Islamic Self Help – Page 62 – Islam + Self Help = Success in Both Worlds

Jun

2015

7 Things to expect from Best Of Creation

Best Of Creation: An Islamic Guide to Self-Confidence is the second Self Help book that I have written and is now available for purchase here. Here are seven things you can expect from the book:

1. Best Of Creation is my longest book yet!

My first book Having Fun The Halal Way is 106 pages, my second book Getting The Barakah is 119 pages. Best of Creation is 198 pages, making it the longest book I have written thus far. (yet still short enough to read and enjoy) My regular readers know that I love to keep things short and to the point. However, there is so much to discuss about this topic and this is the shortest I could make it while covering all necessary details. The result is 198 pages packed with interesting discussions and tips.

2. Understanding the difference between arrogance and confidence

This is actually one of the reasons that I wrote this book. There is a misconception in the Muslim community that a person can’t be both humble and confident. These misconceptions are refuted in details in the second chapter of the book drawing from Qur’an, Hadith and the example of the early Muslims. Examples are given of companions like Abdur Rahman Ibn Awf who was a confident businessman, yet a humble believer. Similar examples can be found throughout the book.

3. Learn to deal with setbacks, mistakes and fear

Each of these topics have their own chapter. Often the things that kill people’s confidence most often are life’s setbacks, personal mistakes and many types of fear. In each chapter, I tackle how to re-frame mistakes and setbacks in positive ways, and how to overcome all negative forms of fear like fear of the unknown, fear of change and fear of failure. Each topic is discussed in details with tips and action points to follow.

4. Understand common causes of low self-confidence

The third chapter of the book is dedicated to explaining the common causes of low Self-Confidence like bullies, cultural pressure, bad parenting and wrong beliefs. Each of these causes are explained in details with advice to those who may be victims to such causes on how to move forward. (My primary advice, of course, is to read the entire book)

5. Understand how Islamic beliefs regarding Tawheed and the Purpose of life relate to self-confidence

Self-confidence in Islam is rooted in our relationship with Allah. This makes understanding Tawheed, the Purpose of life and the creation of mankind necessary for understanding our potential to do amazing things in this world. Three chapters of this book are dedicated to explaining these concepts and provided a framework and foundation for a confident Islamic personality.

6. Understand the key differences between the Islamic and Secular approaches to confidence

One of the main reasons why I wrote this book was because most of the secular books on this topic promote beliefs and ideas which contradict the teachings of Islam. For example, they may teach that we are the masters of our own destiny, while Islam teaches that our destiny is in Allah’s Hands and if we work to please Him. He opens the doors to help us achieve our goals. These differences relate to core beliefs of Islam and therefore need elaboration. This book is an effort to highlight and explain these differences in details.

7. Dozens of beneficial Self-Confidence Tips

As with my book on Time Management, the final chapter of this book is a compilation of over two dozen tips for improving one’s self-confidence. This is besides all the key tips and concepts found in the preceding chapters which form the foundation of confidence in Islam. Making this a comprehensive guide to building confidence the Islamic way.

Best of Creation: An Islamic Guide to Self-Confidence is now available for purchase! Click here for details!

May

2015

Durban Book Launch

Get a chance to meet the author of Getting The Barakah: An Islamic Guide to Time Management, Abu Muawiyah Ismail Kamdar, as well as 4 other authors of new books, and learn about what his new time management book has to offer, at the Durban Book Launch of Getting The Barakah!

Venue: Al-Ansaar Hall, 189 West Road, Overport
Date: Wednesday 27 May 2015
Time: 7:30PM

Free Entrance
Finger Supper Provided

About The Book

Are you ready to overcome procrastination and get things done?

Introducing Abu Muawiyah’s #1 Best-Selling E-Book, Getting The Barakah!

With this e-book, you will:

Learn a 6 step process for effective time management
Learn how to gain Barakah in your time
Discover dozens of effective and tested Time Management Tips
Understand the importence of time management in Islam
Discover practical examples of time management in action
Over 150 pages of time management tips

Don’t procrastinate! Begin your journey towards effective time management Now!

