Salaam Alaikum, welcome back to my podcast.
This is my first podcast episode that I've done also in video
format. Hi, it's been a hot minute since
I posted my last episode. Today's episode is called 20
Lessons I Learned Before I Turned 20.
And I mean, the title speaks for itself.
I'm going to be giving 20 lessons that I learned before I
turn 20. This video is going to be posted
after I turn 20. My birthday is November 3rd.
But I've seen a lot of other people do it and I thought why
not do it myself? I feel like I have a lot of
things that I've learned and I don't know.
Things that I just. Want to share?
So let's get into it. Lesson #1 is to fill your own
cup of first, and don't fill cups that aren't filling back
into yours. No matter what the situation is,
no matter who it is, no matter what it is, always make sure to
fill your own cup first. Then once your cup is full, let
that overflow go into other people's cups.
Because you can't fill up other people's cups unless you
yourself are full. And imagine you're giving to
other people when you are already empty.
You're basically at 0 and you are forcing yourself to go to
the negatives and that's never ever healthy for anyone.
That is what is going to cause you to burn out.
And that isn't like the last thing that we want because
getting back from that is the hardest thing and it takes a lot
of time. So pour into yourself 1st and
then let that overflow. Pour inside other people.
And secondly, don't pour inside Cubs that are not pouring into
yours. I don't care if it's friends, I
don't care if it's family. I don't care who it is.
Just don't do it because imagine you're always the one that is
initiating things. You're always the one that is
helping someone out and they never return that ever.
And I understand that sometimes in life you're going to have
relationships where that is the case, but you're not doing it
for, you know, for a friend or for a family member.
It's for someone that's in need and in cases like that, it's
completely OK. I'm talking more about things
like friends and family and people that are supposed to be
there for you. If they are not there for you
like you are there for them, that isn't a relationship that
you should be investing in. I have been in so many
friendships where I was always the one that was asking, hey,
can we study together? Hey, can we hang out?
Do you want to do this or just even initiating just like
texting each other, you know? And then the 2nd that I stopped
putting in that energy, that friendship just completely died
because I was the one that was putting all that effort in to
continue that relationship. And it's like, why am I the one
that is constantly initiating things?
Why am I the only one putting in any effort into this?
And like in other words, keeping the friendship going because it
just felt extremely one sided. I have lost so many friendships
over this because when I realized just how important it
was for other people to also be pouring back into my cup instead
of it just be me giving and giving and giving.
Like when is it my turn to receive?
And when you reach a place where you are giving from basically an
empty cup, you are really, really hurting yourself.
And take it from me because there have been so many times
where I have genuinely drained my cup to negative like 100.
And I would still try to give to other people.
I was growing up extremely a people pleaser.
And there was this one time where I ended up literally
burning myself out so much to the point where I had acne like
all over my face. I've never broken out like that
in my whole entire life. Like I literally just kept on
giving and giving and giving to everyone besides myself and it
took I think almost a year to come back from that point.
I just felt so sad and depressed and just burnt out from
everything and it's a mistake that I will never ever be making
ever again because my happiness is my priority.
And if I'm giving myself out to everyone but myself, when am I
ever going to get to myself? Everyone has themselves, they're
grown, they got themselves. If I do not have myself at the
moment, I'm not going to let anyone else feel bad for me not
being there for them. And it's like even still you try
like imagine you're burnt out and your friends asking you for
advice and telling you something that they're going through.
I have been in this situation a lot where it's like my brain
can't even like bring a proper response.
Like I'll sit there and I'll like, you know, try to help
them, but it's like I'll let them know, hey, I'm feeling like
this. I'm kind of burnt out.
Like my mind just can't handle this right now.
It's not even going to help them at the end of the day.
If I am giving them something from a place where I don't even
have anything, it's not going to be constructive.
It's not going to be anything good.
So it's OK to take a step back and tell someone, hey, I'm not
feeling like up to this right now.
I'm feeling very burnt out. I need a few days or you know,
maybe a few hours come back to me later.
Like saying that is completely OK and don't feel bad for it #2
And this is a very big one. It's OK to say no.
Again, I used to be an extreme people pleaser.
So you're gonna see, I guess, a pattern in these 20 lessons
because a lot of these are lessons I learned while coming
out of that shell and not becoming a people pleaser and
just letting people talk to me any type of way or treat me any
kind of way, or like just overcompensating.
But yeah, saying no is perfectly OK.
And again, I learned this the hard way.
Like every single other lesson in this video.
If someone asked me for help on something, if someone asked me
to hang out, if someone literally like last minute asked
me to do something and I had to compromise something on my end
to help them, I would say yes. I would not say no.
A lot of that came from thinking that saying no was being mean
and saying yes meant that I was being nice and I could not have
been more wrong. Because a lot of the time saying
yes is a disservice to myself. A lot of the time saying yes is
just over crossing my own boundaries for myself.
Being a nice or being a kind person isn't about saying yes
all the time. You can be that while having
boundaries, because if you do that, if you are nice and you
don't have any boundaries, that's how you end up being a
doormat. You're literally letting people
walk all over you to get what they want regardless of what it
is that you want. Saying no whenever you don't
want to do something or whenever you can't, it's completely OK.
Like you can literally say no. Just because you feel like it.
You know, like that doesn't make you a mean person.
It just means that you are someone that has boundaries and
that's completely OK. That means that you're
respecting yourself. Saying no doesn't mean that
you're a selfish person. Saying no does not mean that you
don't like the person. Saying no literally does not
mean anything bad. It literally just means that you
would can't or you don't want to.
And that is completely, 100% OK. People will live.
They will find somebody else. Like for example, if they need
help with something, I can't do it right now.
I'm busy, they'll find someone else.
If they want to hang out and you're just feeling drained, you
just want to stay in bed, you want to go out, they'll find
somebody else. I promise you, they're grown.
