I would firstly like to congratulate you on your first step. I know that you are sincere in what you have said coz you have thought about this, digested it, formulated a sentence in your mind and articulated it on this forum. May Allah be with you.
In order to stop sinning and better yourself in your deen and Iman, you need to understand what Islam means to YOU. Islam is amazing in the sense that it can belong to all of us and also belong to just you. Everyone has their personal relationship with Allah and their religion. You need to work out what these are. See where Allah is in your life and how far Islam has penetrated through yours. This way, you will get your bearings. You will see where you stand and how far you have to go. It will also make you want to work harder. You will never have a clear point to reach...but our universal 'point' is God's happiness. Your soul will find ease everytime you do something to make it happy for the sake of Allah. This will please Allah.
Anywho, once you find out your relationship with Allah and your religion, you will know which things are hardest for you. It could be praying, reading quran, wearing appropriate clothing, making dua, not getting angry, being patient...I don't know...but everyone has their weaknesses. Find yours and start working on them. How? Firstly, make dua to Allah to aid you on your quest to fix yourself, fill your gaps and perfect and maintain your strengths. Secondly, don't let them go. They are like wild dog's without a leash or a kid with ADD without his sugar (I am too funny *rollseyes*). Every leeway they find, they will take..and trust me they will find those leeways. You must learn to tame your weaknesses. They are yours. You cannot blame anyone else for them coz the longer you do, the more they will grow and you will continue to sin. You cannot fix yourself unless you tame yourself. Taming comes with training. You must train yourself in order to tame yourself and then fix yourself.
See, Islam is such a humble thing. It is one-size fits all. It can mould itself around all lives...but we as humans are not humble. We do not change a thing in ourselves to suit anything. But see, Islam is flawless...so if Islam doesn't fit us...whose fault is it? Ours. We have to train ourselves...blunten our bad habits and kill our sinning flaws. We only sin coz we are weak. We must get stronger.
As I said, you have YOUR Islam. You must find YOUR comfort zone in that Islam. Now I'm not telling you to bed the rules to make youself comfortable. You need to bend yourself. What I mean is, you need to work out what you are comfortable with. Islam is a lifestyle and you have to learn to 'practicalise' Islam into your life. If every life is different, the practicalisation of Islam in every life will also be different. Find your comfort zone. Your practical version of Islam. Just the same, every training period (which may take your whole life) is meant to be custom made for you. You need to work out how to train yourself.
What we can do is give advice from what we find has help us train ourselves or what we think will work best. You can pick and choose and try on and try off until you work out how your weaknesses react to what you are doing to them.
I never know if I make sense when I speak vaguely. But I hope that helped in some way or other.
Again, may Allah be with you.
Sevgi.