What our readers are saying:

“Getting the Barakah is a personal narrative, which puts our deen at its forefront. Abu Muawiyah’s writing style is laconic and crisp, his tone is objective and emotional and his approach is simple and pragmatic enabling him to connect with his readers.” – Umm Bilal, Sisters’ Magazine

“Br. Kamdar’s book is full of specific ideas on how to control your time and accomplish your goals…I also love how his book reminds us to take care of ourselves and to even reward ourselves for our small victories! He also urges you to “invest in yourself” by learning new skill” – Sheima, Islamic Online University

“There aren’t many books in English aimed at helping Muslims with time management. Getting The Barakah changes that… this book is highly recommended for any Muslim who is looking for a way to improve his/her time management skill and to live a more fulfilling life.” – Shamsiyyah, The Ideal Muslimah

Purchase your copy of Getting The Barakah today and also receive 4 Time Management templates.

Don’t procrastinate! Begin your journey towards effective time management Now!

Buy Now

May

2015

Two Causes of Low Self Confidence

Causes of low self confidence

There are many causes of low self confidence. People are not born with low self-esteem, children by their nature are bright, brave, adventurous, curious and happy.

But somewhere down the line, things change and the same bright child becomes a wary frightened youth. Through a series of bad life experiences, many people lose their confidence and begin to live in small bubbles afraid of the world.

Some of the primary causes of low self-confidence are the following:

Bullies

Very closely linked to bad company are bullies. Bullies actually tend to have very low self-confidence and are themselves usually victims of poor parenting, bad company or other bullies. They get caught up in this cycle of abuse and it becomes the only language they know. Bullies cannot stand people who are unique, confident and happy and they make it a point to beat them into conformity. This continues the cycle of abuse and confidence killing.

The way to deal with and overcome this is to not give in to bullying. Bullying takes many forms but the most common are school bullies or neighbourhood bullies for youngsters. For older people, it can come in the form of family, co-workers, community or society. I have decided to tackle societal pressure as a separate cause because it requires its own lengthy discussion.

We need to oppose bullies and not give in to their pressure. Doing so breaks the cycle, which allows you to not just maintain confidence but increase it due to the courage needed to oppose them. It can also reverse the cycle as you can use this as an opportunity to try and get through to the bully and help him out of that cycle too.

Teachers

One of the reasons that I advocate home-schooling is because I am not a fan of the school system. One of the many reasons for this is due to the number of cases I have seen in which school teachers completely destroyed the self-confidence of children. Whether it is through verbal or physical abuse, the consequences of a bad teacher remain with a student for many years.

There are many cases in which a student was called stupid by a teacher at a young age and spent the rest of his life believing he was stupid, thus never excelling at everything. I recall during my teenage years in the Madrassa, there was a classmate of mine who used to be ridiculed by student and teacher alike. They gave him the nickname ‘Dumb John’ and would make him the butt of all their jokes.

Yet, this boy was very patient, kind and caring and would never lose his temper or harm anyone. He learned to drive at a very young age and started working at a young age too. Just because he was unable to grasp certain technical Islamic subjects, he was given a derogatory label. The label stuck and he eventually dropped out of studies and went back to work in his father’s business, another victim of poor teaching methodology.

If you are a teacher who is reading this, understand the important role you play in a child’s life. A good teacher can inspire a student to chase his dreams and change the world, while a bad teacher can crush the spirits of a student and destroy his future. Always be the inspirational teacher.

If you are a victim of such teaching, then understand that your teacher had no right to pass such judgment on you, and you do not need to let such remarks dictate your life. Take the statements of such teachers as a challenge and prove them wrong by succeeding in life.

This content was extracted from the chapter on causes of low self confidence from our e-book, Best Of Creation: An Islamic Guide to Self-Confidence, pp. 19-21. This book is available exclusively to Islamic Self Help in PDF format. Click the link for purchase details.

May

2015

Discovering Personal Development

This is the story about how I discovered Personal Development. It was around the beginning of 2011 that I found myself in a dilemma. I had a really wonderful new job as a TA at the Islamic Online University but was a bit overwhelmed by the workload and found myself dealing with people from cultures which were foreign to me, and thus making a lot of mistakes in my interaction with them. I was reflecting over the situation and trying to think up solutions.

Keep in mind that back then, I was just teaching four courses for IOU and some local Arabic classes for Deen Class, which is nothing compared to my current workload which includes teaching five courses for IOU (which much larger student numbers), being the Head TA at IOU, blogging, writing books, running this website, formulating strategies to attain my goals, lecturing weekly on Radio Al-Ansaar, writing for Al-Ummah Magazine and IOU Insights, and homeschooling my children, Alhamdulillah.

