It’s hard to keep believing in yourself when you’ve failed to meet your own expectations this year. Many of the goals you’ve set were not achieved, some, you never even got started with.
And maybe you fell below your own standards - you were not able to quit an old habit, an negative addiction, and you’re carrying the guilt all the way to the finish line of 2025.
I know it’s easier to just say, well, let’s just wait til the year ends and start over on January 1st. But, since we still have a few days left in the year, don’t wait in idle. I challenge you and myself to start with an unfair advantage. While everyone’s waiting for 2026 to kick in, you and I, we’re not going to wait, we are going to begin planning and strategising starting today.
Start with What You Know
What you know to be true:
Your weaknesses: These were the factors that caused you to procrastinate, lose hope easily, and get distracted from your main targets.
Your mindset: The roadblock that stood between you and the work required to get you from point A to point B.
Your attitude: Do you back out from good opportunities cos you feel you’re undeserving? Or you feel someone else should be in your place instead?
Your circumstances (and resources): These were the reasons a.k.a. excuses you told yourself to justify why you couldn’t go all the way in with your goals. Why it was too difficult, impossible, not ideal.
Your strengths: It would be wrong to deny the abilities, skills, experiences, and talent that God has blessed you with. Acknowledge each of them. You are uniquely blessed, you are divinely gifted and will be responsible to use them for good.
So now that we know what we know, what do we do with them?
For the negatives: Find a counter, a solution, a better distraction than the ones currently holding you back, a new habit to replace the old ones you’re trying to drop.
For the positives: Identify the best platforms, methods, and places that can allow you to use them in the best way possible. Perhaps a new software, a working at a new company, or leveraging on a platform like Substack if you have a knack of writing about topics you’re passionate about, etc.
Your 2025 Report Card
If you could imagine a report card that listed down how you did in every area of your life this year, how do you think it would look like? Your health, your finances, your spirituality, your relationships…
Would you be pleased? What emotions would you be feeling right now? Gratitude for what worked? Anger for what didn’t?
You know how school report cards tend to have the teacher’s remarks below the results where he or she would summarise your overall performance and behaviour, what would yours sound like?
Rage Your Way to Success in 2026
One thing I’ve learned in LIFE is that rage can work in your favour if you use it right. I know a lot of people who are now very successful, holding top positions in their industries, and their driving force wasn’t the money, their drive weren’t the titles or recognitions - they were simply fuelled by the rage and anger from as far back as their childhood (being compared to their siblings), or their teenage life (being bullied in school), or from their early adult life (being rejected by someone they loved, or turned down harshly by a potential dream employer and made to feel horrible about themselves).
Rage…quiet internal rage can be your best friend in 2026 and beyond. It’s the kind that’s controlled, it doesn’t show through you being mean to others, and it’s not heard through your loud yelling and screaming at home or in the office. Each time you are reminded of the pains of your past, it drives you forward and closer towards your purpose.
Friends, if you want the rest of your life to be the best of your life, I’d recommend you get started by reflecting on the 5 factors listed above, followed by imagining what your report card looks like for this year, and then ending it off with the motivation you need to get you started strongly in the new year - controlled anger (that’s mostly due to a strong dissatisfaction from your past). The hope that I have for you is that this will bring you ultimately towards a point in the future when the rage no longer serves you, because you’ve achieved most of what you had set out to do. And you can now embrace inner-peace in this dunya, and the eternal akhirah. Aameen.
Singing off from Madinah Al-Munawwarah,
MW
PS: Don’t forget to join me this January for a spiritual retreat unlike any other. I look forward to meeting you in person inshaAllah.