They will find someone else to help them if they generally need
help. And if they don't need help,
they can do it themselves. It really is not the end of the
world. Like, I would literally think
like that. Like, Oh my God, I can't help
them right now. Like, what are they going to do?
They can do it themselves. They are completely capable
human beings just like you and I are.
If I can do something, I promise you they can't.
And it's one of the things that were really hard to do starting
off. But as time went on, it became
easier because it became more of a habit of respecting my own
self and respecting my own time. I only have so much time to
give. I only have so much time to
focus on things that I want to work on and things that I want
to do and if something is overlapping into something that
I need. To do for myself.
I'm compromising that, you know, and a lot of the time that's not
something that I would want to do, and I would still compromise
it. And now that I don't, I have so
much more time to myself to generally just focus on my own
projects and to focus on my own well-being.
And there's literally no guilt that I feel #3 the only ones
that are truly always there for you are yourself and God.
Nobody is coming to save you. And yes, I know this is a hard
pill to swallow, but it's true. Nobody is going to magically
come into your life and fix it. You can't heal yourself.
You can't change your life, you can't change your circumstances.
You can't literally change everything about you internally
and externally through somebody else.
You just can't. That has to come from you.
You're not going to randomly find a man one day that's going
to completely change your life, that's going to heal all of your
childhood traumas, that's going to, you know, give you all the
money that you need and it's going to set you up for the rest
of your life. Like, yes, maybe that's going to
get you so far to change some of the external things, but it's
not going to change what's in here and it's not going to
change what you're feeling in here.
No mentor can help you if you don't want to help yourself
first. If you don't have that
discipline and the drive to actually be consistent and work
towards it. No amount of talking to friends
and venting about a situation is going to help you get over it if
you don't actively work on yourself to get over a
situation. You know?
Like yes, these people exist and they can support you in certain
ways, but overall they cannot help you fully.
The only people that can do that are you and Allah that like that
internal healing that you need to do that is completely on you.
Yes, a therapist can help you along that journey.
Yes fencing to your friends can help you along that journey.
But at the end of the day, that is completely on you.
That discipline that you want to build, Yeah, that's completely
on you. Yes, you can have a friend to
help motivate you and keep you consistent and accountable.
But at the end of the day, again, it's on you being
emotionally intelligent and maturing and self growth, That
is completely on you. Like, again, yes, you can get
help from other people, but at the end of the day, it's all on
you. And when you don't have anyone
else around you, the only people that you're gonna have on that
journey is yourself and God. And it doesn't matter how scary
it feels, it doesn't matter how messy it gets.
It does not matter literally anything because life is gonna
keep on going. The world is gonna keep on
spinning. And if you choose to stay in the
same place, the only one being affected by that is you.
And that's something that I had to learn the hard way earlier in
high school. I would literally just stop.
If it got hard. I would just stop and nobody was
going to come and save me. I didn't really like event to
people. I didn't really have a lot of
friends around that time. I would literally just be
depressed in my room. And I realized that nobody was
going to come and help me. I was going to have to do that
for myself. The responsibility of building
myself into the woman that I want to become and the
responsibility to build the life for myself that I want to have
is completely on me, and it's on nobody.
Else to do that. For me, and even then, let's
just say like throughout everything, I have so many
friends, so many mentors, like just a huge supporting village
behind me. Even then, nobody is going to
have your back like God does. When I was possibly in my most
darkest like moments in my life, I would say that I felt very far
from God. And even in those moments where
I felt very far from him, I still felt his presence.
I still felt that he was there. Like, The thing is, I wasn't
doing anything to get closer to him.
I wasn't, you know, trying, but I still felt him and His
presence. And, you know, I knew that He
was going to be there for me. Like I was completely alone,
physically, nobody else was there for me.
But emotionally, like spiritually, I could feel that
there was someone there for me. I could feel God's presence in
my life. And I think it was in that
moment when I realized just how deep His love for me when and
it's kind of like an emotional topic because there have been a
lot of times when I have rejected God.
There have been a lot of times where I've questioned him and
not to expose my sins or anything.
This is like. It's.
Purely for educational purposes, but you know, like my Iman was
just extremely low. It was extremely, extremely low.
And the fact that even in those moments, He was still there for
me because it was never him that rejected me.
It was me that decided to go far from God.
Regardless of how many sins I had committed, regardless of how
far I went, regardless of how much I questioned Him, at the
end of the day, I could still feel that pull in my heart.
I could still feel His presence in my life.
And I know I've been repeating that over and over, but
genuinely like he has been there since day one and He's the only
person that's going to stay with you till the end.
God tells us that if we take one step towards Him, He's going to
take 10. Steps towards us.
And that's just how big His love for us is.
It doesn't matter how much we do, He is always going to be
there for you. He is always, 100% always going
to be there for you. It's just up to you to go to
Him. That's all that you need to do.
And actually, God puts us in these places sometimes to
realize that you really don't need anyone but him, that you
don't need to rely on people. You don't need to rely on your
friends. You don't really need to rely on
your family. You, you got God, You know, like
when you got God, you generally don't need nobody else.
The amount of times God has single handedly pulled.
Me out of places that I. Have not told a single soul that
I was in at the time. Looking back and reflecting on
all of that is genuinely crazy because I didn't know how I was
going to make. It out of that.
Situation, I didn't know if life was going to get better from
that and it did because God helps me.
God was there for me. Like I will find myself now
sometimes just talking to God, you know, like thanking him for
the life that I have, thanking Him for, you know, putting me on
this path that He has put me on. I wouldn't be here without him.
I would not be here without his love, without his mercy, without
his Rahma, without his forgiveness.
Like I am so blessed because I have.
God in my life and that mindset of being.
