I try but I keep messing up, I can’t stop sinning and I can’t help it. Why does this happen to me, why do i keep returning to the same sin? These are common thoughts that go through most people’s minds. Islam is not rigid and inflexible because Allah is your Creator and knew you would fall into sin.  Allah began the Quran with Bismillahi Ar-rahman Ar- Raheem, reminding us that he is the Most Compassionate and the Most Merciful.

So, when you ask yourself, why do I keep Messing up and return to the same sin? Remind yourself that you are human and everyone makes mistakes, even repeatedly. The thing to remember is that your Creator is The Most Merciful and will forgive you and show you a better way, if you ask. One of the reasons why most people mess up, and they keep doing things that they don’t want to do, is because they’ve made it a habit to do these things. So even if you don’t want to do it, your bad habit forces you to do it.

In this article I’m going to share with you some simple techniques that you can use on yourself to start changing the way things happen in your life. But this is information only, and what will count is what you do with this information. If you want to stop messing up, stop doing things that make you unhappy then you’ve got to start doing some of the following.

Bear in mind this is not an exhaustive list for how to change your life, but it will get you started on making some positive improvements insha’Allah.

FREE 7 Day Course 21 Ways to Get Close to Allah Become the Best You with this Quranic guide

• Quranic guidance on Optimising Your Life
  
• Become the Best version of yourself this Month
  
• Learn how to deal with Problems with Confidence
  

get Instant Access

Understand Most of Your Behaviours are Habit

It’s important that you understand that most of the things that you do in your daily life are a ritual or a habit. Something that you have been doing over and over again. And you’re not the only one that falls into this. All humans live the majority of their daily life practicing habits that they’ve created over the months and years. An example is the fact that we wake up and brush our teeth every single day.

We are taught this good habit by our parents from a young age, and by continuous reminders about the importance and need to brush, we create a lifetime habit by the time we become teenagers, at which point you don’t need any more reminders. By then, this has become a lifelong habit that you will continue for years to come without even thinking about it.

So, just like that, we also have bad habits. Things that create unhappiness or stress in our lives. So, if you keep falling into the same thing over and over again and it’s making you unhappy or you’re feeling as though you can’t stop yourself from sinning, it’s very likely that this is something that you’ve done many times, and it’s become a bad habit.

The simple solution to this is to think about what you would like to do to replace that bad habit. Think up a replacement habit, one that is positive and you can see benefiting your life.

You can’t just stop doing something without replacing it with something else. The way to get a real change is to replace that bad habit with a good habit. So, without getting into the science behind this, I just want to give you a simple strategy that will help you to bring about some change insha’Allah.

Habit Replacement Challeng

Think about what bad habit you want to cut out of your life and then write down at least 5 possible alternatives. So, 5 things that you could possibly do that could become a replacement for that bad habit, something that would bring satisfaction or happiness or some sort of positive emotion into your life.

Once you’ve got your 5 alternatives, pick any one of them, probably the easiest one of the 5 and begin by doing this action every day for the next 30 days.

That’s right we need to begin almost immediately, today or latest tomorrow and then follow through daily. It’s important to begin quickly because you might find yourself procrastinating and making excuses for why you shouldn’t do it.

The whispers of the Shaytan are forever present, trying to sabotage you from doing any good, that is pleasing to Allah.

It’s also just as important that you do it every day for 30 days straight with any breaks. This will help you to ensure this begins the process of making this a permanent behaviour.

Our Goal with this is to begin the process of installing a Good Habit and you have a higher chance of that by starting with 30 days. It’s short and doesn’t feel so long like 100 days does.

Remind yourself daily that it’s a long game, not a short one

If you look at any of your bad habits, or the things that are making you unhappy, you find that you have been doing this for a long time. And that’s why you keep falling into the same old traps. In short, it takes a long time to create a bad habit and just the same, it will take a longer period of time to create a good habit that replaces the bad one.

So, what you need to do daily is to remind yourself by telling yourself either by writing it, or verbalising it or by putting a notice up in a place that you can see every single day. You need to see this reminder so that will you will be reminded to stay on course.

Keep telling yourself that you are in it for the long run and not the short run. When you do things only for short time, they don’t become a habit, whether it’s good or bad. And if you want to make a good habit in your life, something that enriches your life, then you have to be in it for the long term.

Don’t ask yourself how long do I have to do this for, ask yourself how much do I want to grow.

Be kind to yourself

Don’t compare yourself with people that you look up to. That’s the most destructive action that you could take, comparing yourself to other people that you see as being better than you. Because when you compare yourself to people that you think are better than you, you’re always going to see yourself as being less than them, and that’s soul destroying. It will destroy your confidence, it will stop you from being persistent in doing good things and ultimately it will be a punishment that you are inflicting upon yourself.

