It’s midnight. January 1st.
Everywhere in quiet rooms lit by lamps, on glowing screens in the dark people are doing the same thing. Opening fresh notebooks, new digital planners, clean notes apps. Pens hover, fingers type, and dreams are poured onto pages like promises. I know this ritual well. I’ve done it for years. There’s a certain magic in it the crisp paper, the untouched calendar, the feeling that this year, everything can begin again.
But tonight, I sat with my journal closed. And a question settled in me, quiet but clear:
Are we writing our futures or just performing a ceremony we’ve all agreed to?
Does the act of writing goals at the stroke of midnight truly change something in our minds, or is it simply what we do because everyone is doing it? Because it feels like the right way to hope?
I started noticing something over the years. The people I admired the ones who actually moved toward what they wanted they didn’t wait for January. They didn’t treat their dreams like annual guests, arriving once a year with champagne and good intentions. Their dreams were permanent residents. Living with them. Breathing with them. Every single day.
The Truth About Dreams That Don’t Fit on a Page
A dream that is truly yours doesn’t need a special date to be born. It’s already alive inside you. It whispers when you’re in traffic, it nudges you when you’re scrolling mindlessly, it aches when you’re doing something that feels meaningless. It doesn’t wait politely for a new planner. It asks for you. Now.
And here’s the beautiful, relentless truth: when one dream is finally realized, another has already taken root. There is no “finish line” where you stop and admire your completed list. The heart that dreams keeps dreaming. So why do we spend so much precious energy—writing, formatting, color-coding, reorganizingn on the container instead of the content? On the map instead of the journey?
What We Mistake for Progress
I think we’ve confused planning with progress. We’ve made goal-setting the goal. A beautifully written list can give us a dopamine hit he feeling of accomplishment without the sweat, the struggle, the uncertainty. It’s a simulation of success.
But the real work isn’t in the declaration. It’s in the daily, quiet, unglamorous doing. It’s in the decision to work when you’re tired, to focus when you’re distracted, to trust the process when you see no results.
Stop waiting for a date on a calendar to give you permission.
Stop decorating your intentions like they’re museum pieces, too fragile to touch the real world.
The Simpler, Harder Path
The real opportunity for your dreams doesn’t live in a notebook. It lives in your hands, your hours, your attention.
- Work. Not performative, "look-at-me" hustle. The deep, focused work that often has no witness. The kind that builds something brick by brick, day by day.
- Focus. Protect your attention like it’s the most valuable thing you own. Because it is. One hour of undiluted focus is worth ten of fragmented "busyness."
- Trust in Allah. Put in your absolute best, your most sincere effort, and then release the anxiety of the outcome. Have the certainty (yaqeen) that what is meant for you will not miss you.
Do this, and then wait. Not with the anxious waiting of doubt, but with the peaceful waiting of certainty. Because I am convinced: if you show up with real work and real trust, it will come to pass.
A Challenge for You, This Year:
Don’t write a list today. Instead, ask yourself one question:
What is the one thing I can do today that my future self will thank me for?
Then go do that. And tomorrow, ask again.
Let this year be measured not by the goals you wrote, but by the person you became in the pursuit of them.