A couple of years back I was weighing around 85 kg and felt quite uncomfortable with my body. I felt lethargic all the time, waking up, in particular, was horrendously difficult. If it were not for Fajr, I would have slept throughout the morning. The word Qiyamulllail was familiar to me only during Ramadan.

The time after work and before bed was the most difficult.I was at home, but not necessarily productive and was too tired to do anything!

Fast forwarding to now, I have lost more than 15 kg (around 30 pounds) and I am being super productive, Alhamdulillah. Now I am a better slave of Ar-Rahman, better father and a very loving husband. My spirituality has improved a lot, my anger has subsided and what I have achieved in the last three years is more than what I have achieved in the last decade combined. Alhamdulillah.

It all started when I stumbled upon the ‘5-Why’ strategy of the Toyota Company. Yes, I am talking about the giant car company. You may wonder how a strategy of a car company helped my weight-loss to be a spiritual journey. Bear with me for a second…

This strategy is usually used to find out the real reason of why you do, what you do. In other words, it helps you to find out the real purpose behind your actions.

You could almost say that the ‘why’ of something is more important than the ‘how’, agreed? I mean there are thousands of possibilities to lose weight but none of them will bring you real, long-term results if the ‘why’ behind weight-loss is not clear.

That’s why your purpose behind your goal is more important than the goal itself. If the purpose or intention is the vehicle that helps you reach your goal, then your burning desire is the fuel for that vehicle. And when the purpose is real, you’ll eventually have the burning desire, which ultimately helps you to achieve your goal with the thawfeeq of Allah subuhanawuta’ala!

In the following hadith, Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) clearly states the importance of intention;

“Actions are according to intentions, and everyone will get what was intended. Whoever migrates with an intention for Allah and His messenger, the migration will be for the sake of Allah and His Messenger. And whoever migrates for worldly gain or to marry a woman, then his migration will be for the sake of whatever he migrated for.” Related by Bukhari & Muslim

And he (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said; “Everyone will get what was intended”. The person’s hijra for the sake of marriage may not be rewarded in the Aakhira, but he does reach his goal in this world due to his strong intention.

Insha Allah, in part 2 I’ll discuss what these ‘5-Whys’ are.