrimage) this year, learn Quran in Arabic)

Long Term - Outline here briefly what the big picture is, where you want to be in 20 years, by the end of your life, or in the next life. This will help you make sure your goals are always aligned with your long term vision.

Example: Faith - Jannah, good death, closeness to Allah (SWT).

 

I’ve worked through this process and come to the end feeling inspired and motivated. I liked the simplicity of one main goal, giving you a sense of focus - the rest are a bonus. I like also that you can defer or let go of some things and clear your head of them. I have often felt down or aimless in the last year. Sometimes being busy doing stuff is not the same as being focussed and doing the right stuff. I intend to work less hours and less intensely this year

to bring some balance back into my life and hopefully having one goal or area for improvement for each area of my life will help me with this.

 

One of the things I have committed to is to write in my mini journal every day, whether a chance to create some mixed media art, reflect on my day and capture learning or record something I find inspiring. This means I will have to hand the goal pages and I can look back every day and ask myself if I am working towards the right things in the right balance insh’Allah.

 

Do you have a process to reflect on your year? Do you set goals, what do you find helps you to internalise and achieve your goals?

Ramadan 2020/1441: Ramadan Preparation

So Ramadan is almost upon us insh’Allah, a matter of two or there days to go. I have been thinking about preparation is required on and off, and nothing much had come to mind. I haven’t needed to do a big shop, because we have all the shops on our doorstep almost. I haven’t made samosa’s and spring rolls to freeze, because it didn’t seem worth the trouble (we buy Classic kebabs, the best I have tasted and Lazeeza samosa’s and spring rolls – based in Birmingham I think, but I can’t find a link).

My younger sister dropped off a big box of dates for us to breakfast. I did debate making Ramadan decorations, but my heart wasn’t in it and I wasn’t sure I wanted the clutter where I could see it all day long (I might change my mind on that though).  I have joined an online tafseer class (Quran explanation), that runs for only half an hour a day and I hope it helps to improve the quality if my worship in Ramadan and beyond.

Other than that, I am just seeing how it goes, what routine I will fall into, debating reducing my morning coffee intake and taking it easy insh’Allah.

image source

Have you done any Ramadan preparation? Do you have big intentions this year, or do you just want to get through each day?

You can see what I did in a previous year to prepare by clicking on the image below.

Stop, Start, Stop

I've started writing half a dozen posts today and not gotten very far, starting, stopping, starting and then deleting most of it. I can't seem to hold a sensible thought and then follow it to its conclusion.  I think the pace of modern life and scrolling through scraps on the internet have broken my brain a little.  Work is overwhelming in the range of work and the amount of information I have to soak up.  I am trying to work out how to manage and sort through it all.  This has never been a problem before, but my sector has never been so short staffed and underfunded in the twenty years I have worked for public services.

I've started reading again after a long gap, and although most of it is junk or easy read stuff, I hope it is  a path back to reading more rewarding things.

Two things plague me about my current gold-fish brain state.  Firstly, that we are trying to do so much – why should we.  The second that the internet and the current way of entertaining ourselves and taking in information is making us a little useless – impatient, bored easily, always looking for instant gratification in the form of bite size content and information.  Our attention span is shrinking and our patience for long form content or detailed information or knowledge is fading, whether that is being too lazy to write or too impatient to consume.

As to the first reason, this has been on my mind.  Work is too much, life is too much, we want to do everything and have done it by 30. What drives us? Where is the lack or loss that makes us keep charging forward trying to do more, or achieve more or prove ourselves in some way? What is it that doesn't even let us sit in peace for a while and do nothing without feeling guilt? Even when doing nothing is a condition for creativity and innovation.

This morning, I was thinking about this and feeling so much resistance to doing anything.  I feel like I have chased for long enough.  Tried to do so much for long enough. My work is starting to see the beginnings of this change in approach with a gentle move towards saying no to more things, deleting more e-mails without replying and declining meetings.  At home, I find myself spending more time cooking, reading and listening to my children. Everything else has taken a back space and more and more this doesn’t bother me.

All that we try to do, all the hustle and chasing of opportunity, all the hard work.  How much of it is worth the effort?  I feel as if I am being a little negative or demotivating, but I find often that my thoughts come to this: is it worth it? How will we be judged by Allah (SWT) for it, what return will we get for our effort?

