Hey friends,

This week’s post is about making 2024 the best year of your life. A simple framework to level up. I hope you benefit from this and as always, thank you for reading 🤍

What's Inside:

• 📈 How to Level Up in 2024
• 🩺 Medical School Update
• ✏️ Insights - Podcasts, Books, Amazon finds & other cool things

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How to Level Up in 2024

Where do you want to see yourself 1 year from now?

If it’s somewhere different, further ahead, keep reading.

To make a change in your life, you need to take three steps.

Step 1: Reflect on your current position.

Take some time out to just sit down and journal. It wouldn't have to be something you do regularly, but this is something that you do monthly or quarterly to check in.

These are the questions you want to ask yourself:

• Where am I right now?
• What are my current habits?
• What's my sleep routine?
• What's my health like?
• What's my attitude towards work like?
• What am I struggling with?
• What am I putting off?
• Is there anything in my life that I shouldn't be doing, that I want to be doing, that I'm not doing?

If that's the case:

• Why am I not doing it?
• What's the barrier in the way?

After reflecting, the next step is to figure out where you'd like to be.

Step 2: Define your dream outcome.

Based on what you've written down, the goal is to figure out what needs to change.

Let's say:

You're not waking up very early, you don't have much motivation and are not doing the required work towards your future goals.

You have identified the pain points, that’s what needs to change.

I like to work backwards. Imagine if you met all of your goals in the next year. What are the daily habits and routines that would lead to that outcome?

Which version of you would get that result?

That’s who you want to be.

Think, act and live like that version of you, the one who succeeds.

Success = Consistent Good Habits + Patience

If you do the basics well, consistently for a long period you absolutely will see progress in the long run.

I believe in simplicity.

You don’t need to read 50 self-help books to learn about growth. Just do the basics right.

• Sleep well 😴
• Eat clean 🍉
• Move (daily) 💪🏽
• Drink more water 💧
• Be honest & kind ☺️
• Be patient ⏳
• Aim to improve a little bit each day 📈

Now it’s all about putting it into action.

Step 3: Execution.

This is usually the most difficult part and where 95% fall off. If you ask anyone what they would need to do to improve their life, everyone kind of knows but struggle to turn the idea of what they want to do into actually doing it.

It’s important to not overwhelm yourself and to be very slow with it. Especially in the beginning.

Here’s what my approach looks like:

I split my days into three parts:

1. Morning
2. Afternoon
3. Evening

In these three sections of my day, I try and think of one task for each. In the morning I try to set myself up better for the day:

• Waking up earlier
• Exercising
• Healthy breakfast

My energy is high in the afternoon, this is when I complete my deep work and commit to doing it for X hours.

This could be:

• Studying a new chapter of Pathoma
• Filming and editing videos
• Writing this newsletter
• Working on a project

With all my work done by the evening, all that is left is The main goal of the evening is to switch off and go to bed. I've always struggled with sleeping on time.

When I was 18-20 years old, I didn't have the best sleeping routine. I wanted to get all my work done and be productive. But I always found myself tired in the middle of the day.

I would try “napping” for 10 minutes, but wake up 2 hours later and the day would be gone. That’s when I realised my sleep needed to change.

I read “Why we sleep” by Matthew Walker and I learned all about sleep, this is when got strict with my sleep routine. I realised if I just slept a little bit earlier and had a better routine, I would wake up earlier and be able to commit more hours to work each day.

If I could do that, my life would drastically change.

And it really did.

That’s why I strictly commit to my sleeping routine. If you’d like to know more, check out this video that takes you through my sleeping routine.

In short:

1. Reflect on your current position
2. Define your dream outcome
3. Execution

These 3 steps are incredibly simple. That’s what makes them so effective. You can use this approach without disrupting your current life and routine.

Habit Tracking

The other crucial part is tracking yourself. There's a concept called “SMART” goals where you set Specific goals. You make sure it's Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time bound. We were taught this in school and I hated it at the time, but it makes so much sense now.

Time-bound meaning it's something that you can do in the time frame that you've assessed. You wouldn't say “I want to become the best footballer in the world in two months.” It’s not realistic and not time-bound. You can't do that in two months.

Applying SMART to your life goals is pretty useful. For me, the main thing with SMART is Measurable. Measuring lets you track progress to see what’s working.

Imagine trying to lose weight without weighing yourself. It doesn’t make sense right?

The same applies to building habits, you can’t expect to build a habit you can’t measure.

When I was trying to sleep early, I used to write down the time I went to sleep and woke up on a piece of paper next to my bed.

I did this for weeks and it gave me clear evidence of my sleeping routine. No need for a fancy watch, just pen and paper.

In the beginning, it's the hardest part. You need this activation energy to get yourself going. But once you get going, you'll get this bit of motivation because you'll realise you’re progressing.

This is where people fail a lot. They think the motivation should come first.

Motivation will come after you start.

So get started.

PS. If you read this far, consider subscribing for more value packed newsletters every week.

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🩺 Medical School Update

Home sweet home. I’ve been spending my days balanced between:

• Studying
• Family time
• Content creation

This is the balance I had in Years 1-3 of Medicine before placements started. It’s bliss, Alhamdulillah. I have some exciting projects on the go that I can’t wait to share with you all in 2024 insha’Allah.

As I get older and closer to graduation, I really appreciate time off university. It’s very rare to have so much free time to yourself. The things you can build in such time are incredible. These hours I’m putting in now are going to pay dividends when I’m a working doctor, husband, father and family man.

If you’re a student, don’t waste your time like the rest. Work hard now so future you can live easy.

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✏️Insights

🎙️ Podcast: Bill Gates: What now? With Trevor Noah​

I’ve been enjoying Trevor Noah’s podcast lately. I listened to this episode with Bill Gates which was interesting. Since he’s financially free, I think it’s interesting hearing his thought process behind what he does. The man just tries to chase purpose and meaning in life with humanitarian work and doesn’t care too much about material possessions. I think that’s a lesson for us all.

📚 Book: The Simple Seerah

Wallahi this is the best book for Muslims. This is the life story of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) written in a simple story format. Authentic and easy to read, so much so that my 11 year old sister is able to read and understand it all. I highly recommend getting both part 1 and part 2. I have a video coming on Instagram tomorrow about it, but here are the links to purchase the book → PS, this is the cheapest price on the internet with my discount code!!

Purchase links:

• ​The Simple Seerah Part 1 (10% off with DAANISH10 at checkout)
• ​The Simple Seerah Part 2 (10% off with DAANISH10 at checkout)
• ​The Simple Seerah Part 1 & 2 (10% off with DAANISH10 at checkout) → This is the best value offer.

🎥 Movie/TV Show: Night At The Museum

​Here’s a link to watch any movie online for free. I watched the Night at the museum movies with my siblings, they’re great family movies and really funny even re-watching as an adult. 10/10 except the 3rd one which isn’t that great.

🛒 Amazon Finds

Click this link to view my Amazon storefront. Here I share my favourite books, tech and household items purchases. As a minimalist, I am very careful how I spend my money and I ensure that every item brings me some sort of value or utility. I often get asked about the decor in my bedroom - you can find most of it over here.