If humans were logical creatures all those answers will be the key to stop smoking. Smoking, after all, is same as playing Russian roulette with 1 chance out of 2 to die, and even in case you survive you will never reach the extent of your real body’s performances and live as a shitty version of yourself.
Anyway, all of the information in the world won’t make you quit, and you know why? because you are not a logical creature. The device with which you are reading this text is your logical mind. It seems so real, so superior, and that’s because it’s just the effect of the “subjective” point of view. You are reading this with your conscious mind so from the conscience mind point of view, everything turns around him and he is the master of all the decisions you make, but that cannot be further from the truth.
1- Understand Smoking
If you take yourself as the entire entity: body, mind, spirit and soul. Your conscience mind have a really little to say about your daily decisions. Everything; from what to eat for breakfast, till which kind of shoes to wear, are decisions made after following a long and complicated equation between body, mind, soul and spirit. The outcome of that equation seems coming from your mind, but once again it’s really not.
Smoking tobacco, acts on three of those entities, your body by injecting the hyper addictive nicotine, your mind by taking the time to meditate and think “clearly” when you are smoking and your spirit by a kind of rest and peace after a frustration and deep wanting. By creating a habit based not on one but on three of your components, it is necessary to substitute this habit not only on one plan but on the three plans, body, mind and spirit.
Body:
Trigger, lack of nicotine –> Process, smoking inhaling nicotine –> Reward, nicotine and dopamine.
Mind:
Trigger, stress, pressure, anger etc. –> Process smoking (taking five minutes to reflect) “meditate” –> Reward, clearer thoughts
Spirit:
Trigger, a desire (physical)–> Process smoking, touching with your hands and mouth (extinguishing the desire) –> Reward, satisfaction “happiness”
So by replacing the habit of only one of the following components you only hide one of the triggers leaving two others waiting to be initiated and falling back to the filthy habit of smoking.
2 – Change your Habits
It is then necessary not to replace one habit but three habits in order to successfully quit smoking. The things with habits that it is composed by three elements: trigger, process and reward. The smoking happens in the “process” element of the habit and therefore it is almost unconscious. You need then to replace the process as it is the only part harming your body, mind, spirit and pocket. By constantly repeating a different process instead of inhaling small batons smoke, your habit will come to change. It takes time, of course, repetitions and willpower, but it works.
As soon as you get any of the earlier mentioned triggers, and in order to shock your habit, try to do something new, unusual and different, very quickly and before smoking. Of course it won’t work from the beginning and you will not get the desired reward. But with repetition and perseverance, especially, during the early stage of quitting: the first three days to be precise. The trigger will start leading to a different unconscious process and a new reward will build up slowly but certainly. The old habit will start to fade out as the new one is taking its place and after a while you can even get rid of the trigger which is the key element and hardest part to change in any habit.
Body:
Trigger, lack of nicotine –> Process, drinking water–> Reward, hydration. (The nicotine effect will be the first and easiest trigger to eliminate because of its physical nature)
Mind:
Trigger, stress, pressure anger, etc. –> Process drinking water while closing your eyes (you have to take time to reflect) “meditate” –> Reward, clearer thoughts, relaxation.
Spirit:
Trigger, a desire (physical)–> Process drinking water, touching with your hands and mouth (extinguishing the desire) –> Reward, satisfaction “happiness”
This replacement of course is one of many options you can try, it worked well for me, I am always carrying my bottle of water with me at the office at home and wherever I go. It’s easy to carry, it’s healthy, it’s not socially awkward and it will help you avoid gaining weight after quitting. You can find water almost everywhere and as soon as I feel craving for a cigarette, I buy a small bottle of water and feel the refreshment instead of putting some filthy dangerous dehydrating poison inside of my body.
More replacements will make the result even greater, so try to start going to the gym, for example, take a thirty minutes’ walk every day or read about a new subject you’re unfamiliar with.
Replacement of the habit is one way to go, but it’s not the only technique. You may always try other approaches, in parallel, which will reinforce your habit replacement and lead you to the desired result. Remember, as many strategies you will use to quit as more you will be successful.
In order to use this second technique you have to confront yourself with some ugly truths:
You probably think you are different, special and a little bit superior, after all you are you. Even knowing that every single human on this planet is exactly the same primate, something still telling you, inside of you, that you are different from all the others, and it’s true.... to an extent.
So congratulation “you” are different, but not as much as you think. You may be 1% different from all the other human beings, and that’s only due to your body’s DNA, memories and experiences.
