This article is designed to help you prepare yourself for the best success in kicking that habit of smoking cigarettes. Making use of any of these seven steps will place you onto a more significant path toward health and happiness. I know you will find it valuable, and please consider sharing it with any others you know that are planning to quit smoking. Let’s get right to it…
1.) Label it as a habit
What is a habit? It’s when you automatically think about doing something. Consider the actions of most smokers: you get out of the car, you have a cup of coffee, you finish a meal… and during each of these triggers, there’s a cigarette in hand. It’s no longer a conscious choice; it’s an act of association: the same way that Dr. Pavlov could ring a bell and make his dogs salivate as if they were being fed.
How many times have you thought about doing something and decided there was something better to do? Perhaps you thought about buying something, and then chose your money was better spent on something else? Of course, that’s also true of cigarettes! The behavior is simply a thought, and it’s a thought that no longer has to have power over you.
Hypnosis has a long history of affecting habits since habits reside in the subconscious mind, and hypnosis works directly on the subconscious. It is perfectly able to target and change habits.
2.) Change your words, change your mind
Our English language has two words that people use all the time, and these two words are a recipe for failure.
“I’m trying to quit smoking.”
“I hope I can quit smoking.”
Let’s start with the word TRY. This word “try” sets up the mental expectancy that you cannot do it. If I asked you to try and take a pencil out of my hand, and you reached over and took it, understand that you may have been successful in removing the pencil from my hand, but you didn’t quite follow the instructions. Instead of TRYING, you JUST DID IT!
The word HOPE is just as bad. Hope is taking all personal responsibility and handing it off to the world to fix it for you. Understand that there’s only one person in the world that can MAKE you quit smoking, and that’s YOU.
Quitting smoking is like a light switch. It’s either on, or it’s off. You either do it, or you don’t do it.
3.) Build an environment of success
I find there are two types of people who go through this process: the ones who tell EVERYBODY they’re quitting smoking, and the ones who tell NOBODY they’re quitting smoking. I have even worked with clients who didn’t even tell their spouse they were doing hypnosis for quitting smoking!
Consider the subconscious message expressed here: “If it doesn’t work, people won’t know.”
First of all, I’ve found great success with both types of people. I’m here to support you; however, you decide to change.
Can you guess which one found the success the easiest? The one who told everybody!
Building a supportive environment sends that message to the inner mind that you’re stopping smoking for real this time, and that’s the end of it. What do I suggest? Tell everyone you meet. Post it on Facebook. Announce the time of your first session. Take a smartphone video of you throwing away your cigarettes. Have fun with it; you’re doing something extraordinary for yourself!
4.) Release self-limiting beliefs
Now that you’ve just now read some great advice on how to pat yourself on the back and brag of your success to your friends and family. But what if your family, friends, and coworkers are still smoking?
I’ve heard it all. The wife is quitting, but the husband wants to smoke. The hotel manager is quitting, but his entire staff smokes. The corporate Vice President is quitting, but he smokes with the CEO each day. These situations are usually expressed as “It’s going to be hard to do this because…”
Hypnotists help people change their minds. I like to ask the magical “What if…?” questions. What if the fact that everyone smokes around you can now become every reason you don’t have to do that to yourself anymore?
We’ve also heard this kind of statement shared about medical diagnosis, everyday anxieties, and stress. Well, what if the fact that life is occasionally stressful can now become every reason you don’t have to put undue pressure on your heart and lungs by polluting your body with poisons?
What if this could be the most natural thing you do in a long time? This leads to…
5.) Simplify it
What do you have to do to be successful with this goal?
Nothing.
You used to do something. Now you don’t have to do it anymore.
6.) Understand it
I’ll keep this step brief as I want you to spend some time online.
Search for how long it takes for the nicotine to leave your body. The answer you’ll likely find? Three days. You literally pee it out. Increase your water intake, and you may be able to speed it up.
Google the words “nicotine replacement therapy” and words like “success” or “efficacy.” I’m guiding you to studies about things like the nicotine patch or nicotine chewing gum or mints. I could give you the links, but it’s fun to find it on your own. You’ll note that many studies found success rates only as high as about 20-25%. In the same studies, the control group received a placebo (inactive patch or gum) and found around 15-20% success. The nicotine replacement techniques were only a small fraction above something that was make-believe. The bottom line? With that technique, likely, four out of five people will fail.
What does this mean? If it were just about the nicotine, those techniques would work, every time. But they don’t. It’s a habit; it’s a behavior; it’s just a thought.
We help people change their minds.
7.) Have the right motivation
Why do you want to do this? Did your doctor tell you to stop? Would your partner stop giving you a hard time if you quit? Do you just think it would be a good idea to quit smoking? Would it be nice to save a little extra money?
These are all excellent reasons, but they’re not the reason that will make you successful. The one mindset that will produce the best result is if you can honestly look at those cigarettes and tell them:
“I don’t like you, and I don’t want you in my life anymore.”
Despite what you’ve seen in movies or on television, hypnosis is not mind-control. It’s a 100% consent state. It’s a process of relaxing the mind and body into a natural ability in which the mind is more receptive to positive suggestions, insight, and releasing negative feelings.
Yes, those other reasons mentioned above are essential, but you’ve got to do it for yourself. This is your goal, and the more you own it, the more success and ease you will experience.