10 Practices for Building Character

From the YouTube analytics, I can see that most of the people who are looking at my channel are young men. I'm guessing that probably most of you are not married, and probably most of you are living in the West. So I wanted to put together a list of practices that you can potentially put in place in your life for a couple of months, for a year, or whatever. Some of the practices you can take, some of them you cannot take. But if you take some of these practices and implement them in your life, they can help build your character and center you and ground you as a man.

Usually, men's character is built through hardship, through testing, and turmoil, of difficult circumstances. If you're living in a situation where the conditions are more or less leisurely and you're not that challenged, and you don't have to push yourself that much, then it can be helpful to impose upon yourself some discipline practices, that can help build your character. So I have a list here of 10 things that you can try to do, and these are in no particular order. The first one is to implement in your life the hadith of Rasulullah about living in the world as if you are a traveler. Implement that literally.

Literally put your belongings into a suitcase and keep only what can fit in that suitcase and get rid of the rest. Literally live with the material possessions that you would take on a trip. Abu Dhar did this in real life. That was his practice. He took the hadith very literally and only possessed those things that he would normally take with him on a trip.

His only piece of furniture was his saddle for his horse. It's something that I personally implemented when I was a young man, and I got rid of everything, and I only had maybe two or three outfits of clothing and very, very, very few possessions. Just really literally enough to fit into a suitcase. Okay. The second one is kind of goes along with the first one because if you do the first one, then you'll automatically do the second one.

But if you don't do the first one, you can do this anyway. Sleep on the floor. Don't sleep on a bed. Don't sleep on a mattress. Sleep on the floor.

If you wanna use a cushion for your head, you wanna use a pillow, that's fine. But make your sleeping arrangements as minimal as possible. Just sleep directly on the floor. This will help toughen you up. It will also help to detach you from the dunya and the luxuries of life, and you'll start to see small things as luxuries.

And that helps in terms of your overall gratitude to Allah for all of the comforts that you do enjoy in life. Third one is take cold showers only, exclusively take cold showers. Just because it's difficult, It's not enjoyable. I don't know anyone who's ever enjoyed really taking cold showers unless it's a particularly hot day. Take cold showers whether it's cold or hot outside, you know, regardless of the weather.

Always take cold showers. Anything you do that is denying yourself an indulgence is good for you. It's good for you as a man. Cold showers are particularly unpleasant, but they toughen you up. The fourth thing is to implement the fast of Nabi Dawud.

Fast every second day. Eat one day, fast the second day. This is a absolutely unparalleled practice for toughening you up, detaching you from the dunya, giving you, giving you patience, giving you discipline and self control. It's a fantastic practice to follow. Number five is to sleep early.

Don't stay up late. Sleep early. Wake up for tahajid, and sleep after tahajid, and wake up for fajr, and then stay awake after fajr. It's difficult to break your sleep up, but there are also actually studies that say that this is the healthiest way, that you sleep a full eight hours or seven hours all in one stretch is actually not as good for you as breaking up your sleep, into basically sort of medium length naps in the nighttime and try to make your tahajid long. The sixth one is make sure that you exercise every day if you're not already doing it.

If you're not already on an exercise regime, start one and exercise every day. And if you are on a regular regime, then change your exercise. If you usually do weight training, do cardio. If you usually do cardio, do weight training. Do the thing that you're not used to.

Do the thing that you don't necessarily like because probably the thing that you're used that you're used to doing is the thing that you enjoy doing. So start doing something that you don't enjoy as much and it's more challenging for you, and do it to increase your discipline. It's also obviously healthy. The seventh thing is to take at least one day off, ideally more, but at least one day off every week from the Internet. Don't get on the Internet.

Get off your smartphone. Get off of the Internet at least one day every seven days. The eighth thing is give sadaqah every day even if it's $1, even if it's 1 British pound, even even if it's a few coins. Just make sure that you give sadaqah every day. Be disciplined about that, and don't let the day finish without you having given some amount of on that day.

The ninth thing is maybe a little bit more difficult depending on your schedule, but try to take a walk, an hour long walk if possible, without headphones, without listening to YouTube, without listening to music, without listening to a lecture, without listening to anything. Just the noise around you, just the environment around you, and your thoughts. Just take a walk at least twice a week. And the last thing is maybe gonna be a little bit peculiar, but it's an interesting exercise to try. Take a particular virtue and assign yourself a day during the week when you will try in all of your words and deeds to embody that particular virtue, whether it's patience, whether it's generosity, whether it's compassion, whether it's kindness, whatever the virtue may be, try to embody that virtue in everything that you say and do on that day just as a practice.

And you can change, you know, from week to week, from day to day, however often you wanna do it, to embody a particular virtue on a particular day, and this will also help, inshallah, to build your character. So that's 10 things. Take them, for what they're worth. I hope that's helpful in some way.