Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Train For The Reality You Want
In this transformative episode, we explore the powerful practice of "future self-training" - showing up as what you want, not what you currently have.
When you make dua with conviction and then live as if it's already unfolding, you're practicing the highest form of trust in Allah's wisdom and timing. The gap between asking and embodying is precisely where many prayers feel unanswered – not because Allah hasn't accepted them, but because we haven't fully received them in our behavior.
Learn practical ways to embody your future self in every area of life: dressing with dignity regardless of your tax bracket, speaking with the authority of someone who knows her worth, and parenting from wisdom rather than reactivity. Discover how to train your nervous system to hold new beliefs safely, creating a bridge between your current identity and the woman you're becoming. When you genuinely embody the version of yourself who already has what you've prayed for, your brain's reticular activating system begins working for you, highlighting resources and opportunities that were previously invisible. The path to your goals stops feeling overwhelming and starts becoming inevitable.
Ready to reclaim your role as an active participant in your prayers? Start living like the woman Allah has already answered your duas to become. Your future self is waiting for you to step into her shoes today.
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Wisdom Wednesdays is your chance to apply what you learn in this podcast. It is my weekly coaching program that will create real time change based on everything you learn here.
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognizably successful. Now your host, dr Kamal Aftar. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you.
Speaker 1:I am so glad to be back with yet another very, very powerful topic Today. What we're talking about is somewhat of an extension of the podcast how to have what you Want, and that's podcast number 207. We're talking about training for the reality you want to have, showing up as what you want, not what you already have. And all of this sounds very simple, but it's one of the most spiritually demanding and mentally advanced things you can practice, because this means that you don't show up as a woman who's frustrated, underappreciated or exhausted. You show up as a woman who knows her worth. That's non-negotiable. That's how you have to show up if that's what you want, even if no one else has yet reflected that back to you, even if no one else has yet reflected that back to you. Do not show up as someone who is waiting for proof, waiting to feel confident, waiting for the person to change, waiting for results. Show up as if your vision is already a reality, and then you can watch the world catch up, inshallah. This might sound borderline, delusional to some of you, but really it's complete devotion to your goals, devotion to the part of you that's already whole, already chosen, already complete. It does not matter what your bank account reflects, it does not matter what state your marriage is in, how your body is, what your to-do list looks like, what you've caught up with and what you haven't. The only thing that matters is you have to become what you want. And this is the question you need to get used to asking yourself Am I showing up for my current circumstances or am I showing up for my future self? Make this your upcoming week's practice, because when you start acting like the version of you who already has the peace, the power, the intimacy, the peace, the power, the intimacy, the money, the education, the success you sort of collapse time, because here you're showing up as what you want. This whole idea of showing up as the version of yourself you want to be is one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can train for. This is where you dress for the job you want. Shifts you can train for this is where you dress for the job you want, not the job you have, because that shifts your identity. This is where you show up as the parent you want to be, not the one you've defaulted into after a long day. Speak to your kids as the version of them you're raising, not the version that's currently melting down in front of you. And that same applies to your every role in life as a wife, friend, leader, believer.
Speaker 1:Future self-training is hard. At first it feels like you're stepping into a role that doesn't belong to you yet. It's not believable and your brain fights it. And when your brain fights something that it's trying to believe, your body will let you know that there's a mismatch. And this is where coaching makes a massive difference. It helps you rehearse your desired identity until it feels safe, until it clicks. And once it does, once you get familiar with the version of you who already has what you prayed for, achievements stop being about continuous pressure and they start becoming more aligned and easy. You then no longer need constant motivation because you just act like her, because you believe you are her. And this is why so many people stay stuck because they're waiting to feel different before they act different. But that's not how identity change works. You don't become the confident, joyful, deeply fulfilled woman by thinking about it, you become her, by rehearsing her over and over until your mind and body and spirit stop resisting and start believing that reality. Once you embody the woman who already has what she prays for, you become the magnet for it.
Speaker 1:When you ask Allah SWT for something, you're declaring belief in His mercy, in His power, in His ability to create something from nothing. But most of us fall short in this belief. We ask, then we hesitate. We ask, and then we sit down and wonder if we're worthy. We ask, but we continue walking through life as if it's still deprived. The gap between asking and embodying. That's the part where so many du'as feel unanswered, when they're actually not. And it feels that way not because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has not accepted them, but because we have not received them in our behavior, in our thinking, in our lived sense of being. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not need time. Time is a construct of the human mind. He doesn't need steps or systems or progress. He can just say be, and it is so.
