I said I wanted to come. This is your host machine and
you're listening to Journey to Jenna.
Welcome to episode one of the Ramadan Prep series.
In this first episode, we'll be going over goal, making a bunch
of lists that you should make to help you plan.
Basically just a bunch of prep that is really needed to make
this Ramadan as productive as possible.
Over the years, I've realized that planning everything out is
key. You don't want to go into this
month not having a plan, not having any goals.
You get so much more out of this month when you go in knowing
exactly what it is that you want to focus on.
So get a pen and paper, your iPad, computer, whatever else it
is that you use to take notes. Because this episode is going to
be very interactive, I've structured it so that I'm
talking. But while I'm talking, it's sort
of like explaining everything and then also giving
instructions on goal prepping so that you can make your own lists
and goals as you follow along. Also this way you're not
procrastinating, You're sort of forced to actually start
preparing. You can't say you're going to do
it later and then not do it. So yeah, another thing, before
we actually get into the gold prepping, I want to recommend
you guys get a Ramadan planner, whether it's a digital one or a
journal or like a checklist to type list this situation.
Just get one. It helps so, so much just in
terms of planning everything, tracking your progress.
It's like a the second brain and when you're deprived of food and
water 2/3 of the day, having one just makes everything so much
simpler and easier to reach your goals.
Yes, this is a shameless plug we are currently selling Ramadan
planners. One is a notion template you can
get on an iPad or a computer or iPhone and the other one is a
digital version. So it's more like a journal that
you can download to your good notes on your iPad or whatever
app that it is that you use. I spent a lot of time into
making these so that they're functional and you guys get a
product that truly does help you get that productive, spiritual
Ramadan that we all want. And if you guys want, you guys
can get it from Journey to jenna.com.
I have the link in the description and it's in my
Instagram bio if you want to check it out.
I've also made a few free products or resources that you
guys can download and just use. Inshallah, All of that will help
out. So on to go prepping.
Most of us tend to approach our goals by asking something along
the lines of what do I want to accomplish?
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But what I want you to also think about is about your your
intentions. So what are your intentions for
this month? On the first hadith in Sahel,
Bukhari talks about how the reward of the deeds that you do
depends upon your intentions. And I think that trying tying
this into our goals is such an important thing.
So ask yourself, what are my intentions for the Samadan?
What do I want to get out of this Ramadan?
Do I want to build a stronger relationship with the Quran?
Do I want to become closer to Allah?
Subhanahu matala? Do I want to start wearing
hijab? What are my intentions?
Put yourself in the situation where it's the last day of
Ramadan, tomorrow is Eid and you're looking back on this
month. What do you want to have done?
What do you want to be able to say?
Yes, I did that. And once you have them, write
them down and make sure that these are achievable.
Don't have it be something really unrealistic.
You know yourself, you know your strengths and your weaknesses.
You know what you're capable of. So make them things that you
know you can achieve. Obviously it's something that's
going to take hard work and discipline to achieve your
goals, but don't make it so hard that you're stretching yourself
too thin. One thing I want you all to keep
in mind is this viewpoint that I'm going to offer of Ramadan in
terms of what we take out of it after it ends.
Because right after Ramadan ends, it gets harder to keep
what we gained during Ramadan, whether that be my lovely Iman,
my habits that I started to implement, whatever it is, a lot
of it sort of kind of slows down or stops and I feel like I
wasted my whole Ramadan. I feel like I could have done a
lot better because I'm going back to what I was, how I acted
prior to it. Like I found myself asking if
I'm unable to keep all of this going for the rest of this year,
then what's the point? And this is a feeling that I
know most of you guys can resonate with.
I watched this lecture today by Yasir Qadhi and he explained
this perfectly. Basically he said that yes,
you're not going to go through the the year after Ramadan and
keep every single thing that you implemented during Ramadan.
But the point is that you keep some of these habits, even if
that is just one. The point is that you go out of
Ramadan better than how you went into it.
Imagine you're on some stairs, right?
