Have you ever had big dreams, huge aspirations, major life goals—but constantly failed to take action?
Had brilliant ideas for a project or change, but they get stuck gathering dust in your notes app?
Set your new year's resolutions and "azam," but you keep procrastinating and never get started?
These questions formed the core theme of my recent talk with participants of the Huffaz Frontiers 2025 National Leadership Camp at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM Gombak). With 48 student participants from five different universities, my session served as the final address after a powerful four-day program, setting the stage for the closing ceremony. The key takeaway was simple: Now that you’ve absorbed all these amazing ideas towards becoming impactful leaders, what’s next?
What will you focus on? Who will you BE after this experience? What changes are you going to make to the trajectory of your life, from here on?
The focus of my talk was to shed light on the underlying factors that drive us to take action, extracting lessons from the "B=MAP" model introduced by Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg on Behavioral Design. This simple model breaks down action into three key components: Motivation, Ability, and Prompt.
The concept seems relatively simple, but the reality is that human beings are complex, especially in this modern world: Our ambitions are often fickle, our motivations constantly fluctuating, distractions endless, external influences heavy, and our emotional experiences ever-present. The goal of this sharing wasn't to berate ourselves, but to emphasize on understanding how these factors interact, how we can gain better self-awareness, and sharing some practical tools.
To provide a robust, consistent framework for taking action, we turned to the teachings of the Qur’an and the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ . We explored how to step up, be steadfast, and remain consistent, extracting the deep wisdom of Tawakkul: the principle of "tying your camel" (exhausting all efforts within your control) before "putting your trust in Allah" (being optimistic and accepting of the wisdom in any outcome, after you have given it your absolute best).
The leadership camp’s overarching theme was "Charting the Future with Divine Light," aiming to harness the guidance of the Qur’an and Sunnah to shape leaders who are future-ready, ethically grounded, and impactful in their communities.
Alhamdulillah, from a personal and professional perspective, I am very happy that programs like these exist. It is a real blessing for students to have educators with such holistic thinking paving the path to nurture the leaders we need for tomorrow. It was certainly an honor to be a part of it, and to be able to reach out to these bright, young future leaders.