So grateful for that has helped. Me overcome so much and
especially loneliness, like I feel like a lot of the time when
I don't have a lot of people around me or I feel like there
are a lot of people around me that I can relate to or I can
actually talk to about things. God is always there.
Number 4. The hard part isn't getting
started. It's staying consistent.
I have started so many projects and just things that I have not
seen through, Like for example, this podcast I started, I want
to say 2021-2022. And then I was consistent with
it for a minute and then I just stopped.
And I think the last time I posted was a year ago and here I
am making another one. Yeah, I can say that with a lot
of things in my life, when I was drafting different lessons that
I would add into this video, I was like, damn, like there
really are just a lot of things that I have started and just
never really saw through. And it's something that I am
currently working on because staying consistent in your goal
is genuinely the hardest part. Like you can start, you can do
it for two days, you can do it for a week, you can do it for
maybe even a month with motivation.
But the hard part is going on with that for a long time to
build that habit and make it a part of your life and actually
see that through to success. See that through to success.
And that's because you need motivate, and that's because you
need discipline. You don't move, and that's
because you need discipline. You don't use motivation for
things like that. Yeah, you can use motivation
with discipline, but you can never use motivation alone.
And I realized that I was using just motivation sometimes.
And that is why I just stopped doing a lot of things.
I needed to build that discipline, like even self
improvement things like going to the gym.
A lot of the times I would start, go for a week, and then
yeah, I would not step into that gym again.
Like it's just something that has always been very hard for
me. And that's actually my goal
right now, to be extremely consistent with the things that
I do #5 sometimes you have to make decisions that break your
heart right now in order to protect your future, whether
that be your peace, your physical health, your mental
health. You're going to have to make
decisions sometimes where you're going to have to give up things
right now that you really don't want to give up.
Or you're going to have to make an extremely hard choice that is
going to hurt you in order to protect your peace in the
future. This was a extremely hard
lesson. That I had to learn and it was
actually very recent and it was a lot like I was in the
trenches. I'm not going to lie.
At the same time, I am happy that I made that decision.
I didn't want to have to make the decision that I made.
But I am happy because I know in the long run, in the future,
after I fully heal from the situation, I am going to be
thankful to myself for going through with that because my
life in the future would have just been so much harder if I
hadn't done that thing. Number six, you can't let your
parents dictate your life. No, I know that sounds like a
lot. Having immigrant parents will
have you in the state of mind where you need to do everything
that they ask of you. And that's not healthy.
That's not how it should work. Obedience to your parents does
not mean that you love them, you know?
It just means that you're scared of them.
And I feel like this is a mentality that a lot of
immigrant parents have, is that if my child says no to me, if
they don't follow me, if their whole entire life isn't based
off what I want for them, then they don't love me, then they
don't. Respect me and it's.
That's not how that works. And don't let them try to make
you think that that is how it works, because it's not.
You deserve to live a life that is true to yourself and you
should be able to do the things that you want.
I know a lot of what I'm saying may sound scary because I was
scared. Before I started.
Telling my parents no and for reference I literally was not
able to go out with my friends or anything like the first time.
That I was able to go. Over to a friend's house was
senior year of high school. Like I literally did not have
genuine friends throughout his school because I couldn't hang
out with them after school. And everybody was just like
building stronger bonds and, you know, just hanging out doing
teenager stuff and I was stuck inside my house.
Not able to go out. And that was my life growing up.
It genuinely messed me up so much.
And now that I'm in college, I'm currently a junior, Looking back
like that genuinely affected me so much.
It stunted a lot of my social skills.
Like I'll handle a lot. I've been able.
To grow that. Back.
I've been able to put myself in situations where I've been
forced to just be more social and not be extremely awkward
like I was growing up. I was literally the perfect
child. Like my parents would tell me me
to do something and I would do it like I wouldn't question it
and it still wasn't enough. At the end of the day, you're
going to be asked of for more and more and more.
There's going to be a point where you have to put your foot
down and say no because your life is yours to live.
You are the one that is going to live the consequences of your
actions. At the end of the day, it's not
your parents that are going to be living that career.
It's not your parents that are going to be living the person
that you're going to marry, you know, like these are things that
you're going to have to go through and they should be
decisions that you're OK with. It's OK to want their
validation. It's OK to want your parents to
think good of you, but you shouldn't want that at the cost
of your own peace. Sometimes you're just going to
have to make decisions and be like, I'm OK with them saying
that I'm a disappointment for making this decision or for them
being upset with me for making this decision.
Sometimes the things that they're upset at you about are
so small that it shouldn't even really matter.
And here I'm not trying to like push you to make stupid
decisions because that's not what this is about.
Like let's just say your parents want you to marry a certain
person and you don't want that person for.
Yourself like. That is 100% a situation where
you should put your foot down and say no, regardless of what
it is that they're going to say to you or how they're going to
treat you after that. And I know there's a lot of
guilt that comes with that, and they may not understand it right
now, but when they see you genuinely happy and thriving and
successful, they are going to be proud of the person that you
became #7 Allah will always give you better.
It doesn't matter how many things you have to leave behind.
It doesn't matter how much you've done.
It doesn't matter how far you've gotten from him.
God will always give you better. Like, I promise you that God
will give you better. There have been so many
situations where I have genuinely thought, yeah.
This is it. I'm never going to get higher
than this point or like what have I done?
God has just continuously proven to me that He will always be
there for me and He will always give me better than what I've
gotten. I will always rise higher and
higher because God will always give me better.
That is my mindset and I believe it 101,000% because I know for a
fact that He will. I've seen it with my own eyes,
I've seen it in my life, and I've seen it in my friends and
my parents. Life is full of so many things
and one of those things is God's graciousness.
He will always give. He will always be gracious
towards you, even if you've hit rock and you don't know if
you're going to make it back up. Have faith in Allah because He
will help you get back up and He'll help you get back up a
million times better than it was last time.
