“If you make a sincere intention to do good, it’s recorded as if you did it. And if you actually do it? You get 10 times the reward”.

My understanding:

It’s only “recorded as if you did it,” if you MADE AN ATTEMPT to do that good and then were stopped from doing it. You are NOT rewarded for only making an intention and not trying to do the action. The hadeeth says, “Verily ACTIONS are by intentions.” The hadeeth does not say “Verily intentions are by intentions.”

So, if you wanted to shovel your elderly neighbors’ driveway to make it easy for them to walk on it, expecting Allah’s reward, but were then stopped from doing it because your shovel broke, then you would get that one reward.

But if you made that intention and just sat around your house and made no effort to shovel the driveway, you get no reward. And maybe you even earned a sin for making a mockery of Allah’s religion!

جزاكم الله خيرا