Different people might have different strategies, but I think one way to help us assess ourselves is seeing how much time and effort we’re devoting to each role in our lives and adjusting accordingly. For example, say a person characterizes him/herself as a worshiper, daughter, student, employee, and teacher. S/he has a weekly schedule and when s/he counts all the hours devoted to each role, s/he notices that family time and `ibadah are seriously lacking in comparison to all the other areas. This assessment can be done within the different areas of personal development too. For example, if a person notices s/he is exercising 5hrs a week but only reading Qur’an 10 minutes a day (while being online for 3 or 4 hrs daily ) then s/he can set weekly goals to try to attain the balance again.

The balance can be reached by giving less time on a weekly basis to the other roles/areas of personal devpt. (without compromising ihsan) or by utilizing spare time more productively. Another point is that eventhough we may feel a duty to help out in our communities, being able to respectfully say “no” to certain requests is key when you’re determined to meet certain goals in personal/academic/career development. Otherwise, your attention will be scattered and you’ll be losing valuable time that you could have devoted towards reaching your personal goals. I don’t consider this being self-centered (if it’s not done excessively), but rather staying focused on your broader goals and vision for yourself and for how YOU plan to serve the community.

The issue of being overwhelmed comes about I think when we identify several areas that need improvement and try to change it all immediately. When we find that we can’t handle it all, we might get discouraged and just give up. So, what may help is taking a gradual approach and setting several goals per week of minor changes in different areas of personal development and in the different roles we have in our lives. Then we test the waters; if we can sustain the changes for that week and maybe a few weeks more, then we add more goals for the following weeks. At the same time, we don’t want to underestimate ourselves and make our goals very minor and not end up changing much over time. Perhaps we realize we’re doing too little when days or weeks or even years go by and we haven’t overcome our bad habits, character flaws, time mismanagement, etc. etc. But coming to that realization would mean we’re on top of our muhasabah (self-accountability) and that’s where the change begins!

wAllahu a`lam

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Any tips on this part?

“One thing to be cautious of is not overwhelming ourselves with too many goals and unreachable expectations. By setting manageable and attainable goals along our journey of personal development, we build confidence in ourselves to handle more and challenge ourselves at a higher and more sustainable level.”

How does one know if they are doing too little or too much?

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