Naming What Matters

As-salam alaykum,

The Conversation That Brought Me Closer to Alignment

There's a moment I keep coming back to—a conversation at the end of my first year of residency that shaped how I think about work-life alignment.

My program director and I were doing the customary year-end check-in. We covered the usual ground: how the year went, what was working, what wasn't. We talked about fatherhood in residency—my first son had been born just weeks before.

Then came the schedule for the next two years.

I looked it over. The busy rotations jumped out at first, then the electives—the usual things we all notice. But something else caught my attention.

Every Friday afternoon for my entire third year I was scheduled to be in the clinic from 1 PM to 5 PM.

Which meant missing Jumu'ah Salah every single week for most of my third year of residency.

An entire year without Jumu’ah felt like too high a cost for fulfilling my clinic requirements.

So I found myself at a crossroads: stay silent and accept the misalignment, or speak up and risk being seen as difficult or not prioritizing my educational experience.

That conversation (and what I learned from it) has shaped how I navigate work-life alignment ever since.

Building on Your Resilience Compass

If you read my last  newsletter, you'll remember the "Resilience Compass" framework—the idea that when our workview (why work matters) and lifeview (what gives life meaning) point in the same direction, we have a true north. When they're misaligned, we're exhausted by every decision before we even make it.

My Jumu'ah story is what that misalignment looked like in real time and how I began the journey toward naming what mattered most.

In that  newsletter, I introduced five steps to finding your compass alignment. Today, we're going deeper into Steps 1 and 2: Acknowledging the Struggle and Reframing the Problem—because these are the foundation everything else is built on.

But to truly acknowledge and reframe, we need to go even deeper: to the level of intentions and core values.

Looking back at my own journey, it often boils down to two questions:

• What are my core values?

• How does my work practically align with those values?

This internal exploration is often followed by a strategic conversation with a key decision-maker to help me find a way to align my internal narrative with external realities.

Personal clarity in this regard shapes our sincerity and the internal shift to commit to change.

Then follows the courage to take action—to tie your camel with Tawakkul (reliance upon Allah) so that your core identity naturally flows through your decisions and actions by Allah’s will.

The Script We Follow Without Questioning

Remember that physician father from the “Resilience Compass” newsletter—the one struggling with presence at home? His struggle isn't just personal. It's systemic.

For many of us in healthcare, our view of work operates on autopilot, disconnected from our core values. We've bought into the unspoken script shaped by what experts have called the martyrdom complex in healthcare:

We readily sacrifice self-care for patient care
We deprioritize family and other commitments to vague "system needs"
We turn off our Muslim identity to fit into the broader (more comfortable) professional identity

This self-sacrifice feels noble. It even gets rewarded with promotions, accolades, and the grudging respect of equally exhausted colleagues.

But it comes at a great price: burnout, moral injury, loss of our souls and sanity—think physician suicide, high divorce rates, strangers to our loved ones, and the slow erosion of what matters most.

We follow the script of the next professional path without slowing down to ask: What is optimal for me? What will allow me to serve humanity without losing my dunya and, more importantly, my akhira?

But it doesn't have to be like that.

Prophetic Wisdom on What Drives Everything

Umar ibn al-Khattab reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

"Verily, deeds are only with intentions, and every person will have only what they intended. Whoever emigrated to Allah and His Messenger, his emigration is for Allah and His Messenger. Whoever emigrated to get something in the world or to marry a woman, his emigration is for that to which he emigrated."
— Sahih al-Bukhari & Muslim

This well-known hadith calls us to slow down and sort out our internal priorities.

This is what Allah, the Most High, looks at to derive the true quality of our actions—the driver of how we show up.

The same clinical encounter can be an act of worship or merely routine work. The difference? What's your niyyah?

Naming what matters—clarifying your core values and intentions—is foundational to intentional life design that honors both your workview and your lifeview in an aligned manner.

Now let's walk through how to do this, step by step.

Going Deeper: How to Actually Acknowledge and Reframe

Here's a simple framework that I recommend to colleagues to support your journey of finding alignment. These steps will help you move from vague discomfort to clear action:

Step 1: Revisit Your Intentions & Intentionality

Start by revisiting your intentions for the work you do in healthcare.

Think about the hierarchy of intentions and be honest with yourself about where you stand today:

• Am I in it primarily for  worldly or financial gains, my status in society, or the feeling of doing good,

• Or is there more to it for me: perhaps, I’m concerned about the pursuit of Jannah and Allah's pleasure?

Now slow down to the possibility of doing this work for Allah's sake and His acceptance, because His acceptance is ultimately what matters most.

Step 2: Acknowledge the Gap

The gap in your intentions likely drives the narrative that informs the choices you make around work (your workview) and the choices you make outside of work (your lifeview).

Go deeper to gain clarity on this gap so that you can build forward with intention from a well-informed place.

This is where the real work begins. Let me give you a framework to start right now.