Speaker 1:When you make dua with full conviction, becoming the version of you who knows, your Rabb has already responded. You dress like her, you speak like her, you lead your family, your community. You dress like her, you speak like her, you lead your family, your community, your business like her. You are preparing yourself to receive what you asked for, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not place a desire of things in your heart for no reason. This is why showing up as what you want is an act of worship.
Speaker 1:To me, it's husna dhun in motion. Want is an act of worship to me, it's husna dhan in motion, it's tawakkul in your actions, which goes beyond your tongue, which goes beyond your thinking. You're saying, ya Allah, I asked you for this and I know you heard me, so I'll live like it's already unfolding for me. Make it good for me. This pure surrender is to the only one power that is Allah, because that level of deep surrender and belief will show up in your behavior. It has no other choice, and I'm not telling you all of this to hint that if your life is hard, it's because your iman is weak or you're not making dua properly. I'm not saying that your unanswered duas are your fault. If that is how my message is landing for your nervous system, then try to hear it another way, a different way.
Speaker 1:What you're doing instead is reclaiming your role as an active participant in your prayer, not a passive recipient Although you can get the answer to your du'as as a passive recipient. But instead here you're someone who asks with conviction and then moves with conviction. Someone who trusts that when you ask al-mujib, the one who responds something already shifts, even if you can't see it yet. If you have not been able to master this design, there's nothing flawed about you. You're not behind, you're not broken. But if you want to experience what you're praying for more deeply, one way to begin is gently start training yourself to live like it's already unfolding. You're not forcing anything. You're not bypassing pain or pretending your situation is better than what it actually is. You're not forcing anything. You're not bypassing pain or pretending your situation is better than what it actually is. You're choosing to orient more towards your life from a place of trust. That is the adab of dua.
Speaker 1:You ask, you believe, you embody, and that level of spiritual maturity is what I was talking about. Is what takes time. It's not instant. You don't snap your fingers and suddenly embody the next version of yourself. You grow into it through conscious repetition, gentle self-coaching, continued development of nervous system safety and deepening trust in Allah's wisdom.
Speaker 1:If you dress like the person you want to be. Every time you get ready, you're affirming your direction. You're telling your body and mind this is who I'm, your direction. You're telling your body and mind this is who I'm stepping into. You're preparing yourself to walk into the rooms you've been called towards. Act like the friend you want in life. Show up with presence, celebrate without over explaining, hold space without judgment. If that's the kind of friendship you want to flow in your life, that's what you have to embody for it to start flowing naturally. When your energy matches what your heart's been asking for, it comes easier. Be the spouse you want to come home to Speak with tenderness, lead with honesty, hold boundaries with grace and respect. Let your love come from a place that's already full. The more you honor yourself in your giving, the more your relationship becomes a space of safety and sincerity. You don't wait until the spouse changes. You become the change.
Speaker 1:The invisible trap that slows most people's progress that people fall into is the belief that they have to wait for external proof before they're quote-unquote allowed to think in advance, before they're allowed to believe and feel and act like the version of themselves they want to be, and that belief can sound like. Once I have the money, the time, the body, the perfect circumstance, then I will feel confident and powerful. That's the exact belief that keeps you where you are stuck, because if you're asking in Dua for a successful business or traveling the world, your current self isn't built from that and if that's the case, your future self will never be able to contain it, even if Allah is answering your Dua. You don't need evidence of a successful business and a round ticket around the world in order for you to prove to yourself that you can have it. Become the future self that has these things, and they will come to you, inshallah.
Speaker 1:You don't need the money to start identifying as wealthy. You need the thinking patterns of someone who builds wealth. You don't need the designer bag to feel elegant. You need the self-respect that tells you that you're worthy of quality presence, beauty in whatever form you have currently access to. Why luxury comes with brand names and labels. It is more of a state of being, a level of self-respect, a decision that you make that says I will treat myself with dignity, no matter what tax bracket I'm in today. Who knows, you can be that one woman who is enjoying the business class experience while traveling in economy. You can be the woman who travels the world while walking around your neighborhood just because you're in curiosity and joy. You can be the woman who owns her own time and energy while working nine to five. How do you do that? By not over identifying with your current conditions, by collapsing time in your mind, by creating more and more of an identity of the future self.
Speaker 1:The most powerful shift happens when you stop looking for evidence in your bank account or your closet and you start creating evidence from your mindset. When you start to believe in the reality of the future self, your brain, through the reticular activating system, will start to notice every resource, every opportunity, every person and pathway that aligns with your belief. You will become the magnet to the very solutions that you thought didn't exist. So start speaking like the leader that you're becoming. Speak as if the room is already listening. Parent like the wise woman you admire. Create like the artist that inspires you. Put your message into the world as if it is eagerly awaiting your creation. Rest like that woman who sees stillness as sacred. Walk like a woman who already belongs into the room that she walks into. All of this will reshape your certainty in the brain that you're carrying.
Speaker 1:If you're serious about stepping into the future self, you have to move beyond just saying the things right in your head. You can repeat all of the mantras and all of the affirmations and end the mindset shifts, but if your body doesn't believe them, then your nervous system will constantly be telling you we don't trust this. Yet the future self-transformation towards the reality you want begins when your mantra has an honest resonance within your body. You have to just ask yourself does this belief feel safe in my body? Does it land? Does it feel true, not just logically but viscerally? And if it doesn't, that does not mean that you're broken or this method is not for you. It just means that there's a gap between your current identity and your thought and your future identity. The gap needs a gentle bridging, and for that you need to keep trying a version of a belief that's slightly better than the previous one and still continuing to check in with your body if you believe that version yet or not. This is climbing the belief ladder, because there's a huge difference between repeating I'm abundant while bracing for your next overdraft. Notice, maybe your next belief is that I have enough for today and that's enough to carry you into the future self. Pretending with words but ignoring your body's cues keeps you in fantasy land. That's why you can journal all day and make vision boards but still feel like nothing changes.
Speaker 1:When you embody a belief, when you progressively, with incremental, small doses, begin to process actually becoming the future self that is much more sustainable and much more effective. Becoming the future self, that is much more sustainable and much more effective. You're training your nervous system to hold a new baseline of safety, power and possibility. You do it in a stepwise, incremental manner. It only feels like a delusion if you try to create a long jump. This method is not only doable, it's one of the most effective ways to move forward.
Speaker 1:If you dream of earning a doctorate degree, whether it's in medicine, psychology, education, but right now you feel too stretched, too busy, too behind to even start, then to get to your goal. You don't need time in your hands. Right now you need to begin identifying with the version of you who has the degree. You don't need the initials after your name to start carrying yourself like someone who belongs in academic, clinical or intellectual spaces. You need to start identifying as that woman because again, once that happens, the filter system of your mind comes online to look for resources that make that goal possible, then you'll find that you all of a sudden have more time that you thought that you did. You will start identifying where you're wasting time, where you're stressing out without any need, where you haven't tapped into a resource that can help you get to your goal, because the brain will find proof for what it believes. If you believe the future version of yourself that has the doctorate degree, your mind and body will lead you to it.
Speaker 1:When I say that you don't need credentials to start carrying yourself like an expert, I'm not saying that you should claim yourself an expert without actually having the knowledge. I'm asking you to embody the inner world of the woman who has done the work. Embody her discipline, her curiosity, her belief in her own capacity to learn deeply and contribute meaningfully. This is how your brain will start to show you that you have the time that you thought you didn't. You have the money to get to that goal and it will become really creative. In showing you these resources, you don't start posting financial advice as if you already earned your doctorate in economics, but you do start living like a scholar, someone who studies, someone who refines her thinking, someone who has confidence in herself, who protects her time like it's sacred. You become that someone who takes her work seriously so you can get to that doctorate in economics. This way, you're creating conditions that make that future possible.
Speaker 1:When you believe in your confidence, your brain stops fixating on obstacles, it starts scanning for pathways. You begin to notice the opportunities, the mentors, the articles, the windows of time that were otherwise invisible to you before. Your filter system of your brain starts to work in your favor, surfacing all of the information and all of the solutions that align with who you believe you are. And when you start acting like her, thinking like her, organizing your life like her, the path to your goal, any goal stops becoming overwhelming. It starts becoming inevitable.
Speaker 1:Rehearse the woman you're trying to become, train for the reality you want, and you can do that without any of the external circumstances changing. With that. I pray to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ya Allah, let me walk as the woman I asked you to make me, place my heart in certainty that you already heard me. Guide me to move like someone who trusts herself. Let my thoughts reflect what I've prayed for and let my actions align with what I already know is unfolding. Ya Allah, make the outcomes of all of our du'as in our favor. Ameen, ya Rabbul Ameen, please keep me in your du'as. I will talk to you guys next time.