Perhaps there are decisions I should have made long ago to let go of some things and stop fretting about - work stuff, the stress of parenting teenagers, feeling obliged to write, blog, crafts etc. But I think there is a time for everything and an energy I had that would not have been thwarted at the time.

But that energy is not quite there right now.  I wonder if it has dissipated, if it is blocked in some way or if it is lying dormant for the right thing to set it free and create that sense of flow that I feel far from right now.  I am going to stop chasing and hustling and open my heart and self to whatever comes this way insh'Allah.

image source

Simplicity and Community

I attended an interesting talk this weekend for the female family members of those people who are active in a local group of four or five masjids, so this would be trustees, board or committee members, imam’s, emirs or leaders of the masjids and generally people who were involved in the day to day running and of the masjid and in dawah work. Hubby is a trustee at the local masjid, so I was asked to come along.

Usually the talks we go to tend to focus on key subjects such as increasing iman, salah, dhikr and iklaq (the way we treat others around us). But these kind of meetings for just the ladies involved in the masjid are quite different. The talks are longer and the content of the talks assume certain things – for instance that all of the women pray and that they all cover (as our masjid community is quite conservative), so hijab and salah are not subjects that come up.

Instead the kinds of things that are discussed are concern for your local area – what are you doing to serve and connect that around you? Sacrifice – what can you give up in terms of time and effort for your faith and in particular dawah and how we as women can engage in this and support our menfolk.

I love that the men of the masjid understand the role of the women in the work of the masjid. They realize that a man can achieve so much more with a supportive woman behind him.

This weeks talk focused on two things: simplicity and community. The speaker, who was one of the very elderly, long-standing members of another mosque explained that simplicity is a sign of iman (or faith). That success was not about success in the material world, but success in the next world and that this didn’t come from big houses, cars or degrees. The speaker spent a lot of time describing the beautiful rewards that would be waiting for those who entered jannah – the clothes, the foods, the houses. He then reminded us that jannah was the place for all of our desires, not this world.

He encouraged us as women who were involved in our faith community to set the example and to aspire to live simply – through the way we dress, the way we maintain out homes and the one that resonated with me – the way we eat.

The other element that was discussed was how we had a responsibility to bring the community together. The speaker outlined four ways we could grow strong amongst ourselves and bring together and strengthen our communities:

1. To forgive those who have hurt us
2. To ask forgiveness of those whom we may have hurt
3. To bring others together – through the masjid, through study circles (halaqa’s) and our dawah work
4. To ourselves join with others that are doing these things.

I liked that the focus was on looking at ourselves before we start thinking its our job to reform anyone else. The speaker suggested that we see the good in others and that with the other eye we should see the weaknesses in ourselves. He also reminded us to clean our hearts regarding others and to let go of resentment or dislike that we may be holding on to.

Alhamdulillah it was a nice little iman refresher and a reminder that we should not be complacent and think we are doing enough. At two hours hubby said we got off lightly. The talk for the men is up to four hours and most of it involves admonitions and reminders about the proper way of doing dawah (I always tease him that he is going in for his annual telling off). The talk for the women was gentle and encouraging in comparison and I came away with some thoughts about simplicity and self-reflection.

Ramadan Journal 2013: Day 15 - ME

We usually buy each other gifts for Eid in my family, nothing extravagant, but something nice nonetheless. This year, the price of everything sky-rocketing means that everyone has been forced to watch their finances very carefully. This being the case we sisters had to have a conversation around gift buying. We came up with a number of solutions. One was to gift an experience rather than buy something. This could be dinner for us four, a tea party, picnic, afternoon out doing something cool, even an afternoon indoors with take-away and a good movie, where we block the time out for it and tell everyone to leave us alone. This way if we could not pay for it, we could organise something free instead.

The other thing we did was create a wish list each with some items that are fairly low priced and others that are medium-priced. We have done this in previous years and I think these lists say a lot about us. Funnily this year everyone’s lists were very short and appended with notes along the lines of, “we don’t really need anything”. This didn't really surprise me. I have been on a mission to downsize and simplify my life for the last year. I am tired of maintaining and storing things and I yearn for empty uncluttered spaces. I can imagine my sisters feel some element of that too.

At the same time I do think that fasting for Ramadan has an affect on our “nafs” or ego. It dulls our desires for worldly possessions and shows their true worth. I certainly don’t feel that I need more “things” and feel lighter and freer for it.

