Their response to those life events was to light a cigarette and within a short space of time that familiar smoking pattern of ten, twenty or thirty cigarettes a day was re-established as their bodies relaxed back into that old and all too familiar habit.
Many people believe that quitting would work out fine if only they had more willpower. We are all encouraged to think that success at anything depends on the strength of our determination and, if we don’t succeed, that can only mean that we aren’t committed enough!
The problem with willpower is that we are constantly focussed on what we don’t want and what we need to resist at all costs. Using this technique to stop smoking means that the ex-smoker is constantly thinking ‘I’m definitely NOT going to smoke today’ or “when I go past the shop on the corner where I buy my cigarettes, I’m definitely NOT going to go inside and buy a pack of cigarettes’
To try that out for yourself, just for a minute, try not to think about a pink elephant. What happened? I’m willing to bet that the first thing that popped into your head was the very thing that you were trying so hard not to imagine. Well that is exactly the same thing that happens when we tell ourselves that there is something we are going to avoid at all costs We first have to think about that object before crossing it out or drawing a curtain over it.
To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. Isn’t it time to do something completely different?
It really is possible to decide that this ‘National No Smoking Day’ is the last one you’ll see as a smoker. Up until now your unconscious mind has been programmed through years of repetition with the belief that smoking has done something positive for you. In other words, there has been a positive intention behind the years of this habit that has allowed you to convince yourself that cigarettes:
- Relieve stress or boredom or soothe uncomfortable feelings
- Make social situations easier
- Give you something to do with your hands
Or any one of a hundred other reasons that we use to prove to ourselves that there is a positive intention behind this habit.
Instead of focussing endlessly on giving up smoking and mourning what we convince ourselves that we’ll lose by letting it go, how would it be if we could simply focus on new, healthy behaviours?
Hypnotherapy has proven to be one of the most effective ways to change habits. If you really want to quit smoking forever, you will find that you don’t have to try not to smoke. By shifting your focus to new healthy habits, the urge will no longer be there. You will generate healthy new behaviours, which will become second nature to you.
Interested? To find out more about how Hypnotherapy can help you to quit smoking forever… Call Francine at Orrganise
Don’t agonise… orrganise!