As a professional psychologist, maybe I can help you learn how to
quit smoking naturally.
I love that word naturally, right? Because you don't want to do it in some
unnatural way. Of course. We have to do it naturally.
It's the way that our mind works. And every problem that we have is a
problem with thinking. One of my colleagues said that
to me recently. And I had to give it some thought
because if that's true, then smoking
is among those problems that has to be handled by
changing our thinking. And that's really true.
Now, there are some physiological and some physical components to it. I'm not
denying that. All of those components are handled by
the main control center of our whole body --our brain. So,
let's start with this. Get clear about your why.
Why do you want to stop smoking? If you don't have a strong enough
why, you won't be able to do the difficult how's. And here's what happens:
We leave the back door open, have you noticed?
You promise yourself you're going to stop, you're going to quit.
And you've got the greatest intentions and then you leave the back door open so
that you can slip through there when it gets stressful, when it
gets hard. Most of the reasons that people smoke in
the first place, "It calms me down." I hear that one all the
time. "It's to manage stress. It's because of
the stressful life and the stressful situations that we're in."
Understanding that helps us to address our why. Now, why do you want to stop
smoking? Let's get clear about that. I have to
tell you about my grandfather who was smoking for years until
one day when his daughter, my aunt said to him, "Daddy, why do you smoke? None
of the other kid's daddies smoke." From a 5-year-old. And that was enough
for my grandpa. T hat gave him a strong enough enough why
to quit. Cold turkey. I'm not saying it was easy.
It wasn't. But that was a strong enough why for him to handle all the difficult
hows that come because of the physiological addictions that occur
with cigarette smoking. And we're just using this as an example too. Because it
might be something else in your life that you're promising yourself that you
will quit or change. Get clear about your why. If you don't
have clarity about that, engage someone to
help you to get there. Hire a coach, talk to someone who knows you well. Let's
get clear about why you want to do this. I can also tell you if you're doing it
for somebody else, it might not be a strong enough why for
you. Somehow it's got to hit you at your core.
Because that's when you will really take action to stop it.
Most people that I've talked to about this already have a pretty good
why. And you do too, you've got strong reasons for doing this.
There's a psychological hurdle that we need to overcome. And that has to do with
the timing. Most of the reasons you want to quit
have to do with what? Health, relationships. Maybe
cost, lifestyle. You've got a lot of good reasons.
The problem is most of the benefits from quitting smoking
are down the road aways. And most of the costs for continuing to smoke are down
the road aways. For example, every time you pick up a
package of cigarettes, you see the surgeon general's warning about how
this is going to damage your health and maybe cause you to die.
But not today. See, that's a more long-term
effect. And so, we trick ourselves mentally into thinking, "Well, I'm okay for
now. But down the road, I need to quit because
eventually it's going to kill me." Right? One of my clients got a diagnosis
of emphysema. Quit immediately when the diagnosis came. Because it's now.
He's dealing with it now. It's not something that will happen sometime in
the future. He's got the diagnosis today. And that was enough for him to quit. So,
get clear about the why. Realize that we have some mental hurdles
to overcome because of the way that the results
are delayed for stopping and a lot of the costs
are delayed as well. It's off in the future, not right now.
Get clear about that. Here's a question that's really important but it will
really help you to stop smoking naturally. And that is to
ask yourself "What does this do for me?" Don't be too quick to say, "Well,
it does nothing for me. It's destroying my health and...."
No. It's doing something for you. What is it doing for you? Let's ask that
honestly and see if we can nail that down. Because stopping will
involve finding a way to provide yourself with
the same benefits that you're getting from smoking
but in some other way. For example, when people tell me, "Well, it calms me down."
Okay, what can we do to rearrange your lifestyle in a way
that you have other ways to calm yourself down.
Or to handle stress. What can you do that doesn't involve smoking but still
brings about that same outcome. Do you see how important this is? We
don't want to deprive you of all of the benefits you're getting from smoking.
We just need to find another way to get them. Here's another example:
You get a break at work to go out and take a smoke. Oh,
interesting. No wonder it helps to calm you down. You
get to take a break, right? And focus on nothing else for a few
minutes. Maybe socialize with your friends for a little bit. Okay.