He will help you rebuild yourself.
He will help you become the woman that you want to become.
He will help you literally do anything and everything.
All you got to do is ask. Literally all you have to do is
go to your prayer mat and ask Allah and be genuine about it in
your heart because God what sees through all of us and he will
put you in places that you would never even dreamed about being
and He will open doors for you that you didn't even know
existed. God has a way.
Of making these things happen #8 your reality starts within your
mind, your perception of reality is 100% up to you.
I don't think you guys genuinely understand the level of power
that your mind has. The person that you are, the
things that are around you, they are completely in your minds.
Like it's everything is dictated by your perception of life.
If you see something as positive, it will be positive.
If you see something as negative, it will be negative.
Like you can literally like they're like, why do you think
everyone has different opinions or they're just, or everyone has
their own different version of reality?
It's because the mindset that they have is completely
different to yours and the mindset that I have could be
completely. Different to somebody else.
'S meaning you could have completely different mindsets as
well. Like everyone's reality is
different based off how they see reality based off of like your
mindset off of how you perceive things and you can literally
hack into that to help you get what you want from your own
self. For example, you can just be a
very argumentative person and every.
Single time, someone says. Something you take it as an
attack on yourself, you know, and then you just start arguing
with them over it. Or you can.
Take it at. Face value, be very calm about
it and move on. Those are two very different
reactions to the same situation. If you want to change your
physical reality, the first thing that you need to work on
is changing the reality within your head because that is going
to translate. So for example, let's just say
you want to get closer to God, right?
That is your goal. The first thing that you do
isn't go about changing the people that you hang out with
your surrounding, although that is very helpful.
That's not what you do because let's say you do start hanging
out with people that are more religious, but you're not on the
same way front system. You know your mindset isn't
there yet and you don't really enjoy the conversations that
I'll be having and you go back to your old friend group or the
old people that you stay and got with.
On a regular. Day basis, you know like you
need to put yourself into that mindset.
You need to get closer to God. You need to read Quran more and
really understand who he is. Go to the mosque more.
You start focusing more on the Islamic morals and values and
principles and putting that within yourself so that your
perception of reality is more focus on how Islam focuses on
it. And with that, slowly your
outward reality is going to mirror that.
And this is just one example. You can literally put this on
anything. And on top of that, the power of
your words to shape your reality because that is also a very
important aspect. You can literally speak things
in existence, like the power of what you say to manifest things
into your life is extremely overlooked.
And obviously when I say manifest, I mean in like a
Islamic perspective of manifesting from God.
And like obviously all things come through all this.
We can't have anything without him and his blessing.
Literally just don't be afraid to put what you want out there.
Speak it into existence. You know, tell yourself, look at
yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you have of it,
that you're going to have it, that you are going to live the
lifestyle that you are going to achieve your goal and you will
like watch yourself do it. For example, let's just say that
you want to become a content creator, right?
I am a content creator. I will be a content creator.
I am going to have 10,000 followers, 20,000 followers.
Like speak it into existence because you're tuning your mind
into a state where you already have what you want, so you're
going to work even harder to reach your goals and you're
going to live that life because in your mind you're already
there. The way that you speak about
your life also becomes the standard that your mind will try
to even like casual self talk that generally matters a lot.
Like self degrading jokes like saying like oh I'm.
Not I'm not pretty. Things like that.
Like it literally adds up because.
Even if you don't. Realize it subconsciously.
You're going to start believing it and it's going to make you
insecure. It's going to make you not as
confident within yourself. You can't plant these negative
thoughts about you within yourself and expect to grow from
it. You're just not like if you
constantly tell yourself I'm ugly, I'm not pretty enough.
I am not enough to be able to reach this or like just things
like that. Like, stop doing that because
you are going to believe what you're telling yourself.
And I did this for a really long time now.
You will not hear me saying anything like that.
Like you talk to any of my friends, I promise you they will
be like, yeah, she's egotistical as Frick because I am never
going to speak down on myself ever again.
I did that for so long and it just made me an extremely
insecure person. And the second that I stopped,
the 2nd that I genuinely started looking at myself and saying
yeah I'm beautiful, yeah I am more than enough is when the
game changed. I am never going to let me or
anyone else talk to myself like that again because I deserve
more respect #9 Don't put men before yourself.
I am a lover girl down and when I say this like literally I am
such a lover girl and one of my bigger lessons that I've learned
is to never put a man above yourself.
No man deserves that First off and secondly, you are yours
before you are anybody else's. Don't let yourself get too
attached. Don't let yourself let someone
control you or treat you like you're there is to do whatever
you want for them. You are your own person.
What one man isn't willing to do for you, I promise you there are
100 out there that are willing to do.
That and more. I feel like a lot of women,
including myself in the past have accepted the bare minimum
because that's what we believed we were right.
And that's just not how it is like there are so many men out
there. Build yourself up to a point
where you deserve. I guess I don't like using this
word, but high value. Build yourself to be a high
value woman and you will find yourself a high value man if you
are constantly looking for someone.
If you're constantly looking for love.
And you weren't even working on. Yourself, you're going to find
someone that's subpar. Like lower than that, you know,
like you attract what you are. You attract mediocracy if what
you're looking for is mediocracy.
If you're literally letting anyone, anything in your life
because you are so desperate for love, you're going to get that.
You're not going to get someone that treats you like the queen
that you are if you're literally letting anyone into your life
and you're just talking to any guy.
Don't do that sweetheart. You are meant for so much more.
You are going to get a man that treats you like he genuinely
loves you. The older that I get, the less
important I feel like I. Put on men.
Because I have genuinely. Realized it's nice to have
someone in my. Life but it's not a necessity
and also on top of that, Haram relationships are just not worth
it. Like they really are not.