Your 5-Minute Compass Check (Do This Now)

Grab a piece of paper or open a notes app. Answer these questions with the first thing that comes to mind (don’t overthink this!):

YOUR WORKVIEW (Why Healthcare Work Matters):

1. My healthcare work matters because:

2. The impact I most want to have through my work is:

3. When I think about my work as worship, it means:

YOUR LIFEVIEW (What Makes Life Meaningful):

4. Beyond my career, what makes life meaningful to me is:

5. In the sight of Allah, I define success as:

THE ALIGNMENT CHECK:

6. Looking at my answers above, where is my current work ALIGNED with what matters most?

7. Where is my current work MISALIGNED with what matters most?

A few years ago, when my wife and I went through a similar exploration together, one answer changed everything: "Raising children who are aligned with their Muslim identity, supported by the right community, is non-negotiable."

That single sentence of clarity gave us permission to make a major decision we'd been avoiding—moving to a community where that vision could actually thrive.

That's the power of naming it.

Want to Go Deeper?

This 7-question starter is just the beginning. We've created a complete workview/lifeview framework with:

• Deeper guided reflection questions and,

• A structured template to capture your insights

Email me at [email protected] with "Complete Worksheet" in the subject line and I'll send it to you within 24 hours.

Step 3: Find the Bridge Between Your Workview and Your Lifeview

Embrace your Muslim identity grounded in the abd’ (slave) of Allah mindset that shapes your worldview.

Re-appraise your roles in life—spouse, parent, sibling, community member—and your roles at work—clinician, leader, team member—through this lens and find opportunities to realign, even through baby steps.

Can you find a way to incorporate the remembrance of Allah into your workdays?

Say "Bismillah" when starting your day, an encounter, or a procedure. Begin with Allah's name, then build forward from there.

Small acts of dhikr create the bridge between "work" and "worship."

Step 4: Commit to Ihsan

Make a commitment to yourself to do your best in each of your roles, knowing that your primary focus is acceptance from Allah.

The emphasis is on "your best"—not your colleague who, ma sha Allah, seems to have figured out alignment in a way that even those around them can notice.

Allah, the Most High, comes to us as we are, as long as we are willing to come to Him. As the famous hadith qudsi reminds us (portion paraphrased): when we walk to Allah, He runs toward us.

Everyone's path to Allah is unique and incredibly transformative without diminishing from the next person's journey. This is the beauty of Islam.

Step 5: Design One Small Tweak That Honors This Intentionality

Commit to a small action today that honors this re-imagined workview and lifeview grounded in Islam.

Block Dhuhr Salah on your calendar during your workdays.
Or regular Jumu'ah, barring any clinical emergencies.

Back to my story:

I mustered enough courage to point out the Friday clinic conflict and ask my program director if something could be done about it.

He agreed. He blocked Jumu'ah for me and started my clinics at 2 PM on Fridays for all of my third year.

This grounded me to always ask—even when a stark "No" seems written on the decision-maker's forehead. (For context: I was the only African, Muslim, foreign medical graduate in a program in the deep South.)

Our job is to try—to tie your camel. The result is in Allah's hands.

The outcome? Alhamdulillah, by the eighth or ninth month of my third year, I had fulfilled all of my requirements to graduate, including the clinic numbers—despite over 40 hours of clinic blocked for Jumu'ah over the course of the year.

This is the Barakah effect: more with less.

It was mentally grounding and spiritually recharging to be able to attend Jumu'ah without guilt. That was a core part of my lifeview and my Muslim identity translating into resilience.

The Choice Is Yours

Dear friends and colleagues, being stuck isn't by accident. Neither is alignment.

You can make a decision today that completely shifts your alignment and unlocks barakah while upholding your resilience in this healthcare space.

Beyond that, you get to build toward lasting success in the hereafter—success that has no comparison with anything we achieve in our careers or in this world.

So why not start today?

Choose alignment.

What's Next in This Series

Over the coming weeks, we'll continue building on your Resilience Compass:

• Today (Part 2): Steps 1-2 — Naming what matters through intentions and acknowledging the gap

• Next Up (Part 3): Step 3 — Taking action and building momentum (your bias to action)

• Step 4 — Building your support system and accountability structure

• Step 5 — Iterating with flexibility when life shifts your compass

For now, start with one protected block of time this week and begin writing your one-page workview and lifeview.

What's one choice you can make this week to honor what matters most?

(I'd love to hear from you—hit reply and share your first step. Your story might inspire the next newsletter and a few or several destined to read it.)

May Allah, the Most High, grant us all tawfiq (divine capacity) to take action today that brings us closer to alignment and true success in this life and in the hereafter. Amin.

Sincerely,
Sulyman

P.S. This is Part 2 of our Resilience Compass series on life design for Muslim healthcare professionals. Missed Part 1? Read it here. Want the complete workview/lifeview worksheet to go deeper? Email me at [email protected].

P.P.S. Already completed the 5-minute worksheet above? I'd love to hear what surprised you most. Hit reply and share—your insight might shape next week's newsletter.

If this message resonated with you, I invite you to join our SakeenahMD Community, where we're intentionally cultivating the habits of highly successful, spiritually intelligent Muslim healthcare professionals. Together, we're learning to thrive in our careers and lives—grounded in faith. Join us here or book a free coaching conversation to explore how to anchor your healthcare journey in barakah and resilience.