Editor’Space June 2011

40 Days to Transformation

It was meant to be 40 days of transformational habits, positivity and connectivity. And it was… almost.

The 40 Days of Transformation project was my attempt to make a change to certain aspects of my life. I chose ten habits that I felt would, if implemented, make a positive change to my life and those around me. And then, in an effort to make sure that I stuck to the programme, I decided to go public with it, sharing it with other sisters who perhaps would benefit from making a change in their lives.

When we launched the 40 Days of Transformation project on the SISTERS website, on the 1st of April, there was a rush of excitement as sisters from many different walks of life declared that a transformational programme like this was just what they needed, just what they had been waiting for.

The websites and social networks were abuzz with enthusiasm and promise. The buzz lasted for about a week. After that, the enormity of what we had started began to dawn on us.

40 days is a long time. It is a long time to stick to habits that are meant to undo months, sometimes years, of complacency, bad habits and negativity. We stumbled often, some of us fell, some of us gave up when it seemed that the road was too long. But when we stumbled, we got up, dusted ourselves off and kept on going.

And that was the greatest lesson I learned over the 40 days. That the most important thing is to never give up, even when you let yourself down, when you forget, when you don’t perform to your utmost ability. Because that is a fact of life, isn’t it? Not one of us is perfect. Not one of us never makes mistakes. But, ultimately, what matters is how we respond to failure: do we allow it to knock us out for the count, or do we use it as a chance to learn and the grow?

I know that I learned the lessons of these 40 days. I learned about my strengths and my weaknesses, about areas that I still need to work on. And I’m grateful for that. I pray that my other fellow travellers learned similar lessons about themselves and that they were able to make a few of their habits stick for the 40 days and beyond. But, most importantly, I pray that we all learned that change is possible and that, no matter what life throws at us, giving up is never an option, insha Allah.

Wasalaam

Na’ima B. Robert

PS. Log onto www.sisters-magazine.com to read the 40 Days of Transformation posts.