If a man isn't willing to have yours and actually make it
official, then he's not worth it.
He is not worth putting into your life and putting effort and
time and all of those things. Obviously time constraints and
you know if y'all don't want to get married at the moment
waiting and stuff, that's a very valid reason.
But if he wants a harm relationship, he that's just not
worth it. He has shown you what he wants
and it's not a genuine relationship with you and it's
not to follow God's rulings. This has just turned into a
whole point about all my opinions on men.
So I guess that's that. Don't let them tell you who or
what you are because you know who you are and who don't know
who you are. Don't get into a relationship
because you need to focus on yourself and finding yourself
first. That is your priority.
Men coming later and I promise you there are more than enough
to go around. Don't put yourself on the mind
to like oh I need to get married right now or oh I need to be in
a relationship right now. You don't build yourself up to a
point that you want to be at, and a man will come in and match
that exactly, if not more #10 What other people think about
you does not matter. Your fear of what other people
are going to say about you, of what they think about you, is
genuinely holding you back so much.
It genuinely does not matter what they think about you.
Are they in your shoes? No.
Are they living your life? Are they living the consequences
of your actions? No.
Let's just say that you want to start making content, right?
And you start making videos. People from your school find
out, and they laugh at you, they joke about it.
And you have two decisions here, right?
One, you stop making content. Or two, you don't care and you
keep going. Let's just say you stop, right?
Let's see you in six months from that point.
You're literally in the same exact place.
You haven't worked towards your goal of consecration because you
let other people and what they think about you dictate what you
are going to do with your life. You're literally in the same
exact place. And that joke about what you
were doing with consecration is, you know, they still tease you
about it. That's that.
Then you have option 2 where it's like you didn't care and
six months go by, let's just say you gained 5060 thousand
followers, right? You're still being content.
You're going, you got PR deals and now what are they going to
do? Laugh.
Oh my God, you have 6000 followers.
Oh my God, you got a brand partnership with this brand.
Like if someone is laughing at you for genuinely trying in life
and for genuinely just going out there and working for whatever
it is that you want, they're coming from a place of
insecurity and you just shouldn't care.
In either situation, the one person that was genuinely
affected by your action of deciding to care or not care
about what other people think about you is you.
Like, you're only going to be affected by this.
If you want something for yourself, don't be afraid to be
seen trying to achieve it. Do not be afraid to be seen.
Just trying in general. I don't know when trying became
cringy, I don't really follow with it.
The people that are there for you when you start that are
going to support you. Listen to them, you know?
Don't listen to the people that are going to try to stop you
from doing whatever it is that you want because they don't care
about you. The people that support you do.
When I was starting out with content creation, I remember on
my Instagram, I had someone that I thought was a friend literally
comment this one thing and I'm not going to say what it was,
but it was like really hurtful. It's been a few years.
They still follow me whenever I see them.
Like I remember this was last year.
They literally asked me, Oh my God, how did you like get to
this point? Like help me out.
Weren't you like hating on me when I was starting out?
Someone will always have something to say about you
regardless of what it is that you're doing, so do what you
are. Like, that's just literally my
mindset. I could not care less about what
other people think about me because I know I'm being
authentic to myself when it comes to anything.
Like I want to do something, I'm going to go do it.
And if you think I'm cringy for it, if you think that I'm corny,
that you're going to laugh at me about it, go ahead.
I am actually trying and I don't care to be seen failing at that.
I don't care to be seen at the start of it not being
successful. Because when I am successful,
which I know I am because I am going to work hard enough to be
successful, you're not going to be laughing.
And if you are laughing, then let's look at the place in life
that you're at #11 self pity is not doing you anything.
I would say in middle school I would just give myself a lot of
self pity. I did not need to be doing all
that. It literally put me in.
A deeper place of like, darkness and sadness than I was already
in. And it was just fortifying in my
mind that the place that I was in was just such a bad and
horrible place. And like, Oh my God, like, I
feel so bad for myself. What?
Like, what are we doing? Why am I sitting here thinking
about like, Oh my God, this happened to me and life is so
hard and I went through this and this happened and all my friends
stopped talking to me. Like, are we being for real
right now? Why am I listing out all the
reasons that I have to be sad? Oh, I'm just making myself more
sad. Like what?
What was the point of that? That was just not how I should
have handled those situations. And I feel like it was a habit.
I really did stick with me past middle school.
Like every time I would be sad, it would just manifest like
that. Like I would go back to that
pattern of self pity and it would just making me more sad
and just crying more because that's what I do.
I just be crying a lot that there's no reason for that.
And the only thing that self pity was doing for me was making
me relive the same pain that I had tried to heal from.
It trapped me in a mindset that I was powerless over the things
that happened to me. And that's like just not true.
I have complete control over how I react to those things.
Like yes, I don't have control over how they happen to me
because life is life. It's going to happen regardless.
But how I react to those things and how I let those things
affect me is what I can control. And I wasn't letting them
control me in a good way, I was letting them just take over all
of my emotions and my overthinking and it was just a
mess. And yes, while feeling sad is
OK, you know you have to feel your emotions in order to let
them go and not hold on to them. You also shouldn't make yourself
like, force yourself honestly to relive that cycle.
Like feel those feelings over and over and over and over.
You can't move on while you're forcing yourself into that
cycle. The moment that you stop using
your pain as a form of punishment to yourself, because
that's essentially what you're doing, you're punishing yourself
with the things that you've been through by forcing yourself to
relive them. That is when you actually see
yourself growing. And another part about it is
that I was honestly romanticizing the suffering that
I had gone through. That sounds so bad.
Suffering, like just the shit that I've been through, you
know, like I wasn't trying to get better.
I was just trying to feel something that made my pain make
sense. I went through all of this.
I. Didn't want it to feel like.
I had gone through all of it for nothing.