Great benefit. Not the healthiest way to get it.
Can you still take a break even though you don't smoke anymore?
Of course you can. You know this came as a complete revelation to one of my
clients who was realizing, "Wait, I can still take a smoke break,
I just won't smoke." Brilliant. Yes, find another way an adaptive healthy
way to get the same benefits. And you can't even do that until you ask
the question. So, please ask "What is this doing for me?
What benefits do get from it?" And then let's find another way to get those.
One of our live on purpose certified coaches, Blu Robinson,
he's known as the coach. He's the coach for a team called
Addict to Athlete. And he puts it this way
--erase and replace. We're going to take the addiction
and if we're going to erase that we have to replace it with something.
Otherwise, we leave a big void. And this is one of the difficulties that we
encounter when we try to stop smoking. Because it
leaves this big hole in our habits in our daily routines
in our feelings in the way that we interact and socialize with other people.
We're not just going to delete that from your life. Let's find a way to erase
and replace. Keep that in mind as we took it take a look at these natural
strategies. Accountability is an important aspect of
this. I would encourage you to find 1 or 2
maybe three accountability partners. Sometimes it's more helpful to declare
to just a few people what you're working on than it is to put it out on social
media, for example. Find a few people that you trust who
really care about you, who can help to hold you accountable.
We're not shifting the responsibility to them.
What we're trying to do is close the back door that you keep slipping through
whenever you make promises to yourself. You make a promise to somebody else, it
feels a little different. And especially if you've got a few
people that you trust. You know, one of my clients was using me as an
accountability partner in our coaching arrangement. And he
instead of smoking, he was trying to stop drinking.
When he made the commitment to me that he was going to stop drinking,
it changed for him in his mind. He came back and reported that he had
successfully abstained from drinking for whatever period we had decided that
he was going to be accountable for. And he said, "You know? It was a huge
motivator to me to know that had I failed in that
commitment, I would have had to report that to you."
And because of the relationship that we have,
that was why he picked me as an accountability partner.
Pick somebody that you trust. You don't have to do this alone.
And there are groups that you can get involved with also that will help to
hold you accountable. But pick 1 or 2 accountability partners. We're addressing
here mostly the psychological aspects of how to stop
smoking naturally. You'll find tips and tricks if you do a
little online search about things that have worked for other people.
Chewing a pack of gum, having mints handy. Whatever it is that
you want to do to help with that process is great. We're
working mostly on the thinking part of this.
And there's one other important part that we need to talk about.
Plan for relapse. Notice I didn't say plan to relapse.
We're going to approach this with determination
and perspective. And the courage and faith that we can actually pull this
thing off. When I say plan for relapse,
have a relapse plan. Because relapse happens. And it happens
very, very commonly. When we try to stop smoking,
you'll probably have a relapse. Now, like I said don't plan
to relapse. Plan to succeed. But plan for relapse. In other words, when it happens,
how am I going to handle that? I would suggest that you prepare right
now to quickly, quickly forgive yourself for that and
get back on the horse. Okay? It's easy to say, "Oh, well.
All of the progress that I made is up in smoke now. I just blew it.
Might as well..." No. Don't go there. Quickly forgive yourself. "Oh, relapse. Yeah,
it happens. Kind of knew that. Okay, where was I?" And
then pick up where you left off. Do not give
up. This is where most people fail because
they get into a relapse and they think that they have failed.
Relapse is simply part of the process. Plan for it
and have something that you can do when it happens
so that you don't get tipped over and you don't give up on this process.
You've still got this. And all of the progress that you made
right up until the relapse is still there.
You didn't lose that. Let's pick up from there and keep moving forward.
You've got this. Not an easy task. If you've been thinking you could use a
coach to help you with this and you don't have
one yet, I'd be happy to help. I have a team of
coaches that can assist with that or you could work with me personally.
Come over to Live On Purpose Central where you can find out about the
coaching and other resources that are available to you.
Go.liveonpurposecentral.com. We'll see you there.