How To Actually Free Palestine
This one concept can help you understand why you never seem to be able to make a real impact...
This post was originally behind the paywall. If after reading it you find that it helped you think differently, save time or move forward—consider leaving a $5+ tip.
Your support keeps high-quality life strategies accessible and helps sustain this work for even more goal-oriented Muslims.
Saying “free free Palestine” doesn’t actually free Palestine.
No more than saying “I am skinny” actually makes me lose weight.
Not that positive thinking, planning and even wanting something is a bad thing.
But we need to go beyond merely wishing for something and start doing something about it.
The thing is… it’s really easy to come up with strategies for what to do…
What we actually struggle with is figuring out how to do it.
And have you noticed there’s always someone who’s ready to tell you what to do… but never seems to offer any advice on how to do it?
And I mean actual steps…
Day 1… Day 2…
Step 1… Step 2…
It’s not really their fault—though I’m not shy to say a lot of people just say things to sound like they have a solution when they really don’t—because the difficulty we have with implementing goals…
Has more to do with measuring actions…
Than with agreeing on what actions to take.
But I’ve learnt how to fix that:
Track your lead measures.
Let me explain…
Fulfilling your goals can be measured in two ways:
Lag measures
Lead measures
Lag Measures
Lag measures track the end result you want to see.
For example, if your goal is to get stronger by working out in the gym… a lag measure might be a personal record (PR) on your dead lift.
The problem with lag measures is by the time you get to measure the end result the activities that got you there are already in the past.
By the time you reached your PR… that’s about all you can measure:
Did I hit the PR or not?
So all you’re really measuring is the thing you wanted to achieve in the first place…
Not what helped you achieve it.
How would you know if you’re working as efficiently as you could… or are even on the right track in the first place?
Lead Measures
Lead measures on the other hand track the actions that lead to the end result.
For example, the individual exercises you do to strengthen your muscles.
You can measure this in terms of exercises, sets and reps… even when you worked out what you ate.
This gives you measurable actions that you can assess and improve on.
More and more improvements on your lead measures will inevitably lead to bigger and better lag measures at the end.
But here’s the thing…
It takes discipline to work day to day… without losing focus on the end goal.
But with lead measures you don’t need to worry all that much about the end…
As long as you stay focused on the action in front of you.
With lead measures you can always correct course whenever you fall off track, feel tired or lose motivation…
You just look at your tasks and identify where you fell short in your lead measures:
I don’t feel motivated about my goal of getting stronger but I know I have 50 push ups to do today.
I’m too tired to think about finishing this book but I know I can write 500 words before I fall asleep.
I can’t always picture how I’ll get more reviews for my store but I can try to email 10 past customers to thank them…
…I don’t know if I’ll see a free Palestine in my lifetime but I can…
Do you see where I’m going with this?
We all share big goals.
And, God willing, we will see those goals fulfilled one day.
But when that day comes will we be able to pinpoint the little actions along the way that got us there?
Wouldn’t it be great if we knew what those those actions are… today…
And work on them…
Each and every day…
No matter how we’re feeling about the end goal?
It might not be easy to articulate a detailed plan for freeing Palestine…
But maybe we can agree that even doing something like 50 push ups a day is a worthwhile lead measure to prepare ourselves for that inevitability?
And always remember:
Actions are according to intentions…
And while we have the intention right…
Let’s keep measuring the actions.
So here’s what I’m proposing:
Next time you (or someone else) say “I/you should do XYZ”… try to come up with reasonable tasks with lead measures.
Insist on never again entertaining an idea that can’t be measured with lead measures.
Break your biggest goals (personal and shared) into smaller, actionable tasks with lead measures.
Record your lead measures in order to track your progress—this can be a notepad or a chart or anything you find convenient).
Commit to the daily discipline of working on your lead measures—even if your motivation fluctuates or you lose sight of the end goal—trust the process by logging your lead measures.
As always, use the comments and chat section on Substack to let me know how you got on:
Let’s help each other.
P.S.
I’ve written several articles on planning goals that might be a good starting point:
