Habits Take Longer Than a Day to Change Quote

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Ramadan is coming up right around the corner.  In a little over a month, around July 20th, no more eating (or drinking) from sunrise to sunset! As a reminder to myself, if you have habits you do everyday that shouldn’t be done while fasting, then you gotta start working on breaking em soon.

I see a lot of articles being shared that talk about how we can “prepare for Ramadan”, so that got me thinking…I need to start working on breaking some of my daily habits soon! I can’t wait till Ramadan starts to stop cold turkey.

An example of a daily habit would be my coffee (caffeine) dependency.   Coffee has become part of my morning routine, so that’s going to be a tough habit to break for Ramadan.  Instead of stopping cold turkey, which causes ‘caffeine headaches’, I figured I gotta transition to tea first.  That way I still get the caffeine but at a much lower dose.   In a few weeks, then I can switch to decaf or stop coffee/tea completely.

Another thing I gotta prepare for is waking up early.  Consistently waking up before sunrise is no easy task.  Wanting to eat a full breakfast while you’re still half-asleep is another challenge.  I figured that if I start trying to wake up before dawn a month before Ramadan AND staying awake after that I’ll be totally ready by the time Ramadan starts.  For that to happen, I’m going to have to start sleeping a lot earlier that my usual time.

There are other daily habits I gotta change as well but no need to go into details about all of em right now.  A lot of them are around productivity, fitness, eating habits, etc.

Below is a quote someone recently Tweeted that inspired this post..it’s a reminder that if we have expectations to stop a habit by a certain day, then we have to start at least a few weeks in advance.  We can’t expect things to change overnight!   I actually heard it takes at least 3 weeks (21 days) to break a habit.  I don’t feel like researching via google if it’s true, but it definitely takes longer than a day to break a habit, so better get started soon! :)

"The habits that took years to build, do not take a day to change." - Susan Powter quote

So after this weekend, starting Monday it’s on! My pre-Ramadan 30 day challenge..day 1 begins!  If it lasts, I plan on documenting my progress