Proactive Muslim Minute: know your checkpoints

How to focus on one thing. Part 1.

🧠 How to be proactive:

Ramadhan is a time when we increase our recitation of the Quran. But some people struggle with reciting the entire Quran from start to finish.

A goal can seem daunting when you try to see the whole picture all at once… like reciting hundreds of pages of Arabic. Instead, break a goal up by how many times you need to “show up”. For example showing up (to recite) 29 or 30 times in the month of Ramadhan.

Showing up for your goals is your way of keeping a promise to yourself. Just like showing up for work is your way of honoring your employment contract.

Even if you don’t manage to recite the whole Quran but you showed up every single time… wouldn’t that make you an outstanding companion of the Quran?

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💡 Proactive Muslim Minute:

I’ve talked in some detail about focusing on one thing at a time.

You simply cannot do something meaningful and be impactful in everything that grabs your attention.

And spreading your focus on many projects versus doing your absolute best in one thing is like the difference between struggling to make a living by moving job to job… and being able to employ thousands of Muslims because you built one business to a high level.

It’s too important to ignore.

But what if you have several goals?

Does focusing on one thing mean you ignore all but one of your goals?

No!

Here’s how it works:

• You have a finite amount of time and energy to spend every single day.

• Your goals tell you where you should focus your time and energy each day. Spending them on anything else is undoubtedly wasteful.

• What you do for your goals each day is where you direct your focus towards “the one thing”… for that goal… for that day… with the finite time and energy you have and…

• …only that one thing.

And you do this by knowing your checkpoints.

The road to achieving a goal has many checkpoints along the way. For example if your goal is to lose 10kg… losing the first kilogram is a checkpoint. As is losing the second.

Now…

Can you lose the tenth kilogram before you lose the first one?

Of course not!

So what is the point in worrying about the last checkpoint until you complete the current one?

It’s why fighters focus on training for their current opponent. The say: “one fight at a time”. In fact every world-class performer focuses only on what’s in front of them. But they build a legacy of victories made of one win at a time.

So even when you have multiple goals you should only be focusing on the tasks required for your current checkpoint—the current stage in your goal.

I’ll show some helpful examples of goals, checkpoints and tasks in the next email.

And remember:

You're just one goal away…

Jun