This is taken from 'To be a Muslim' by Fathi Yakun:
    1. Recite the Quran, at least a juz daily
    2. Improve your Quranic recitation by listening to good reciters and taking lessons in recitation. Set aside some time to study the life-history of the Prophet, and the history of Muslims. You should read a lot of books. You should read a lot of ahadith and memorize at least forty, possibly from Imam Al-Nawawi's collection. Last by not least, you should study the basics of Islamic faith, Islamic law, and its branches.
    3. Have a medical check up regularly and have a doctor check any ailment. You should take care of your strength and refrain from anything that will harm your body.
    4. About excessive use of coffee, tea, and other caffinated drinks, and abstain from smoking.
    5. Practice cleanliness in every aspect of your life, e.g., house, clothing, food, body, and work place.
    6. Speak the truth and never lie even once.
    7. Fulfil your promises and commitments and do not resort to lame excuses
    8. Be brave and wise. Bravery requires one to talk frankly about what is true and right, to kep secrets, to admit one's faults, to be aware of oneself, and to keep oneself from getting angry.
    9. Be serious but your seriousness should not stop you from enjoying jokes and laughing.
    10. Be modest, careful, and sensitive to good and bad things by expressing your happiness when experiencing good and gratitude when encountering bad. You should ask for a less prominent position, although you deserve or have a higher one.
    11. Be fair in judging according to sound evidence. Your anger should not make you ignore the good in others and your blessings should not make you forget the bad in others and your blessings should not make you forget the bad in others. You should speak the truth even to yourself and to your closest friends, even though it may be painful to do so.
    12. Be active in community service. You should be happy when you have a chance to help others by visiting a sick person, helping the needy, and offering charity.
    13. Exhibit sympathy, generosity, and forgiveness. You should be tolerant, flexible, and gentle. You should be kind to human beings and animals, have good relations with the community, preserve the courtesies of Islam, give up a seat to those who need it more, respect other's privacy, and neither condemn nor insult others.
    14. Improve your reading and writing skills; increase your knowledge of the Islamic movement by reading about it. Read newspapers and magazines. You should have a personal library even if it is a small one. You must increase your knowledge both generally and in your specialty if you have one. You must be able to understand the problems concerning Muslim in sufficient depth to develop your own solutions in accordance with our ideology.
    15. Work to earn money no matter how rich you are. Give priority to ordinary jobs even though their pay is small, and also give your full attention to this kind of job no matter how high your qualifications are.
    16. If you are given a job, work wholeheartedly, and honestly.
    17. Demand and respect the rights of your brother and yourself.
    18. Avoid gambling and unlawful sources of income.
    19. Do not take interest in any dealings and you must avoid the circumstances that may lead to it.
    20. Contribute to the material gains encouraged by Islam by promoting private industry, especially Muslim-owned and employee-owned enterprises.
    21. Support da'wah by contributing some of your wealth to the Islamic movement.
    22. Keep a small amount of your income for emergency use. Never overspend on luxury goods.
    23. Strive as far as you can to keep alive the beneficial practices of true Islamic culture and eliminate secular culture in your daily conduct. Some of these practices are to greet everyone with salaam, speak the Arabic language, read the sirah, wear modest clothing, maintain regular hours of work, and rest, observe the rules of eating and drinking, and follow the etiquette of visiting, in accordance with the sunnah of the Prophet.
    24. Avoid all newspapers, magazines, clubs, gatherings, and schools that oppose the principles of Islam, unless your reading and activities are designed only to promote the good and oppose the bad.
    25. Always remember Allah and the Day of judgement.
    26. When you perform the daily prayers, do so on time, and always fulfil the rules. Pray in congregation and at the masjid as much as possible.
    27. Do not take immoral people as friends and avoid all places that may lead to sin, such as bars.

Well there are just a few points. I suggest you read the book to learn more.

 

Here's the passage by Haijya B. Lemu in her book "A Critical Look at the Theory of Evolution" that I found motivating:

It is a recognized fact that the introduction of Western education in a predominantly Muslim brings with it not only the language and knowledge of the West but also some aspects of the culture and ways of thought of the West. The impact of Western culture can easily be observed in changes of dress, manners and behavior, which reveal the common habit of uncritical imitation of Western standards. To cite an example, one may point to the great number of educated and semi-educated youth who for the past few years have sacrificed the comfort and dignity of traditional clothing in favor of skin-tight shirts and trousers in which they can hardly sit down, and dangerous high-heeled boots and shoes in which they can hardly walk.

The reason why I site this is because it is an excellent example of the human habit of following the crowd-following what is currently accepted- without stopping to consider the reason for so following, and without stopping to consider whether what one is adopting is actually and objectively better for one or worse that what one had before. Now this habit of following the crowd and of failure to reflect on what one is adopting is not limited to matters of dress or manners. It also takes place in the realm of ideas, whether they be those of religion, philosophy or science.

It is better to be your own judge of what is best, and not to follow what is fashionable, or what others whom you may admire for other reasons may be doing. Sometimes a child in an examination copies the answer of another child who he believes to be brighter than he is, only to find that the other child was wrong and he has followed him to failure.

Therefore, dear students, do not feel so much veneration towards Western ideas. Study them as the Muslims of the early centuries of Islam studied the pagan Greek learning - with keen interest but holding firm to the guidance of the Quran and the Islamic worldview, developing their own ideas and superseding Greek science with their own science. Allah himself has challenged us to examine closely what He has created:

"You can see no incongruity in the creation of the Beneficent. Then look again! Can you see any disorder? Then turn the eye again - your look will return to you confused, while it is fatigued" (Quran 67: 3-4)

If Allah Most High challenges us to look closely and critically at His revelation of His creation, how much more should we look closely and critically at the theories of the Western scientist! You are all intellectuals-in-training, and it is a challenge which you are expected to take up. May Allah guide you in it and help you towards the truth

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