Life without challenge is a meaningless life, a life of total boredom. We often hear someone saying: “I’m bored to death.” It is an expression that is equally common among children, teenagers and adults. We all need some excitement in our lives. Often, we wrongly get this excitement through momentary pleasures like television series, video games or shopping expeditions… but what follows is usually more boredom.
However, there are ways to truly eliminate boredom from our lives. We can do this by learning new skills, pushing our limits further, acquiring new knowledge, and feeling that we contribute something meaningful to our surroundings. We need to feel useful to ourselves, our families and our society. We need to fulfil our mission on earth. That’s why our internal instincts will not be satisfied with less than continuous achievements. These achievements do not need to be big, but they have to be ongoing and cumulative. They need to be meaningful, at least to us. They need to be part of our lifelong quest to develop our potential and seek the pleasure of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He).
This is why a very important part of defining your goals is to keep yourself constantly challenged. If your objectives are too easy to reach, you will get bored after a while and become dissatisfied. As soon as you reach your goals, you might lose interest in them, feel unmotivated and lose momentum. On the other hand, if your challenges are well suited to your abilities, and if you are gradually meeting your goals, you will be self-fulfilled and satisfied. Constantly meeting your short-term goals gives you the required stamina and driving force to continue your pursuit of bigger and higher goals. It gives you the excitement and delight that is necessary to stimulate your willpower and keep you going.
Source: ‘The True Secret’ by Dr. Amira Ayad (pp.94-95)

 

  If you’re holding tension, frustration or anxiety in your mind/body whether it be consciously or subconsciously — grab your shoes, a jacket and leave the house for a little walk. take in a fresh breath of air, smile at dogs, let your mind wander and let your negative, disturbing thoughts leave your head.
genuinely compliment your friends or colleagues or acquaintances. compliment on their hair, their face, their work, their talent – just compliment them. it’ll make them feel better and you’ll feel good too!
don’t stress! easy to say but hard to act upon. unfortunately stress is one of the things we encounter too often whether it be in school or at work. but it’s counterproductive. to prevent stress taking over your life, first calm yourself down, brew a cup of tea or coffee, whatever your preference, take out a piece of paper and a pen, start writing out what you have to do. next figure out if you can make a shortcut to one of your task and do them a bit sloppier than you would in the first place because it’s not top priority nor does it count for a lot, start eliminating until you have 5 important tasks. then you rate them from hardest to easiest and start working stress free!
do your work with passion, with a goal in mind! the task will get so much easier, it won’t leave you drained off all energy and you’ll actually enjoy it. always look at the bright side of things even when they’re hard to find.
talk to your friends. talk to them about your worries, anxieties, whatever keeps you up at night. real friends are there for you, they’ll be there through it all and they can lend you help, advice and give you a push to get up again.