(also, the day I could still totally pass as a University Student hohohohoho)
In any self help and habit building articles, books or videos I read and watch, ‘consistency’ seems to be a prominent key word.
If you want to succeed at anything, you have to be consistent. No matter how much you do, it is of little use if you only do it once in a blue moon. On the contrary, you may only do a little each time, but if you keep doing it, over time you will get the desirable result.
Our job at the office is an excellent example of things we eventually become good at because our consistency.
Doesn’t matter if we are unmotivated or don’t feel particularly like it, we still have to show up to our work place everyday, right?
And then we generally do the same things in the office, day in and day out.
If you are a marketing staff, you’ll go through your products and explain it to your clients. You take in questions and complaints. You consult with your supervisors and colleagues. Of course the matter is different each time, but it is still in the same field.
Eventually, you understand more about the things you sell and actually know what you’re talking about. You got more familiar about how to handle procedures. You know the basic content of specific contract by heart.
That is by simply doing the same things everyday, for a long period of time.
This is not to say people who do more work won’t advance further, but even regular employees become good at things they were first struggling, with no special recipe but merely by doing it daily. In other word, by being consistent.
I find articles from James Clear help me a lot on understanding why consistency is essential to succeed, and how to implement consistency in order to build good habits.
Now, in Islam, one of the very basic teachings is to do shalat (prayer). Moslems are required to do five obligatory prayers daily on determined times. We even have to do it when we are sick or in non ideal condition such as lack of water or during war.
From ‘Imraan ibn Husayn (may Allaah be pleased with him): I had hemorrhoids, and I asked the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) about praying. He said: “Pray standing; if you cannot, then sitting; and if you cannot, then lying on your side.”(hadist Al-Bukhaari:1050)
In short, even when we are on our means’ end, we still cannot neglect the obligatory prayer for whatever reasons until we are dead. Hence the popular saying: “Do shalat before they do (pray for the deceased) shalat for you.”
Do you think training for marathon two times a week needs super crazy motivation?
Do you think practicing every day for a piano competition needs mega discipline?
Do you think rising up to your alarm on 6 AM on the dot every single day requires some kind of super power?
Ha!
Imagine having to do prayer at specific time, five times a day.
No ‘I don’t feel like it right now’, no ‘no-time today’, no excuses whatsoever.
Sure some allowances are permitted for special circumstances, such as to shorten the prayer when you are traveling, but in the end of the day you still have to do it, period.
If that doesn’t train your consistency muscle, I don’t know what will.
Don’t get me wrong, just because Islam makes the five prayers an essential obligation, doesn’t make it automatically easier.
You still have to consciously engage your mind and choose to actually do it.
Any Moslem can tell you it is one of the hardest things ever.
I can say for sure that to do obligatory prayer consistently is waaaaay harder than to achieve my marketing target =))
Allah SWT acknowledges it many times in the Quran, often mentions prayer in the same line with ‘patience’.
Seek assistance through patience and prayer, and most surely it is a hard thing except for the humble ones. (Al Baqarah: 45).
Well ‘hard’ is an understatement of all eternity
Using simple steps I got from James Clear, I tried to make habit to pray easier. For example setting adzan (prayer call) as an alarm in my cellphone, and go to pray as soon as I hear it. Not ‘after this one email’, ‘after this one phone call’ or even ‘after this one line in my quotation’, but right after the alarm goes off.
Jumping to perform ablution and pray as soon as the prayer call was heard, not giving me the chance to think whether I’m ready to do it or not, or if I want to do it or not, seriously helps a great deal.
Obviously I am still struggling at it. Most of the time I stall because of various reasons, and sometimes I go to pray with still so many things on my mind, I forgot the Quran recital after one or two verses. I am so embarrassing.
But that’s OK, because I hope I’m putting in a little bit of work each time.
What increasingly mesmerizes me after I know more about the science of habit is, that Islam actually gives tools to learn consistency.
With the five prayers, Islam fundamentally requires and teaches one to be consistent.
Five prayers even already provide its own ‘cue’ with the adzan.
Regretfully, like so many other things, Moslems seem to forget to apply this principle we got from Islamic teaching to other fields in life.
I know many people who faithfully observe five prayers everyday, but do not push themselves further in the more practical fields of society.
I believe if we can apply this “I just have to do it, no excuse! Everyday! All five times! Every single time!” mentality to any fields of life, we have great chance to succeed in whatever we do.
Sometimes when I watched my supervisors, I admire them for their knowledge and ability to network, to know what to say in certain circumstance.
But then I observe my juniors and found sometimes that, “Hey, he’s good in negotiations! He’s so much better than the last I remember!” The last I remember was probably when the said junior just started in my company.
That is what time and experience do to your skill. If nothing else, putting in hours day after day elevates your ability.
It is like stacking a paper, one sheet a day.
You won’t see any notable stack any time soon.
After one month, your stack is barely there.
Even after one year, the stack is probably not significant at all, it is so easy to get discouraged.
But someday, you’ll eventually get a paper stack taller than yourself.
I think this article is particularly succinct to illustrate this further.
And this realization about inherent consistency teaching is why once again I find I am so enamored with Islam.
(Though, obviously, me saying this doesn’t make me the most pious Moslem in the world or something. As I said before I am totally embarrassing as a Moslem.)
All the lovely scenery pictures were from my trip to Banyuwangi last year, which I haven’t got the chance the blog about yet.
By the way, you cannot even guess where I wrote this blog post!
I went to my alma mater with my sister who currently enrolls there.
Now they have a new central library, and in addition to old central library’s own books, the collections from each faculty’s library were also moved and stored exclusively there as well. This perplex me a little, because why can’t each faculty has their own library beside the central library??
The new central library looks neat and modern.
I liked the old central library OK, but this new one certainly boast more facilities with an in-house Starbucks, Books and Beyond, and several small cafes.
Regretfully I feel the praying room (musholla) didn’t seem to be designed optimally with the establishment of this new building. Compared to the rest of the building, it looks drab and dim, cramped and also lack of air circulation.
Come on interior designers! Eventhough praying room inside public facility is obviously not intended to be on par with a real Mosque; it is still a place where crowd will gather, so I will always give praying room large windows and high ceiling for sufficient light and air.
It was Saturday, so I guess the library was far less crowded than weekdays.
Hugs to my sister who accompanied me all days, eventhough she kept muttering “This is embarrassing. Why are you so embarrassing??” when I asked her to take pictures in what she thought were just another oh-so-ordinary spots.
She’d better believe me when I tell she’ll feel the same a couple years after graduate!!
peachflowerblooming 