So what happened that helped me make this transition and fill my day with even more projects than I thought was possible? I discovered the joy and excitement of personal development.

It was in early 2011 that I decided, after ten years of almost only studying Islamic material, that it was time to focus on other fields of study. More specifically, to focus on developing habits and skills to help me become more efficient and a better person. This focus on continuously striving for excellence is actually a forgotten Sunnah called Ihsaan, but that is the subject of another post, inshaa Allah.

The first thing I did was read two self-help books which every young person should read, ‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie and ‘The 7 habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey. In these two books alone, I had learned such life-changing ideas that I became addicted to personal development. So began what is now a life-long journey of personal growth, as every year I find myself discovering things which help me to accomplish more and more on a daily basis.

In the past five years, I have read books and studied courses in Leadership, Inspirational Leadership, Psychology, Management, Social Psychology, Counseling, Educational Theory, Public Speaking and many more fields and every step helps me in my quest to become a better person.

Let me give you just three examples of things I learned that changed my life forever:

1. Scheduling

This is something heavily emphasized as one of the 7 Habits in Stephen Covey’s book and it has become a crucial part of my lifestyle. I have designed a weekly and daily schedule breaking down the day in hourly chunks and scheduling everything from sleep time, to family time, to personal time.

As a result, I am able to utilize every hour of the day in a productive manner, because even getting adequate sleep is productive. It is truly amazing how much time is wasted on movies, video games, surfing the internet, etc if we don’t hold ourselves to a tight schedule. Scheduling is now a permanent part of my lifestyle and something I encourage everybody to do.

2. Delegating

This process was highly emphasized in many books that I read so I decided to give it a try. My website Abumuawiyah.com is a result of delegation. Every aspect from the recording of the MP3s, the editing of the MP3s, the logo design, the website design and the hosting of the website were all done by other than myself. By delegating these tasks to people who are good at them, I was able to focus on other projects while knowing these things are getting done, and professionally too.

Even now, I have many of my important projects delegated to people I trust, thus allowing me to accomplish even more in a day than I thought was possible. Learning to delegate has bought me a lot of time which to me is the most valuable commodity.

3. Speed-listening

I ha’ve already been speed-reading since I was a child, Alhamdulillah. However, in December 2012 at a leadership retreat, life coach Junaid Bayat taught us that if you listen to a lecture at speed 2X (you can do this using VLC Player), you still hear everything clearly, remember everything, and accomplished the task in half the time. I was really excited to learn this so I went straight back to my room to try it out.

The result: I never went back to listening to lectures at normal speed again, and am now able to listen to four hours of lectures in two hours and still benefit from every minute. This is a huge time saver, and has helped me to study twice as much in a day than I previously thought was possible!

The above three are just three examples of the many things I have learned over the past three years. I hope it is enough to get you interested in personal development too. Focusing on constantly improving yourself is a choice you can never regret.

To end, here is a list of some resources to help you get started on personal development. Please feel free to add your own as I am always looking for more resources:

1. Dale Carnegie Training

The books and courses offered by Dale Carnegie institutes are amazing resources for personal growth. I was initially introduced to this institute by my late friend Feroz Ganie. (May Allah reward him for all the good I gained through his suggestion) Although I never attended any of their courses yet, I have benefited greatly from the books published by them, especially ‘How to win friends and influence people’.

2. The books of Stephen Covey, especially ‘The 7 Habit of Highly Effective People’ which is guaranteed lifestyle changer.

3. The books of Mirza Yawar Baig, especially ‘An Entrepreneur’s Diary’, ‘The Business of Family Business’ and ’20.10.2010-55′ (strange name but amazing book).

4. Productive Muslim – This website is an amazing resource for Muslims who want to improve productivity.

5. Mind Tools – another amazing website with many great articles on personal development in multiple fields.

6. Coursera – This website contains hundreds of free courses in every field of study. I usually sign up for a course of interest to me, download all the lectures and listen to them at speed 2X. Thus far, from this website I have studied Inspiration Leadership, Psychology, Public Speaking, Educational Theory and many more interesting courses.

