Scheduling will Free You

We're recording episode number nine here at Islamic Life Coach School and I'm so excited . Today we're going to talk about scheduling in the priorities that we set from the last podcast . What A schedule Like in a calendar . Oh my god , that sounds so restricting .

I know what you're thinking and where your lower brain is going with this , but believe me , by the end of this podcast , if I haven't made you a believer in scheduling , I've failed at my job and I don't deliver at a subpar level . I take my failures very seriously , but that's not going to happen because I'm not going to fail and you will be a believer .

So let's get ready to believing in scheduling . So , throughout this podcast , you might find references to professional mothers , but whatever tools I teach , as always , apply to everyone . Now , as far as scheduling is concerned , the more you plan towards your goals , the more free you will be .

This is contrary to popular belief , because most frequently , people believe that if you've scheduled an activity in , you'll be locked in and you won't have as much freedom . In reality , what I recommend is that you schedule in a free time first and foremost . After that , you schedule in time for your activities towards your goals .

That way , you'll be able to enjoy your free time without guilt . Yes , that guilt , that ever-present feeling that all of us have . You won't have that anymore .

The lower brain screams bloody murder when you tell it to schedule the activities , when you tell it to follow a calendar , because it loves freedom and spontaneity , and it tells you don't fall for this trap . But if we've learned anything from our previous podcast , it is that lower brain thoughts do not serve us 99.99% of the time .

It is the prefrontal brain or higher brain thoughts that serve us . Now , let's say you scheduled in a workout at 12 pm around your lunch break and at the last minute you feel lazy and you want to skip this activity . Let me tell you that this is coming from the lower brain .

When you schedule in an activity , you're working from a higher brain , but when the last minute comes , it's time to execute it . Your lower brain takes over . In that moment , in that time of execution , you harness your lower brain by telling it that , since it's in the calendar , I'm going to follow through . Let me give you some examples .

Now can you imagine you have a meeting at 8am with your boss and you tell him that you decided to sleep in instead and decided not to meet with him . I mean , you can't expect to have a job after that .

Well , maybe you can expect to have a job after that , but you certainly won't have one In this case , since you're not keeping your commitment with your boss . You're treating him as a second-class citizen , meaning you're not respecting his authority , his experience and you're not honoring his time . Now imagine you're doing the same exact thing to yourself .

When you don't follow through to your commitment at the last minute , you won't do it to your boss . Then why do you do it to yourself ? You are essentially treating yourself as a second-class citizen .

The Google defines second-class citizens as a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction , despite the normal status as a citizen or legal resident there . Hmm , discrimination . You are essentially discriminating against your higher brain . Wow , I bet you never thought about it like that .

Do yourself a favor and don't discriminate against yourself . Granted , you're not going to get fired for not showing up for workout during your lunch break . I mean , most commitments that we break to ourselves do not have any immediate negative consequences , which is why our lower brain gets away with it unsupervised . It runs around uncontrolled like a wild animal .

But ask yourself this how is it that you feel when you don't show up for your own commitments ? You have guilt , you have drama , you have proven to yourself that you are not made for workouts or any other commitment , and you have perpetuated the cycle of low confidence and self-sabotage .

Ask yourself this question genuinely what results are you getting in your life by not following through to your commitments ? So make yourself this question genuinely what results are you getting in your life by not following through to your commitments ? So make yourself this promise Do not treat your higher brain as a second-class citizen .

Your higher brain has as much legal status inside your skull as your lower brain . I mean , my medical colleagues are probably shaking their heads around my medical anatomical explanations , but that's okay , we're gonna roll with it . Now imagine someone that you dearly .

My medical colleagues are probably shaking their heads around my medical and anatomical explanations , but that's okay , we're going to roll with it . Now imagine someone that you dearly respect , your role model , your mother , your father . Now let's imagine that you have an opportunity to have lunch with them .

