Treat each day as the most important

The following steps can help you be in the present and enjoy stillness; treating each day as most important, focusing, concentrating, mediating and reflecting, enjoying the ride and avoiding procrastination.

However, today, we will look at the first two steps.

Treat Each Day As the Most Important invites balance daily. Every day is a perfect day. It is the most important day of your life.

Plan out what you want to accomplish each day, and pursue it with vigour. You may want to set aside time in the evening to plan the next day’s activities. This will give you a head start on the next day. Plan ahead, but live in the present and enjoy the journey.

People who have been diagnosed with critical illness realize the value of simple things of life. Why wait for such a situation?

When you find yourself being lazy, look for ways to use the moment more effectively to help reach your goals.

Make learning your vocation wherever you are. Have books, thoughts, and ideas ready to keep your mind growing. Memorize pieces of wisdom; they are good for reflecting on in the day and boosting your spirit. Sometimes, though, it’s good just to do nothing except to savour the moment.

Focus Enables You to Achieve Balance.

When you’re focused, you accomplish more in the day with less time and energy. Focusing on the important things and eliminating the unimportant things invites balance. Less becomes more.

Whatever you choose to focus on, study it steadfastly until you become an expert in your field. It could be just one aspect of your field, but it’s better to know something inside out than to browse superficially through many different areas.

When you are engrossed and focused, you’ll always find more to do and learn. Ultimately, it will allow you to cross-reference and have a much deeper understanding. It is unlikely that such intense learning will be forgotten easily.

If things tend to slip from your memory, systematically review what you’ve learned, and let repetition impress it on your memory. This is how people have memorized the scriptures of Judaism and Islam – by constant repetition. The Sages of the Talmud would repeat any new insight 40 times. They would repeat an especially vital idea 101 times.

You will enhance your ability to focus by first being clear about your vision and mission. Let these be your gauge. Do only those things that enable you to reach your goals and realize your vision. Once you have a clear vision and mission, you will need short-term goals; they will be the stepping stones that take you to your vision.

You need to ensure that you have energizing and high goals that will keep you motivated and prevent you from wasting time on unimportant things.

Focus enhances Life Balance. It is the key to turning energy into power. Water tumbling over a waterfall has undeniable energy, but it’s only when you direct it through a specific channel that it can turn a dynamo and generate electricity.

Similarly, steam rising from a boiling pot is energy, but it’s only when you focus it that it can drive locomotives or turn the wheels of industry. Your efforts in life can be as futile as water over a waterfall or steam from a boiling pot if they’re unfocused.

Without focus, you’ll expend plenty of energy, but very little of it will be converted into real power. To focus steam or falling water so as to harness its power; you have to prepare a channel and direct the energy through that channel. It works exactly that way with life.

Here are eight insights on being focused, taken from an interview with Nido Qubein:

(1) Having a focus is a by-product of purpose. The clearer your purpose in life, the more focused you are on the areas that really have priority in your life.

(2) Good habits are hard to develop but easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to develop, but hard to live with.

(3) Something that is worth doing is worth doing well.

(4) Always give without remembering. Always receive without forgetting.

(5) Extraordinary people always are very good listeners. Make focused listening an intentional habit.

(6) It doesn’t matter how much you know or what you can do. What really matters is what other people believe you can do for them.

(7) Our state of being leads to our state of doing. We have to “be” before we can “do.” Be authentic.

(8) In business, there are no rose gardens without thorns. Plucking the roses requires fingers that are nimble and tough. Don’t let the thorns intimidate you. Consistently execute, stick to it, and persevere.

(This article is an extract from “Life Balance the Sufi Way” by Azim Jamal and Dr Nido Qubein)

Mr Jamal is the author of several books including “Business, Balance & Beyond”