7. Islamic Self Help – Home to my articles and books all dedicated to sharing my tools and techniques for personal development the Islamic way.

I hope this post convinces you to invest in yourself. Remember that money and time spent on improving ourselves is never wasted, and we always end up profiting multiple times over. Feel free to share your personal stories, tools and resources in the comment section so we too can benefit.

Shaykh Ismail Kamdar is the author of Having Fun the Halal Way, Getting The Barakah, and Best of Creation: an Islamic Guide to Self-Confidence.

May

2015

Time Management for Bad Days

Time Management for bad days

You know those happy days when everything is going your way, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping and you are just really energized, excited and able to get things done? Yeah, well this article isn’t about those days. This is as the title says, an article about time management for bad days.

Time Management can be rather easy on a good day once you have learned the basics and established good habits. The real test though is remaining productive on days when things just aren’t going your way, and that’s what this article is about.

Here are five things I recommend doing to remain productive on days when you just want to close the curtains and curl up in bed (or rip up your manuscripts and howl at the moon):

1. Figure out the most important tasks for the day and just get them done

If you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, it is highly unlikely that you are going to conquer the moon today while writing a best-selling novel, restoring peace between two nations and saving some innocent bystanders in the process. (Although it is all still possible even on the gloomiest of days)

Most likely, if you are in a bad mood, you are going to get less done than usual so best make sure that the important stuff gets done first. Look at your daily To-Do List, identify the three most important tasks that will make you feel accomplished by the time the sun sets, and get those three things done. Even if you are unable to accomplish anything else that day, this alone will give you a reason to relax and enjoy your evening coffee with a clear conscious.

2. Schedule some Downtime

If your body is feeling agitated, irritated and simply off, it could be an internal sign that you need to relax and recharge. Do yourself a favor and schedule in some downtime, make time for yourself. Read a fun book, have coffee with your funniest friend at your favorite hangout, sit back with your legs up on the table and close your eyes. Don’t feel guilty to take time to relax, you are not wasting time or being unproductive, you are just recharging your energy so that you can do much more in less time.

3. Downsize your work load

Besides your three main tasks, in order to get things done when down with the Monday blues, try halving your workload. For example, if you usually write 8 pages a day, commit to writing just 4 pages on such a day. If you usually make 10 sales a day, commit to just getting 5 sales done. Many of us just feel like doing nothing and end up wasting the entire day. Committing to doing less actually helps you get things done on such days. Don’t feel guilty about setting a smaller goal for such a day, it’s better than getting nothing done because you were in a bad mood.

4. Avoid Negative people like a plague

If you have an appointment with someone who is difficult to deal with, you may want to consider rescheduling. On days when you are ready to snap, you really don’t want to be walking into a hostile situation and end up losing it. On such days, it’s better to just close your office door and work alone…for the safety of others, of course.

5. Overdose on sources of inspiration

If you are like me, you probably have a PC loaded with inspirational quotes, videos, audios and pictures. Well if you are having a bad day, you will need to probably need the entire collection. Read your quotes collection, watch the inspiration videos, look at the pictures of your goals and pump yourself up to get things done, no matter how bad the day gets. Personally, I choose to recite extra Qur’an on days when I am feeling down and reflect on the meanings, as it calms me down and gives me hope. You should try it too.

Do all of this and I’m sure your irritating days can remain productive. Maybe not as productive as usual, but productive enough.

(Written on one of those days)

Learn more about how to manage your time effectively with our exclusive best selling eBook Getting The Barakah: An Islamic Guide to Time Management. Hundreds of readers have radically improved their Time Management with this eBook. Now it is your turn!

7 Things to expect from Best Of Creation

1. Best Of Creation is my longest book yet!

2. Understanding the difference between arrogance and confidence

3. Learn to deal with setbacks, mistakes and fear

4. Understand common causes of low self-confidence

5. Understand how Islamic beliefs regarding Tawheed and the Purpose of life relate to self-confidence

6. Understand the key differences between the Islamic and Secular approaches to confidence

7. Dozens of beneficial Self-Confidence Tips

Durban Book Launch

Durban Book Launch

Two Causes of Low Self Confidence

Causes of low self confidence

Discovering Personal Development

Discovering Personal Development

Time Management for Bad Days

Time Management for bad days

BESTSELLER: History of Islam

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