And also sometimes it just felt more comfortable to sit in the
pain because I was more used to that than actually healing and
letting myself let go of the emotions.
Yeah, I was going through it. Yeah.
I was like feeling a type of way.
But I did not need to make that my whole entire personality.
You can acknowledge that something hurt you without
letting it define you. I think the most recent
situation where this really showed itself, and I'm happy
that after this I generally just stopped like this habit because
I realized what I was doing, the cycle I was putting myself into.
I would say two years ago, almost two years ago now, I was
diagnosed with a chronic illness.
And I'm not about to lie, that was such a hard point in my
life. And even after that, it just
kept on getting harder. And this.
Is a very. Sensitive topic for me because I
I really was going through a lot and I would just sit in self
pity. I would literally just be like,
why me? Why did I have to, you know, go
through this? And it stopped me from getting
to that point of acceptance of like, yeah, I have this, I have
to live with it. And you know, like it sucks, but
I'm OK with it because it's my life.
And I'm not going to let it dictate what I feel and what I
do and make me constantly, like every single week, cry about it
because I'm just asking God, why me?
Once I stopped doing that, once I stopped asking those questions
and making myself feel that pity for myself, I was able to just
accept it. And move on from that number 12.
How bad you want something is completely different from how
hard you're willing to work for it.
There are a lot of. Things in life that I want.
And if you follow me, you know, I'm a very ambitious person.
There are just a lot of things that.
I want and I want to accomplish in this short life even outside
of worldly things like religious like I want to strengthen my
faith. I want my Iman to be higher.
I want a stronger relationship with the less upon with Allah.
It doesn't matter what it is. I realized how bad I want those
things is completely different from how hard I'm willing to
work. And in order to get them, it
goes back to motivation and discipline and consistency.
You're not going to get something unless you build those
skills of being disciplined, of being able to be consistent on
your goals, regardless of how hard it becomes.
And if you're not willing to work hard, if you're not willing
to stay consistent, you're not going to be able to get to that
place in life that you want to be up.
And it's all up to you. You can want something, dream
about it, and literally never even take a step towards
achieving that. Or you can want something and
you can. Work your butt off.
And get that thing. It's all up to you.
When I was in high school, I really wanted to become a
content creator. I used to make YouTube videos
when I was a child in elementary.
As I got older, I really wanted to become a content creator.
And so I started being content. I would literally post so much
on my social media. That.
One day it would literally be like 1020 posts.
I just started gaining because I was working hard on it.
I was being smart with what I was doing.
And then I wanted to become a podcaster because I really
wanted to share different tips and tricks and just help people
out. So I did that.
I went out and I bought a mic. Actually, the first few episodes
on this are without a mic. I literally recorded on by
phone. I went into the quietest room in
my house, recorded, and then I posted and it was only up from
there. I'm so proud of myself for that.
I also wanted to start a business, so I got up and I did
that. Like there are just so many
different things that I have done for myself that have led me
to being where I'm at today. I wanted to go to college.
I wanted to get my degree, be independent, and you know, have
my own apartment. Here I am junior in college
majoring in data science, doing my master's as well, and I'm
living alone in my own apartment.
I'm literally living that lifestyle right now that I
wanted a few years ago. It's really shown me that I can
do whatever it is that I want to do.
I just have to put my mind to it and actually be willing to put
in that hard work to get myself there.
I just need that dedication, that time, that discipline and
consistency. Also, I need a little spot on
that level. My side, I can get whatever it
is that I want. I didn't get a large following
overnight. I had to work for that.
I didn't get a large following on my podcast and like get a lot
of listeners overnight. That was, again, hours and hours
and hours of dedication and work to be able to get to that point.
Yeah, I, like Loki, fell off on both those things, but to get to
that point was a long time, a long work in progress.
You just need to be dedicated to what it is that you want, and
you'll get there #13 your potential is only as high as you
make it. Do not ever tell yourself that
you can't do something like, oh, this is too hard, oh this is too
much for me, or this goal is unrealistic because yeah, it's
unrealistic now because you told yourself it is.
Nothing is unrealistic unless you make it unrealistic for
yourself. The bar is only as high as you
make it. One of the lessons before was
that your reality shapes your mind.
And this goes off of that. If you tell yourself that the
pious that you can ever get is to like this certain point and
you can't get higher than that, you're going to believe that
you're never going to get higher than that point because.
That's what you. Believe you are capable of you.
Don't believe you're more capable than that point.
You can always do more if you want to do more.
What you're doing by having this type of mentality is you're
limiting yourself by saying that you just can't.
If you see someone else having the thing that you want, it's
more than attainable. If they can do it, I can 100%.
Why can't I? Nothing that someone else has
done, you cannot do. You can 100% do it.
They have proven to you that you can do it.
So like, what's the issue? Let's just say you want to make
$10 million by the age of 25 and you're like, you know, I don't
think I can do this. This is a lot.
I need to lower the bar a little bit.
I need to be realistic, there are literally people that have
made more than that by the time they're 20.
From social media, from Instagram and TikTok, or from
owning businesses. Whatever you think you can't do,
someone out there is doing exactly that and even more.
Hope this is coming across in a good way.
You are capable of so much, and you're only limiting yourself by
telling yourself that you have a bar that you can't go above
because that bar is only there because you.
Put it there. In reality, there isn't really
anything. Your maximum is so much higher
than what you actually think it is.
Obviously everyone's mental, stay physical, stay the class
that you were born into. Like obviously all those things,
your circumstances in life, like they're very different and
you're maybe going to have to work harder than other people to
reach a certain place. Maybe it's easier for you to get
to a certain place than other people.
Like it's very different. But I am a firm believer,
regardless of that, that if you work hard enough and if you work
smart enough, you will be able to reach any.
Like nothing is too far for you to achieve. 14 Everyone is
insecure about themselves in some way.