Instead of comparing yourself to those people, compare yourself to the person you were yesterday and make today’s goal improving on yesterday by just 1%.

Just improve 1% every day, so that by the end of the week you are 7% better then you were at the beginning of the week.

Now you’re properly wondering how do I measure 1%? And the answer to is that 1% is just arbitrary, it doesn’t matter if you are 1% or 3% or 5% better. The point is that you improve by the smallest amount daily. Because that’s an easy target to meet. You won’t feel overwhelmed and you won’t feel as though it’s too big to achieve.

But the great thing about the 1% improvement is that you will improve massively over the course of 30 days insha’Allah.

Keep your Contact with Allah regular

That’s right, we’re going back to the fundamentals. You have to remember Allah a lot in your daily life. That is the most empowering relationship that you have because Allah is the All Powerful and there is nothing beyond His ability. So, if you are weak and you rely on Allah then there’s always power in your life to be able to do whatever you want to do. How do you keep your contact regular? Do as the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did.

In other words, Dhikr, read the morning and evening Adhkar, read the Quran and contemplate the verses even for a brief moment. Study the Quran and the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). All of this is remembrance and the easiest of them all is to keep your tongue moist with SubhanAllahi wa bihamdihi wa subhanAllahil Atheem.

Why this in particular? Because it was reported from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon that he said:

“There are two statements that are light for the tongue, heavy in the Scales and are dear to The Most Merciful: `SubhanAllahi wa bihamdihi, SubhanAllahil Atheem

(Glory and Praise be to Allah, Glory be to Allah the Greatest)
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

There are many great blessings of reciting this Adhkar, one of them being the one who says this 100 times a day, their sins will be forgiven even if it were as much as the foam of the sea. So even if you keep messing up, if you’re trying sincerely to change it and you’re taking all the steps and your turn in repentance to Allah, there is no doubt that Allah would forgive you and help you to change.

So, if you’re asking the Question: I did a terrible sin, will Allah forgive me? In light of the above hadith, what do you think ?? it’s a no brainer right.

Rely upon Allah

Often when we keep messing up and doing things that stress us out, we end up losing faith in our own abilities to actually follow through with something good. Rely upon the only One who can guarantee you success. Rely upon Allah as Allah clearly gives us the good news in the Quran, Surat 65, 2-3, where He says:

“And whoever fears Allah, He will make a way out for him, and provide for him from sources that he would never expect.”

If you fear Allah, stay away and try your best to stop doing the things that you keep doing, then turn to Allah in sincerity and ask for His aid, because Allah guarantees it for you if you stick to your end of the bargain.

That doesn’t mean you won’t fall short, or that it will be easy. Don’t forget it’s probably a habitual behaviour that you’re battling. So, it will take time, ‘The Long game’, and you will need to create that new positive habit to replace your bad one. Go back to our 30 Day Challenge above and get started, even if you have to start over and over.

Be Persistent

Allah says describing the believers that they are:

“Those who have patience and upon their Lord they rely”.

So, you have to be Patient and Persistent. They are one in the same thing in this context. When you are trying to do something good it’s always going to take you a little while to actually get moving and see results. You can’t just give up if you want to be of the Successful believers.

Allah describes you clearly in this verse as someone who is Patient and relies upon Allah. Look, it’s important that you don’t read these verse of the Quran and imagine that Allah is talking to someone else or about others. Allah is talking to you, and about you.

You have to create patience, and that’s done by forcing yourself to take action. Don’t sit around thinking about how you feel, or whether it’s the right time.

There is NO right time, NO one is coming to rescue you, YOU are responsible for your own life…

But…

Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful will help you, so stick to it and create the life that you want.

Monitor Your Actions

That’s right, you have to monitor what you’re doing day to day. Actually, write it down and keep a tally of what you’re doing daily, so that you can see when you’re consistently doing the things that help you and you can also see when you’re doing things that are not productive or going against your values that you want to install into your life.

If you monitor what you do day-to-day, you will know how much you’re improving or how much you need to improve over the next week or the next month or the next year. Monitoring yourself is giving yourself feedback on a regular basis.

So, when you do really well, you can congratulate yourself by treating yourself and when you don’t do so well. You can give yourself the pep talk that you need, or the reminders that you need to help yourself to get over the stumbling blocks. When you monitor yourself you can see all the stumbling blocks and you can plan your way around them.

As I said this is not an exhaustive list but I hope insha’Allah that you will take some of these tips, even if only one, the 30 day habit challenge and run with it. Create momentum in your life to make your life one that you’ll be happy with. And one that Allah will bless you in insha’Allah.