Let's say you have an opportunity to have lunch with Mother Teresa . Would you ever stand her up for that lunch date ? No , never . You respect them so much . The same applies to you , my friend . Respect yourself and your time and your commitment , and the result will be so much more fruitful . Respect yourself . You are 100% worthy .

Don't treat yourself as a second-class citizen . Honor your commitments and show yourself the love and respect that you deserve . And this all sounds pretty easy when you take the lower brain out of the way . So we set our priorities out of our wants in the last podcast . Now it's time to schedule them in so we can actually achieve those goals .

And we've already established how to keep those commitments by keeping the lower brain out of the way . So which calendar are you going to use ? You're actually going to need a calendar to do this , and the calendar I recommend is something I've been working very hard on . It's available on my website for $75 . No , I'm just kidding .

There is no calendar on my website for $75 . You're going to use any calendar that you have ? No , seriously , don't go to my website looking for a calendar . It's not there . You can't purchase it . So , basically , you can use any calendar you have Any electronic one , big one , small one , the ones you stick on refrigerators , the one you carry in your pockets .

Small one , the ones you stick on refrigerators , the one you carry in your pockets . Any calendar that you are more likely to use is what you're going to use . I personally use a Google calendar , but you can use any one with flowers , bells , whistles . You get the picture .

So the course that I offer gain 20 hours in your week has to do with scheduling in the priorities next . So for this part , you'll have to sit down and fill in the priority goals in the calendar . Number one priority will take up the most time in the calendar , and then number two and then number three . The third priority for now will take the least time .

But for the very beginners , I recommend that you only schedule in time for priority number one and that's it . Just pick one priority to schedule that in and drop the rest . And I know your lower brain is throwing a conniption showing you fear about how is it that you can drop the rest of your priorities but just know that it's doing its job .

It's doing its job by keeping you comfortable , because as soon as you schedule in one priority , you are that much closer to achieving it and you're stepping outside of your comfort zone and your lower brain's job is to keep you comfortable . How cute , I just love our lower brains . And with that you just drop all the confusion and the overwhelm .

You pick one priority and that's it , and you schedule it in and you keep your commitment to yourself . So I've alluded to this before . But why do you have to go through the hassle of scheduling it in ?

And that's because when you're scheduling something in , you're using your higher brain and when time actually comes to execute on that plan , your lower brain takes over . Once you've scheduled that in , you have a commitment to yourself that then you can utilize to take your lower brain out of the way .

You will be less inclined to do last minute spur of the moment things that are not in line with your goals . You will have taken out guilt from the picture and you will have more freedom .

You will actually enjoy your free time more when you're not being weighed down by the thought that you haven't done anything productive towards your goal when you've scheduled in the free time , you're not going to worry about charting on patients .

You're not going to worry about charting on patients returning phone calls or tomorrow's clinic schedule or the next day's meetings or your children's dental appointments , medical appointments . When you have scheduled in the free time , you're going to enjoy yourself . You have scheduled in the rest of the time to worry about the rest of the things .

Doesn't that sound so liberating ? And believe me , guys , it is liberating . When you get rid of all the mental chatter about everything you have to do by scheduling in time for all of it , you have given yourself the mental peace and tranquility and that is a beautiful gift to give yourself .

I always hear people say well , all these time constraints and busy lifestyle and scheduling is just a demand of the modern day culture , as if when humans lived in caves they had no demands , they had problems of their own . We have challenges of our own .

Problem becomes when we propagate these challenges and make them bigger and bigger problems and don't employ our prefrontal cortex for planning and scheduling . Ah , that prefrontal cortex , that is my favorite . Such a powerful tool . We don't utilize it and pretend we're at the mercy of time and busyness is an unavoidable circumstance .

Now , with that , I pray to Allah , subhanahu wa ta'ala , that he gives us insight to use our higher brain , make precise commitments to ourselves and give us the intelligence to honor these commitments .

He gives us capacity to honor our commitments through love and integrity for ourselves , the same way that he has shown us love and mercy and integrity by giving us such a superior gift . And with that , I will leave you to ponder and think Until next time .