And there are 10 steps. You start this Ramadan at the
bottom step, you're on zero right now, and then you go
through Ramadan. You're doing really good.
Let's say you're on the 5th step, but after Ramadan, things
happen and you go back and you're on the second step now.
Now we may look at this as a bad thing, but flip the script.
Look, you're going to be entering the next summadon at a
higher place. Then you entered this one.
And imagine this goes on for the next decade.
You are going to slowly go higher and higher.
You're going to make it to the top step.
Yes, it's a slow process, but staying on this and being
consistent is what matters. Now obviously this is a process
that is going to be with us for the rest of our lives, not just
for a decade. But the point I want to make
here is that you, you can't reach the highest version of
yourself in a day or even a month and maintain that for the
rest of your life. That's not realistic.
And you can make this the Ramadan you start to change your
life, but it's not something that's going to last just one
month. This is a process that you and I
are going to go through again for the rest of our lives.
You're going to have times where you literally don't feel like
yourself or you don't want to do anything, and other times you're
going to be on the grind. You're doing everything you want
and need to do. But the point is that you're
making progress. That's what this is about.
And I really do hope you guys keep this viewpoint of Ramadan
somewhere because it's not only changed how I view doing good
deeds outside of Ramadan, it's also helped me see the broader
implications of it. Like before, I would say, Oh
yes, it happens once a year. We try our best to follow a line
beyond the Dean during it. But now when I look at it, I see
it as a part of a much larger process.
And this process, this journey, it's lifelong.
Now, using this perspective, I want you to envision yourself
next Ramadan. What are you bringing into next
Ramadan that you gained from this one?
Really think about it. And when you have that thing or
multiple things, whatever it is, write it down.
Those should be a part of your goals.
One goal that I feel like each and every single one of us
should have during Ramadan is gaining Thakwa.
And I say this because the purpose of Ramadan, as Allah
Subhanahu with Allah says in the Quran, is attaining Thakwa.
It's to become God conscious and as such it's a goal that every
single one of us should have. No matter whatever else we have
on our list of goals, gaining Thakwa should be at the center
of it. Allah should be at the center of
every single thing that we do. And especially during Ramadan,
it's become so much more important.
And one way to do this is through your intentions.
And I feel like this is one goal that all of us, another goal
that all of us should have to rethink our intentions before we
do anything. So before you pray, ask yourself
why am I praying? What is my intention for
praying? And it's like it's such an
important thing because you can turn a good deed into a bad one
just by having a bad intention for it.
So for example, you go to the Masjid for throwaway and you're
praying, but your intention isn't to pray for a Las
Panuatala, it's to impress people around you so that they
can say, hey look, she's she's so religious, she's praying like
also on you to call the whatever like to show off that turns that
good deed into a bad one. I can give so many other
examples, but you guys get the gist of it.
It's so important to have a good intentions for every single
thing that it is that you do. So make sure that the goals that
you make, the intentions behind them are pure and they're for
the sake of a less upon. With Dada, Ramadan is an amazing
time to choose to change your habits and to make good habits,
to leave behind bad ones and to just, you know, overall become a
different person. You can use this month to change
your life. Think about the woman that you
are right now and think about the woman that you want to
become. How does she dress?
How does she talk? What are her habits?
Those are things that you should be thinking while you're making
your goals. Because when we make goals, a
lot of the time they tend to be very vague.
They tend to be very loose in, you know, the interpretation.
We should be making them as specific as possible, and this
can go from specific actions to specific habits, because I don't
think a lot of people understand that when we're talking about
becoming a better version of you, you're talking about
changing your habits. Because what makes you the
person you are is the habits that you have.
If you have a lot of bad habits, habits that are unproductive and
lazy, you are going to be a unproductive and lazy person.
So in order to change that, you need to build habits that are
productive and you will become a productive person.
So essentially, when you want to make your goals, you want to
make them specific habits, specific actions that you can
implement into your life because that is what is actually going
to implement change into your life.