This feeling of differentiation, this feeling of superiority is a strong catalyst to achieve anything in your life; it’s not a healthy catalyst though, because it’s build up on an entire lie. As you might know, by now, or maybe not. You are not different, you are just one simple and normal human being who eat, poops and who’s going to die someday and that’s it. But even knowing this, and due to some mind biases, you still think you are the main character of your life, your entourage and the entire world.
And you know what?!! If it’s going to help you achieve something good, then you are.
You can use this feeling, this bias and remind yourself of how greater, stronger and smarter you are than those stupid monkeys who smoke all the time. Poor prisoners of their lower habits! It is however a lie and a really negative action to allow yourself thinking this way, but if it can save your life and avoid you living an existence of sickness and mediocre body performance, you can allow yourself to follow this wrong thinking concept, concerning bad habits and only bad habits.
Whenever you see someone smoking instead of thinking; I want to smoke too, you just have to say inside of you: Poor thing he cannot control himself, I am so glad that I have a stronger will power than this person. By repeating this to yourself you create a challenge, an expectation to yourself a higher self-image that you will certainly hold up to.
3 - Convince yourself that cigarette is for losers
Because you know what?? : It is!!!
Most of successful people don’t smoke, and nowadays cigarette is spread more often in poor and more struggling environments than it is spread in richer and more successful neighborhoods.
Manufacturers of cigarettes as any successful business owners, try only to sell their products. Poor things!! They are just doing business. They have, absolutely, no intentions of harming you, making you lose your leg or die with a horrible pain unable to do the easiest body function, breathing, without an atrocious aching each time you fill what is left from your lungs with a little bit of air.
In order to do so, those business men, need to build a strategy to make you buy their products, they need to convince you, they need to build the perfect image for their product. See if you want to convince someone to do something you have at least to study the science of convincing. As a matter of fact it is easier to convince someone to do something, smoking for example, than not to do something, not smoking, in this case. Human by nature love to do exactly what you try to forbid them from, so by trying to tell people, don’t smoke, you will encourage them further to smoke.
After understanding this fact, you have to start using the same technique on yourself, don’t restrict yourself, don’t say I am not allowing myself to smoke, but encourage yourself to do something that will make you forget about tobacco even for a while. I will drink more water whenever I fill the urge to smoke. It’s by following a technique as simple as this that you can see a huge differences between frustration, desire and rush in one hand, tranquility, peace and zen attitude on the other hand.
Anyway, all of the information in the world won’t make you quit, and you know why? because you are not a logical creature. The device with which you are reading this text is your logical mind. It seems so real, so superior, and that’s because it’s just the effect of the “subjective” point of view. You are reading this with your conscious mind so from the conscience mind point of view, everything turns around him and he is the master of all the decisions you make, but that cannot be further from the truth.
1- Understand Smoking
If you take yourself as the entire entity: body, mind, spirit and soul. Your conscience mind have a really little to say about your daily decisions. Everything; from what to eat for breakfast, till which kind of shoes to wear, are decisions made after following a long and complicated equation between body, mind, soul and spirit. The outcome of that equation seems coming from your mind, but once again it’s really not.
Smoking tobacco, acts on three of those entities, your body by injecting the hyper addictive nicotine, your mind by taking the time to meditate and think “clearly” when you are smoking and your spirit by a kind of rest and peace after a frustration and deep wanting. By creating a habit based not on one but on three of your components, it is necessary to substitute this habit not only on one plan but on the three plans, body, mind and spirit.
Body:
Trigger, lack of nicotine –> Process, smoking inhaling nicotine –> Reward, nicotine and dopamine.
Mind:
Trigger, stress, pressure, anger etc. –> Process smoking (taking five minutes to reflect) “meditate” –> Reward, clearer thoughts
Spirit:
Trigger, a desire (physical)–> Process smoking, touching with your hands and mouth (extinguishing the desire) –> Reward, satisfaction “happiness”
So by replacing the habit of only one of the following components you only hide one of the triggers leaving two others waiting to be initiated and falling back to the filthy habit of smoking.
2 – Change your Habits
It is then necessary not to replace one habit but three habits in order to successfully quit smoking. The things with habits that it is composed by three elements: trigger, process and reward. The smoking happens in the “process” element of the habit and therefore it is almost unconscious. You need then to replace the process as it is the only part harming your body, mind, spirit and pocket. By constantly repeating a different process instead of inhaling small batons smoke, your habit will come to change. It takes time, of course, repetitions and willpower, but it works.