Ramadan 2013 and Simplicity

Tomorrow or the day after will see the start of Ramadan insh'Allah.  As with every year I am looking forward to the opportunity to reconnect with my faith and with my Creator, refresh my iman (faith), work on improving the quality of my ibadah (worship) and coming out the other side of this special month with new or improved habits and lots of inspiration to be a better Muslimah insh’Allah.

At the same time I am more than a little intimidated by the long days of fasting, the demands of a household of eight people all with slightly different routines to co-ordinate (four kids, me, hubby and my mum- and dad-in-law), work and trying to keep up with my writing, Arabic studies and business.

I shared my worries with my husband and we agreed that the focus for this Ramadan would be on simplicity.  No elaborate iftar meals, no bulk cooking and freezing, no massive shops for all sorts of ingredients we don’t normally have in the kitchen.  This is a good time for us to do our bodies a favour and stick to healthy, cleansing foods.  So we will be having dates and big bowls of fruit salad for iftar along with big jugs of water and my mum-in-laws amazing home-made lemonade.  Then after the evening prayer a sensible meal of wholemeal chapatti and a healthy chicken, lentil or vegetable curry which is what we normally eat anyway (I think I will have a concession of Friday or Saturday night for fry-ups with the usual fried samosa’s or pakora’s which everyone loves so much during Ramadan).

The other thing I am worried about is being able to engage in sufficient ibadah during this blessed month.  I find myself tired a lot of the time and struggling to concentrate.  I don’t get enough sleep at the moment because of the long day and early and late prayers. I worry about having enough concentration in my prayers.  At the same time I have been having problems with painful feet and so struggle to stand for a long time in salaat (prayer), so I am quite intimidated about the idea for standing for taraweeh prayers but at the same time upset at the thought of missing out on them.  This is also the time of day that Darling wants my attention the most and I struggle to get her to settle down (this has been the time she was most alert and playful since I was pregnant), so I will have to get her into a calmer routine around my prayer times insh’Allah.  I am accepting that I may not be able to fit in as much worship as many other people, but I am also determined to improve the quality and make it count for more.  I hope to really lose myself in the depths of salah, in my conversation with Allah (SWT) and open to my heart fully to the words and actions of my worship ins’Allah.

Then I have to accept that everyone has different skills and different paths.  I may not be the best at concentrating at salah, but I have lots of energy.  I can earn more reward in other ways such as serving others or sharing iftar meals or spending more time in dhikr as I move around the house, clean or perform my duties insh’Allah.

I came across an interesting quote in a newsletter from Tracey Lee Jones based on a book called The Power of a Positive No by William Ury:

"So when we say "no" to something or someone, it's actually saying a deeper "yes" to something in our life."

That means in order to commit fully to some things I am going have to do less of certain things and let others go.  I plan to read less non-Islamic material, take more days off of work, spend less time on the internet and we have agreed the children and in-laws will have to wait till after Ramadan for any more trips or outings.  I will probably have to put my jewellery-making on hold till after Eid (unless I get time to make simple Eid gifts for my daughter and her cousin and best friend).

Every Ramadan I pick one habit to instil that I can maintain on a permanent basis after Ramadan, this year I hope to set one simple goal that I can stick to until it is habit and that makes the most impact in the hereafter – any suggestions as to what is the best worship for a busy, tired mum with poor concentration?

What are you doing to make the most of this Ramadan?  What changes do you feel reap the most dividends?  Which ibadah would you recommend for the maximum reward?  Best of all any nuggets of advice to help me improve my concentration and devotion within salah would be so welcome insh’Allah.

 image source

I found this food for thought in the latest  Young Muslims weekly Friday Nasihah newsletter:

"The month of Ramadan ought to be a school enabling the Muslim conscience to return to what is essential in the message, its objectives, and the questionings necessary to grasp higher goals. For a month, believers take a break from their usual lives to return to meaning and essentials, breaking with their habits of consumption, the rhythms of everyday life, and the deep-seated ideas about competing to acquire and possess material things. Beyond the act of worship and its spiritual dimension, the fundamental teaching of this exercise consists of understanding that the way we relate to wealth and consumption should be questioned in the light of the goals human beings set for themselves.