Now we're going on to the second portion of this episode, which
will cover a few lists that I think we should all make in
order to help us. And these lists, instead of
being, again, very vague with them, try to make them very
specific. Put specific numbers to them if
you can. Put specific actions to them.
The first list is A to not do list.
Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like.
It's a list of things that you're not going to do.
We all have habits that we want to start, yes, But we often
forget on the other side the habits that we want to stop.
And it holds just as much of importance.
One of the things that Ramadan is especially useful for is
wiping away all of those sins that we've been committing.
And these sins, essentially what they've become to us, are
habits. It doesn't matter who you are.
Every single one of us has so many sins piled up, and we
should be using this month to get rid of that pile instead of
piling more on. And one of the ways we can do
this is to stop the sins, these habits that we've built.
We can't ask for forgiveness from Ellis upon with ADA and
then continue to do it over and over.
So ask Ellis upon with ADA for forgiveness and make it a goal
to stop the sin that you've been committing.
And this sin will be different for every single one of us.
Maybe you have a habit of listening to music.
Maybe you have a habit of swearing.
Maybe you talk bad about others a lot.
Whatever it is for you, write them down and work towards
cutting them out. The second list is a gratitude
list. This list is basically comprised
of things in your life that you want to be grateful for, and
doing this takes mindfulness. It's so easy to look at what you
don't have in your life right now and look at everything at a
loss. But one thing Ramadan does is
change that perspective. It really helps you feel
gratitude for the things that we tend to overlook the rest of the
year. One of the main things being
having access to food, reflecting on everything that
you have in your life and consciously thinking about how
having them is such a positive thing is a really big way to get
closer to Allah. He has put so much abundance
into your life and we should be acknowledging that and
practicing gratitude is the best way to do that.
And I mean this in the way of not only just like acknowledging
them in your head, but also when you're making the verbalize it
to Allah, say ya Allah, thank you for my family.
Thank you for allowing me to be in this very lucky position that
I'm in. It also helps you enhance the
relationships you have with other people in your life,
whether that's friends or family, both of which are things
I think we should really focus on throughout Ramadan.
Focus on cultivating your relationships with your parents.
Focus on being grateful for all the things that they've done.
So write down the things and the people in your life that you
want to be more mindful about and be grateful about.
The third list and this sort of kind of goes along with the last
one is a thank you list and it's going to consist of names and
people that you want to thank. Again, we tend to overlook so
much in our life and one of the big things is the people who are
there for us. And it's important to
acknowledge that and to thank them and let them know.
Like, hey, you're important to me and I see everything that you
do for me and I genuinely appreciate it so much.
The 4th list is a forgiveness list.
Here you're going to write down a list of names and you're going
to split it into two separate columns.
One column is going to have people that you want to forgive,
and the second list or column is going to have people that you
need to ask forgiveness from. Forgiveness is something that is
really emphasized throughout Ramadan.
It's the month of mercy. Allah's mercy and forgiveness is
at its highest. And not only are we encouraged
to ask Allah for forgiveness, but we should also extend that
to people in our life. In an authentic Hadith, Abdullah
Ibn Ahman reported that Muhammad Salah Ali wasallam said the
Merciful will be shown mercy by the Most Merciful.
Be merciful to those on earth who the one in the heavens will
have mercy upon you. None of us can say that we've
never heard anyone. None of us can say that we're
always in the right. There's always someone out there
that you need to apologize to or reconcile with, so use this
month as an opportunity to do that, to acknowledge your flaws
and to do the right thing. And it's not only good in an
Islamic sense, but also in a personal growth sense.
It allows for you to create a more positive internal space for
yourself, and it allows you to grow, since acknowledging your
wrongs is a very big part of that.
Yes, it can be daunting. Yes, it will hurt your ego, but
that's a part of the journey and it'll help you in making a
better you. That is all I have for today's
episode of the Ramadan Prep series.
I hope it helped in making your goals or at least starting to
make them. And I hope you do make at least
one of the lists that I've recommended to make.
And inshallah, I'll see you in my next episode with that
Assalamareko.