Every Ramadan I feel close to Allah and change completely, but by the second week of Shawwal I’m back to my old self. How do I make it last?

Notice first what is actually happening. Every Ramadan the door opens and your heart runs to Him. A heart that keeps returning, year after year, has not let go of Him. The longing is real, and it is still there. So the question is not how to manufacture that feeling again. It is how to keep something alight once the month has passed.

Here is where most of us go wrong. We build in Ramadan the way a man lights a bonfire, tall and bright and dazzling, and a bonfire burns out by its very nature. Allah does not ask us for bonfires. He asks for a small, steady lamp that never goes out. Look at what the Prophet said He loves most:

“The most beloved of deeds to Allah are those done consistently, even if they are small.”

The Prophet (peace be upon him), Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim (Bukhari 6464 / Muslim 783b) · meaning

He did not say the largest deeds, nor the ones done in a blessed month. He said the ones that last. A cup of water offered every day is dearer to Him than an ocean poured out once and then gone. This is not a lowering of the standard. It is Allah teaching us how a human heart actually holds on to Him.

And it is exactly what He commands: not a heroic surge, but a straight and steady walk.

“So remain steadfast (istaqim), as you have been commanded.”

Qur’an, Hud 11:112 · meaning

Istiqamah is not the fire of the first week. It is the quiet promise of the thousandth day. Even those who study human habit have found something similar: a very small action, tied to something you already do every day, takes root more deeply than a burst of effort with nothing to hold it. Our Sunnah placed this before us long ago, in the words you have just read, honouring the modest daily deed above the seasonal flood. So do not mourn the bonfire. Light the lamp instead, and keep it small enough that no busy Shawwal morning can put it out.

One small step: Choose one tiny act you did in Ramadan, two minutes of Qur’an or a single tasbih after one prayer, and attach it to something you already do daily, like your morning tea. Keep only that one, and let its very smallness be what carries it through the whole year.