I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that I have never made a decision to start smoking. Think about it - have you?
Nobody wakes up one day and says to themselves “Today, I will start smoking! At first it might make me sick but I am not a quitter! I will stick with it. I will make it a part of my daily routine.”
In movies cool characters smoke and a cigarette in woman’s hand tells you right away that she is sexy, strong and independent. Even if we discount influence of culture you still couldn’t escape the fact that it was the cool kids who were smoking.
You might have been saying to yourself that you are a strong person but in reality we try to follow people we find appealing. This is why celebrity gossip magazines are always the ones with the best sales stats. This is why smoking is now decreasing in popularity.
Cigarette advertisements were banned in most of the world and we just don’t see badasses and sexy women with cigarettes in their teeth as often as we used too.
You can put blame on you starting smoking at least partly on TV and others. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that it doesn’t really make any difference now. You might have not made a decision to start smoking but the decision to stop is all you and only you.
You see anti-smoking ads, people around you say how bad it is and they encourage you to quit but that is only noise until you make a decision.
I used to hear constantly that I should think about my health, that I smell like an ashtray, that I should think about how much I could save. I never really paid any attention to these comments. The decision to quit was only slightly influenced by these outside factors.
The decision to start a new smoke free part of your life must be made by you.
Now let’s work on that motivation and figure out reasons that will help you stay the course. Continue with this program if you want to quit. Don’t waste your time if you are reading this just to see “maybe it will help.” Leave “maybe” behind.
You must be willing to do exercises and you must want to quit smoking. This program will help you but that’s it – it will only help you. Nobody and nothing can do it for you.
Most basic example I can think of is IKEA furniture. This program is instructions and material. Instructions won’t build a shelf. You need to want to build the shelf in the first place, take time to understand instructions and build it.
From this moment on I assume that you want to quit, you are willing to take action and you are ready to start your new life without this addiction.
By the way, this a preparation part of the program so smoke along.
I will tell you when and how to quit but for now puff away.