Confidence isn't about ever doubting yourself, it's about
not letting those doubts control you.
The start of me being genuinely confident in who I am as a
person started when I stopped listening to the voices in my
head. Everyone.
Like when I say everyone, everyone has some sort of
insecurity about themselves. The only difference is that some
people don't let that insecure already control themselves.
Some people own up to it. Some people say, yeah, I have
this, but I don't care. I'm so beautiful regardless.
I'm so confident in myself, regardless of the fact that, you
know, I think my eye. Shape is ugly.
Or, you know, maybe they think their lips are too small or
their lips are too big, or they feel like their jaw is not the
way that they want it to look, regardless of.
What it is? That you're insecure about.
Let those thoughts pass through your head because at the end of
the day, that's all they are. They're literally just thoughts
that go into your head. And what you're going to do is
you're going to collect them, come out the other side, and
you're not going to let them control you.
Because if you do let them control you and you do let them
sit in your head, that's when you're going to become insecure.
That's when you're going to start believing those thoughts.
And that's not what we want. For example, me, one thing that
I really am insecure about physically at least, is my hip
dips. And I was talking about this to
my girl and she was like, girl where like, yeah, they're like
there, but they're very minimal. I didn't even really notice that
they were honestly there until you pointed them out.
And it was like, are you, are you lying about that?
Or am I just too hyper fixated on it?
Because we look at ourselves so much more than other people do
and we notice things about ourselves that other people
don't to other people. They're not hyper fixated on
that. They're not looking at that.
They're looking at you as a whole person and they're seeing
how beautiful you are. There have been so many times
where I have been talking to other women and they've been
like, oh, I don't like this about myself or I'm like, girl.
Be. For real right now you literally
look gorgeous and I didn't even notice that until you pointed it
out. And I feel like we've all had
instances like this, and what we can take away from that is that
it's not really as big of a deal as we make it.
Being insecure about something is only going to make that thing
bigger than it is, because the more insecure you are, the more
other people are going to notice your behavior.
You know? Like you can see the difference
in the behaviors of someone that's insecure and confident.
The energy that they hold is just two completely different
worlds. Even if the thing that you're
insecure about is extremely noticeable, if you own that, the
way you carry that is what changes the outcome.
Let's just say you're shy. In the corner, people are going
to notice that if someone points it out and you're just very
confident, you're like, yeah. And so the fact that you don't
care is going to affect how. People treat you.
In that thing, that's when there's a whole different energy
shift in that. So more of the story.
Be confident regardless of whatever it is that you're
insecure about, because whatever doubts you've got, at the end of
the day, they're just thoughts. Don't let it control you #15
everyone enters your life for a different reason.
Not everyone comes into your life to stay for the whole
entire thing. Sometimes God sends someone to
be a lesson to you. Sometimes God sends people into
your life to stay for a few chapters.
Sometimes God sends people to stay in your life for maybe half
a chapter. Every single person has a
different timeline and purpose in your life.
It's OK that they don't stay for the whole thing.
Sometimes people are meant to be lessons to you to help you stop
doing something or to help you start doing something to inspire
you. Maybe you're like me and or like
how I used to be a people pleaser and you just let people
walk all over you and you give out more than you receive and
someone comes into your life that teaches you to never do
that again because of how harmful it is to you.
Like, yeah, that lesson may hurt and maybe you wanted that person
to stay in your life even, but you had to realize that you had
to choose yourself because at the end of the day, that person
does not matter. At the end of the day, you are
what matters to you. Maybe God sent someone into your
life to be an uplifting spirit for a few chapters because that
is what you needed. And then they're going to go
back to not being in your life. And regardless of how long they
stay, regardless of what effect they have on your life, it's OK
because different people have different roles.
It's OK if they don't stay for the whole thing #16 don't hold
on to things are people longer than they were meant to stay.
Going back to. My last point, as I said,
different people are going to have different timelines and
purposes in your life. You know they're not meant to
stay. You need to learn to let go when
it's time. Don't hold on to something that
obviously isn't meant to stay in your life because by doing that
way you could be doing is blocking a blessing.
Maybe that person was meant to leave, or maybe that you were
supposed to get yourself out of that situation so that God could
put you into bigger and better rooms or let you meet someone
else that is a better person to have in your life than the last.
Once you let that door closed to that chapter in your life, you
can let the next door open. Sometimes you're literally
blocking your own blessing. It's OK to be grateful for the
experiences that you had with something or someone or you
know, whatever the situation may be for you.
But also you can realize that you can appreciate those moments
and memories and the time that you had while also letting go
and moving on to what's next. You're going to outgrow people,
you're going to outgrow places, and sometimes you're going to
even outgrow yourself. And holding on to all of that
because of guilt or here or attachment, whatever it is, it's
just going to keep you stuck in a place that you're not meant to
be. Sometimes growth looks like
letting go of what you once prayed for because it's no
longer serving you. And again, that is completely OK
#17 be confrontational. Literally, girl, just stand up
for yourself. If there's one thing I could go
back to tell me is be confrontational.
Do not let people that are disrespecting you keep on
disrespecting you just because you are scared to stand up for
yourself. Confront them.
Ask them like what's up, you know?
Like there's no reason as to why you should ever be letting
anyone do anything because you're scared of being
confrontational. It's literally something that
has to be done. And I understand that it can be
hard, but I've just realized it's so much easier to just talk
and say something then deal with all of that emotion.
A lot of the times all it takes is 1 conversation for it to
stop. Sometimes all it takes to clear
up awkwardness, maybe in a relationship, friendship,
anything, it's just one conversation just to actually
bring it up. Yeah, I can be awkward.
Yeah, I can be uncomfortable. But be confrontational about it
regardless, because the end goal of that is going to bring you
more peace than not confronting it at all.
