You – 1, Snake Oil – 0

They say that there’s a sucker born everyday. And I hate to say it – but I think there’s more than one sucker, and I’m sure that more than one of them is of the female variety.

I think this because it might explain why we buy into the messages we’re bombarded with everyday. Maybe you’ve heard about the diet pill that will make you lose 30 pounds in one month or the kitchen appliance that will magically feed a family of 10 in under 10 minutes or the program designed to de-clutter your space, make you find love, cure your in-curable disease, or make you a millionaire – no effort required on your part. Well, unless opening your wallet is considered effort.

And when we’re convinced of the promise, open our wallets we do. But somehow the promise falls short. Or we fall short. And it’s hardly ever a pleasant experience when you feel like you’ve been cheated by “snake oil”.

If you’ve never heard the term, google it. I did just that when a relative told me about this “miracle” cream that was sweeping the town in which she resides. She said it was being touted as the thing to end any and all skin imperfections. She had hoped that the cream would get rid of the severe acne that had plagued her entire adult life. Here’s the thing, the makers of the cream literally called the cream “Snake Oil”. That’s the brand name. Right. There. On. The. Label. Maybe they were playing with the term as an ironic little twist. Or maybe they figured they’d be selling to suckers. And sadly, there are more than one of those born everyday.

It bothered me that my sister-in-law fell for the claim, that she was prevented from dealing with her issue by an empty promise. Unfortunately, I have other sisters around the world in similar situations. They might not be vulnerable to snake oil in the form of a cream, but they may be so to snake oil in the form of a human (think those who would use you to their own benefit). In any case, it’s necessary for us to be weary and to empower ourselves, knowing our place in the following hadith of the Prophet Muhammad SAW: a believer is not stung twice from the same hole.

Here are three concepts to help make us smarter Muslimahs:

1. Your Instincts are a gift from your Creator.

Remember a time when you came away from a situation or a sales pitch and felt queasy about it. You might not have known why or understood how that was so – but subhanAllah, that is your gut assessing what’s good or bad for you. The more you get in the habit of praying salat al istikharah, the better you’ll be at deciding how you feel and what you should do so that you aren’t vulnerable to any snake oil promises, and the more you’ll be able to trust yourself to make the decisions that are good for you in this life and the next.

2. Work is where it’s at.

Sometimes, the promises are just too good to be true. You want to lost 30 pounds in 30 days, you’d love to find the perfect husband before you’re 30, and that whole bit about becoming a millionaire via a top secret method that no one wants to tell you about, well, that might be the answer to all your dreams.

Indeed, if the promise is your dream come true – then great! You should be happy that you honed in on that realization. Now, put in the effort to secure it – do your homework and act on the ways that will make it happen. What alternate methods (besides letting a lazy sucker control you) will get you working and putting up the effort?

3. Self-respect and desperation are not mutually exclusive.

What do I mean by this? Well, I have this idea that you if you respect yourself, you’ll respect your intelligence. This is true even when you aren’t “always right” so long as you aren’t motivated by desperation. Feeling desperate for something (especially those things that might move you to do things you wouldn’t do if you weren’t so desperate) can make you very unhappy and unhappiness leads to ingratitude and ingratitude leads to misery and self-loathing and hell-fire (not good, right?). You see what I mean by self-respect and desperation being contradictory? You have to be willing to let go of your wants and desires, you cannot let them control you. And the cool thing is that when you’re able to do this, that’s probably when they’ll come your way. That’s when your dreams will come true, inshaAllah.

I hope that you’ve benefitted from the advice above and feel like you can beat the snake oil sales ploy. Let me know if you have more advice in the comments below. I’ll check them right after I answer an email from a Nigerian Prince in exile, something about his fortune being tied up, but he’s willing to share if I can help out a “brother in a bind” …looks promising

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Heba Alshareef is the author of Release Your Inner Queen of Sheba! The Muslim woman’s Guide to leading her Best Life. Visit her online at http://www.iamsheba.com .