The ethical goals of fasting, clearly stated in the texts or put together by inference, requires us to question our choices in life, development, and individual and collective growth. Yet, an appalling perversion can be observed: this month, which ought to "produce meaning," has been taken over - like so many ecological and humanitarian projects - by the logic of an imperialistic economy based on growth and productivity. Rather than being a month for awareness of goals by questioning development models and consumerist ways of life, that month, and its nights in particular, turn into an increasingly neglectful fair encouraging consumption, even in poorer societies. This is deep, almost complete alienation. The point was to consume less, to consume better in terms of conscience and quality, and we end up consuming less during the day to consume without moderation and with total abandon at night. This is yet another example of formalist perversion: norm and form are maintained while the religious practice's ethical goals are lost."

Compiled From:
"Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation" - Tariq Ramadan, p. 239

Thoughtful Housekeeping and Simple Living.

Simple living and living more consciously have been two areas I have long been interested in, so this blog post called the The Secret Life of a Happy Homemaker I found via The Muslimah resonated with me deeply. It talks of slowing down and cherishing the things that we think of as chores by thinking of them as the things we do to make our homes wholesome, clean sanctuaries of peace.

As someone who rushes around from thing to another and leaving so many things half done, I have often thought about trying to live more in the present and savouring the things that are important to me: my prayer, my children, my time with my husband, my own pursuits of reading, crafting, blogging and daydreaming.

So I walked to the bus stop instead of rushing there, I enjoyed the two bus journeys home reading my book (Moni Mohsin's Loss of Innocence) and on the way home took my time at the grocers picking out fruit for the children.

(The funny lemon-shaped fruit at the back is guava and the little elongated green one a Pakistani fruit called ber or jujube).

I got home, and took my time arranging the fruit in the bowl and then went off to change, tidying my clothes away and taking out the clothes for the next day. I took my time making wudhu (ablutions) with the thought that wudhu well done helps concentration in prayer and is a kind of worship in itself. I instructed Little Lady to clean her room while I took my time praying Maghrib. I could hear her saying "I hate this" very crossly, usually I would be inclined to tell her off, but I have noticed a frustration and short-temperedness in her which her teacher has also pointed out. I wondered if my hurrying and distractedness was having an effect on her, so I called her to sit me with me whilst I finish my prayer and then asked her gently why she was annoyed. She said she didn't like tidying up. I explained sometimes I didn’t like my chores, but our home is our place for us to be safe and warm and happy and shut the door to the world, so our chores are really a way to make that place clean and pleasant. I explained that her room was her place to play and rest and she also had to keep it clean and pleasant, she happily agreed to that and went back to put her things away.

I left the kids with the lovely new puzzle Kooky Little Sister bought them (don't you just want to have a go?) and took my time preparing cauliflower and potato curry. I’m trying to use more vegetables in my food, because on Eid I was faced with the realisation that the kind of food we were eating didn’t feel special because we ate it all the time and because I am sure it is not the sunnah to consume the amount of meat we do so today nor can it be good for our health. Whilst I cooked I ruined my appetite by grazing on this gorgeous biryani my friend sent round.



Up until this point I was floating about serenely until I heard someone talking in the back room. The kids said they hadn’t seen anyone. I heard a knock but on investigating there was no-one at the front door. I heard another knock and crept into the front room to look out of the window, my husband jumped out and scared me so that I screamed so loud and long that I scared him back. He couldn’t believe I was such a chicken - I was shaking (I couldn’t tell him that when I heard the knock I had pictured the vampires from the original Buffy movie floating outside the window – I’d never live it down, I won’t if my sisters read this).

Anyway, I decided not to head for the computer or my book, but to sit with the kids. I cut pictures from old cards, calendars and brochures I had put aside for their craft box, whilst Little Lady worked on her scrapbook and the boys napped. There is something sooo satisfying about sitting there cutting up bits of paper with a sharp pair of scissors.

At this point I still had plenty to do, including the Esha prayer, getting the kids bathed and into bed and getting the kitchen cleared, but I found that the thing with doing everything so carefully is that it is quite exhausting. I was yawning away and getting grumpy. So hubby got the kids into bed, I prayed Esha and as soon as I finish typing this I plan to sit quietly in bed and read my book.

Simple Iftar

Despite my families grumbling I have tried to keep our iftars as simple as possible with the rule "no fried food" (this is followed by a filling meal after maghrib salah). It's not easy to get away from samosa's to open your fast, as my neighbours' teens said when she tried to ban them: "If we can't have samosa's what are we fasting for!!"


For some excellent advice about how to make the most of Ramadan check out Umm Yusuf's excellent post Common Mistakes Made During Ramadan (thanks to Sister Hijabi Apprentice for the link).