As soon as you get any of the earlier mentioned triggers, and in order to shock your habit, try to do something new, unusual and different, very quickly and before smoking. Of course it won’t work from the beginning and you will not get the desired reward. But with repetition and perseverance, especially, during the early stage of quitting: the first three days to be precise. The trigger will start leading to a different unconscious process and a new reward will build up slowly but certainly. The old habit will start to fade out as the new one is taking its place and after a while you can even get rid of the trigger which is the key element and hardest part to change in any habit.
Body:
Trigger, lack of nicotine –> Process, drinking water–> Reward, hydration. (The nicotine effect will be the first and easiest trigger to eliminate because of its physical nature)
Mind:
Trigger, stress, pressure anger, etc. –> Process drinking water while closing your eyes (you have to take time to reflect) “meditate” –> Reward, clearer thoughts, relaxation.
Spirit:
Trigger, a desire (physical)–> Process drinking water, touching with your hands and mouth (extinguishing the desire) –> Reward, satisfaction “happiness”
This replacement of course is one of many options you can try, it worked well for me, I am always carrying my bottle of water with me at the office at home and wherever I go. It’s easy to carry, it’s healthy, it’s not socially awkward and it will help you avoid gaining weight after quitting. You can find water almost everywhere and as soon as I feel craving for a cigarette, I buy a small bottle of water and feel the refreshment instead of putting some filthy dangerous dehydrating poison inside of my body.
More replacements will make the result even greater, so try to start going to the gym, for example, take a thirty minutes’ walk every day or read about a new subject you’re unfamiliar with.
Replacement of the habit is one way to go, but it’s not the only technique. You may always try other approaches, in parallel, which will reinforce your habit replacement and lead you to the desired result. Remember, as many strategies you will use to quit as more you will be successful.
In order to use this second technique you have to confront yourself with some ugly truths:
You probably think you are different, special and a little bit superior, after all you are you. Even knowing that every single human on this planet is exactly the same primate, something still telling you, inside of you, that you are different from all the others, and it’s true.... to an extent.
So congratulation “you” are different, but not as much as you think. You may be 1% different from all the other human beings, and that’s only due to your body’s DNA, memories and experiences.
This feeling of differentiation, this feeling of superiority is a strong catalyst to achieve anything in your life; it’s not a healthy catalyst though, because it’s build up on an entire lie. As you might know, by now, or maybe not. You are not different, you are just one simple and normal human being who eat, poops and who’s going to die someday and that’s it. But even knowing this, and due to some mind biases, you still think you are the main character of your life, your entourage and the entire world.
And you know what?!! If it’s going to help you achieve something good, then you are.
You can use this feeling, this bias and remind yourself of how greater, stronger and smarter you are than those stupid monkeys who smoke all the time. Poor prisoners of their lower habits! It is however a lie and a really negative action to allow yourself thinking this way, but if it can save your life and avoid you living an existence of sickness and mediocre body performance, you can allow yourself to follow this wrong thinking concept, concerning bad habits and only bad habits.
Whenever you see someone smoking instead of thinking; I want to smoke too, you just have to say inside of you: Poor thing he cannot control himself, I am so glad that I have a stronger will power than this person. By repeating this to yourself you create a challenge, an expectation to yourself a higher self-image that you will certainly hold up to.
3 - Convince yourself that cigarette is for losers
Because you know what?? : It is!!!
Most of successful people don’t smoke, and nowadays cigarette is spread more often in poor and more struggling environments than it is spread in richer and more successful neighborhoods.
Manufacturers of cigarettes as any successful business owners, try only to sell their products. Poor things!! They are just doing business. They have, absolutely, no intentions of harming you, making you lose your leg or die with a horrible pain unable to do the easiest body function, breathing, without an atrocious aching each time you fill what is left from your lungs with a little bit of air.
In order to do so, those business men, need to build a strategy to make you buy their products, they need to convince you, they need to build the perfect image for their product. See if you want to convince someone to do something you have at least to study the science of convincing. As a matter of fact it is easier to convince someone to do something, smoking for example, than not to do something, not smoking, in this case. Human by nature love to do exactly what you try to forbid them from, so by trying to tell people, don’t smoke, you will encourage them further to smoke.
After understanding this fact, you have to start using the same technique on yourself, don’t restrict yourself, don’t say I am not allowing myself to smoke, but encourage yourself to do something that will make you forget about tobacco even for a while. I will drink more water whenever I fill the urge to smoke. It’s by following a technique as simple as this that you can see a huge differences between frustration, desire and rush in one hand, tranquility, peace and zen attitude on the other hand.