And on top of that, confrontation doesn't have to be
a bad thing. It doesn't mean that you're
arguing with someone. It just means that you're seeing
something happening and you're going to talk about it.
You know you're going to bring it up instead of brushing it
underneath the rug and pretending that it didn't
happen. There's something that happened
to me recently. I was hanging out.
With a group of girls. And any time that I talked, I
would literally just see these two girls side eyeing each
other. Like I would talk and things
like be like you know. So I was like yo what's up?
Like did I say something wrong? Like what's what's the issue?
They were like what? And I was like, y'all are
looking at each other anytime that I talk, like literally side
on each other anytime that I say anything.
Old me would have literally just let that pass.
I would have ignored that happening and just gone on with
the night me now. I was like, you know, just
trying to see the issue of it because I could have said
something wrong. I could have offended someone.
It's not always. Them trying to be mean, and I
mean, in that situation, yeah, I was, they were like saying Oh
no, nothing. If you're telling me nothing,
then you're just side eyeing to be mean.
I haven't really talked to either of them since then.
It could have been that I said something and I just wanted to
also clear that up #18 it's OK to be disliked.
It's not your responsibility to make Someone Like You.
Let's repeat that with me. It's not your responsibility to
make Someone Like You. Obviously, yes, we want people
to like us. We want people to think good of
us and, you know, be friends with us.
We want them to not think that we're a horrible person.
But at the end of the day, people are going to have their
own opinions about you regardless of how kind you are
to them, regardless of how much you do for them.
Sometimes people will hold that first like initial perception
that they had of you on the whole in time that they know
you. Sometimes people even just want
to have a certain kind of perception about you.
And even if they're wrong, they're going to hold on to that
negative perception because that's how they want to view it.
And we do not have any responsibility to change the
reality that someone else has. It's worked for them so far.
It's their life. Why am I going to go out of my
way to dictate that? Let's just say, for example,
someone says that I am an extremely mean person, that I am
just so horrible and all this other stuff.
Am I? No, I know myself more than
literally anybody else. I'm a very introspective person.
I reflect a lot on if I'm doing. Good or bad?
And what I need to improve on, I know myself inside and out.
And them saying that about me isn't going to change that
perception of me because I know that I'm not like, maybe I'm
going to sit there and be like, like, did I do anything to them
or did I say anything or in general to anyone that could
have made anyone think about me like that?
Just being so grounded and comfortable in who I am as a
person and knowing that. I am.
The person that I want to be has helped me not care about what
other people think about me or whether they like me.
Because you know, again, sometimes that's going to
happen. Like sometimes you're going to
meet someone and your energies just don't align.
Y'all don't vibe. And that's.
OK, regardless of the fact that there.
Are 100% going to be people out there that don't?
Really vibe what you like that you have to be.
OK with that because you are just so grounded within yourself
and who you are as a person. Teen eating healthier, this is
something that I got into fairly recently just like eating
healthier. Living in America especially,
there's just a lot of food everywhere with chemicals and
ingredients that we don't even know about.
Regardless of if it's like snack, like I want chips or I
want candy, I want like a soda or something is going to have
something that's not good for my body that my body was never
meant to digest. We owe it to ourselves and our
bodies to treat ourselves kindly.
I realized that feeding myself all of that junk food was just
not doing it, and I needed to start eating healthier and being
more intentional. With what?
I let myself eat #20 Iman is something that is always going
to fluctuate regardless of how strong your Iman may feel like
right now. And if you don't know, Iman
means faith. So like how strong your belief
in Islam is? There are going to be points
where you don't have that. There are going to be points
where you backtrack so much that you're going to be like, how did
I end up here? I used to wear abayas and chill
Bob's pretty regularly. That was like a few years ago.
I would say now I wear a lot more like baggy clothing, jeans.
Sometimes I'll wear like tighter clothes and.
I just feel. So guilty a lot of the time
because of the fact that I used to be a certain way and now I
feel like I've backtracked in that.
However, I've learned that that's just a part of life.
Like your Iman is always going to fluctuate.
And regardless of how strong it may be right now or how weak it
may be right now, it's going to change.
It's going to go higher, it's going to go lower.
That's just the part of life. And regardless of what happens,
make sure to tell yourself that it's OK.
Because the level of guilt that I felt for my Iman not being as
strong as it once was is like insane.
But I've realized that it all happens for a reason.
Because even though outwardly I was very much doing what I was
supposed to, my Iman like on the inside, when it comes to my
relationship with God and how strong that was, it wasn't
really where I wanted it to be. Now I feel like it's the
opposite. Where yes, physically I may not
look like I am on my theme as much as I was before, but my
relationship with God has definitely gotten a lot stronger
and I feel like going through this phase was 100% needed in
order to get to this point. And Sha Allah will help me get
to that point again where I'm able to wear abayas and the full
hijab and everything. Please Make Love for me.
Your girl is struggling when it comes to that aspect.
The lesson out of that is that you never know where you're
going to end up, especially when it comes to your Dean.
You need to tell yourself that it's OK because God Forgives and
as long as you repent and you genuinely feel that in your
heart. God will forgive.
You, he will forgive you and you will have more chances to show
him that you genuinely do love him.
Just become a better Muslim and life will take you on this long
road of so many different things happening.
All that matters is that you go back to God after every single
wrongdoing that you do and you choose to try and be better
because that's all that we can do.
That brings us to the end of this episode.
Thank you so much for tuning and I really hope you all liked it.
I. Know.
This is my first episode after my long hiatus.
If you want any specific episodes please let me know.
If you guys want me to do more of these podcast episodes with
like a YouTube version to it, please do let me know that as
well. Thank you so much for tuning in.
I've generally missed y'all comment down below anything and
anything that you want. To thoughts, ideas.
Any episodes that you all want, please let me know and I will
see you guys in my next podcast episode.