The Productive Muslim Podcast – Season 2 Ep 7

			You're listening to the productive Muslim podcast, season two, Episode Seven
		

			Assalamu alaikum. Everyone, welcome back to the productive Muslim podcast. I'm your host me from
arrows. And we are on day seven of the pre Ramadan boot camp. So by now I hope you've picked your
three challenges that we spoke about yesterday. So challenge to improve productivity socially,
physically and spiritually. Alright, so now let's move on to today's episode. I'm going to speak to
you about habits, behavioral changes, why do people change? What makes people change? Now, there's a
theory by the Stanford professor, his name is BJ Fogg, you can google up his name, he has a lot of
work on this particular area. And he went on to describe three reasons why people change their
		

			habit. And the first reason is that a person has an epiphany, meaning something hits them that
completely changed their perception and forces them to change their behavior. So this can be a, say,
a death of a close person in their family, that kind of makes them realize where they're going in
life, and that they need to change certain things. It can also be something like a person has got
results from a doctor and it said that they're diabetic. And now they have to change their diet. So
that the second reason why people change is because a change of environment, your environment around
you changes, so then it forces you to change your behavior as well. For example, you may have moved
		

			to a new town or city, or you may have changed jobs. So as a result, you have a different set of
friends who have different habits and norms that affect your behavior. So that's the second reason
why people change their habit. Now the third reason why people change their habit is because they
make small changes towards their desired behavior. For example, you cut out dessert from your dinner
and then after a while, you stop eating dessert at all during the day and eventually you avoid
sugary foods. So this is an example of a small step and then it keeps going on to your desired
behavior comes so these are three reasons why people change their habit.
		

			Salaam Alaikum This is Matthias founder productive Muslim calm. Hey, if you're enjoying this
episode, as a practical tips within it, that I think you'll enjoy correct Ramadan online course.
This is a one stop course for all the practical tips you need to overcome your Amazon challenges.
For example, how do you manage your sleep animal bond when he is so late is totus so early? How do
you manage your time a bond between work family and your spirituality? How to build good habits in
Melbourne and destroy bad habits? Do Ramadan that last after Ramadan, how to manage your work and
your work colleagues and so on and so forth? Check out this practice online course on productive
		

			Muslim academy.com that is productive Muslim academy.com Thanks.
		

			Now, here's the interesting part. When we look at the reasons why people change, and then we see the
power of Ramadan, we noticed that Ramadan actually activates all of the above three reasons to
change our behavior. For example, the first one that epiphany, Ramadan and epiphany. So what happens
during Ramadan he said, There is so much emphasis in spirituality so many people go through
epiphanies, moments when they realize who Allah is and how far they are from him. And then these
epiphany is caused drastic changes in people's behavior. I mean, you may have heard of stories in
which people have been making Toba they make repentance during Ramadan and then completely change
		

			their behaviors for the better. Now the other thing with the change of environment and Ramadan, we
have a change of environment. We change our meals, our mealtime changes, we spend more time at the
masjid now before Ramadan what might have happened is that we hung around with our friends are cafes
and restaurants and now with Ramadan we end up meeting them in the masjid and we pray that Are we
together before Ramadan what would have happened is that we had lunch on our own but now after
Ramadan we all sit down as a family and have our meal together. So what happens is that Ramadan
takes away the routine that we're used to and false is a new routine. Thus it changes our
		

			environment. So that's another opportunity for change. Finally when it comes to baby steps and
Ramadan now this is an area that unfortunately is not made use of in Ramadan because what happens is
that many people just jump into Ramadan with full force they recite so much Quran and this is in
comparison to not reading Quran at all and in their prey so much and then by the middle and at the
end of Ramadan. They just end up getting burnt out and they find it hard to keep up so so in
Ramadan, the ability to take baby steps and work towards a desired change is so much easier. Which
brings me to ask you the key message for today is thinking about how do we build the baby steps in
		

			our lives in our spiritual areas. Physical
		

			areas and social areas so that we can have a productive Ramadan. Now I want you to think about that,
how can you use Ramadan to take these small steps? Now the great thing about this is that you are
not waiting for Ramadan at the moment, you are actually using the time now in order to change your
behavior by taking part in the weekly challenges. Which brings me to ask you the question, did you
do your three challenges? Now I want you to let us know if you have done these challenges by heading
over to our Show Notes for this episode. So that's productive Muslim podcast.com slash s to E seven.
So let me know if you've done your spiritual challenge, your physical challenge and your social
		

			challenge. And I look forward to reading your comments and engaging with you there. Until then
remember, be sincere and work hard.