Tried To Quit Smoking, Time and Again? Here Are 5 Steps In The Right Direction

Tried To Quit Smoking, Time and Again? Here Are 5 Steps In The Right Direction
By Sylvia Dickens

You’ve been trying to quit smoking. Time after time you’ve failed. All is not lost, however. Here are five steps to get you started on the road to quitting smoking.

1. Scare Yourself Into Quitting

If you can give yourself a strong enough reason to quit, you will. Realize, however, that one way or another you will quit. Guaranteed. There are a few ways this will happen.

1) You’ll die from a related illness – or some other illness

2) You’ll be confined to a place where you cannot smoke

3) You’ll discover that you can quit smoking the easy way and you’ll just do it

You’ll probably want to choose option three.

Think about the absolute worst thing that can happen to you if you continue to smoke. Think about the damage you’re causing every hour that you smoke. Think about the harm you are doing to people around you, including loved ones and friends.

Think about how the disgusting ash trays look and understand that the stains and sticky tar you see is coating your lungs, and building every day with every cigarette.

If you want more reasons, do some investigating into all the damage that cigarette smoking causes – from cancer to emphysema to heart disease and high blood pressure and much more.

The next question you’ll be asking is, “How can I quit when I’ve already tried so many times? I want to and I’ve tried, but I just can’t quit.”

2. Find The Right Teacher

The reason you’ve failed is because you haven’t had the right teacher. I bet you’ve tried cold turkey and/or by cutting back. Who told you to do it that way? Have you tried pills, gum and patches that haven’t worked? That’s no surprise, because they don’t work for many people.

Find yourself a teacher who has investigated the whole issue of quitting. This person will be able to teach you everything you need to know and then show you the most effective way to quit smoking. You can’t apply the technique your friend at work used and expect to succeed unless you understand why you smoke, when you smoke and what it takes to break the habit.

What worked for them might not work for you. When this happens repeatedly, it just sets you up to fail, because you’ll come to expect to fail.

If you are truly serious about quitting, start educating yourself. One of the best places to start your research is with the Lung Association and the Cancer Society which have extensive literature on cigarette smoking and its dangers and what you need to do to quit smoking.

Choose your teacher wisely. While many products on the market promise to make you an ex-smoker, most haven’t done the research and they don’t give you the secret ingredient to quitting smoking.

Time can make all the difference. Time is one of the magic secrets to quitting successfully.

3. Time it right by preparing yourself mentally.

You have to be ready to quit. Trying at a time when you just aren’t prepared mentally will mean failure. It’s kind of like trying to work on a project when your mind isn’t really focused and prepared for what’s to come. What do you get? A poorly designed product that just doesn’t work well.

Focus on your thinking patterns and try to figure out why smoking is so important to you. It will give you a good clue to what you need to do to start your own personal quit smoking program.

4. Take it minute by minute – hour by hour.

How you view the time it will take to quit will have a significant impact on whether you succeed or not. Do you look at the whole picture and think, “That’s it. I’m never going to have another cigarette”? That’s a scary concept to many smokers who, by the way, are addicts. Addiction is a terrible thing because it works on your mind. So that’s where you have to start.

‘Never’ is an extremely long time, but breaking it down into achievable segments will make all the difference to your success.

While a reformed smoker has stopped for a lifetime – or forever – a person who is quitting smoking is stopping now, in this moment. In the next minute, hour or day.

If you can get into the mindset that you are ready to quit and that you’ll be doing it one moment at a time, you’ll be sure to see a significant improvement in your progress.

5. Change how you think about the process of quitting.

When you think about quitting, do you immediately focus on the cravings, the weight gain, the stress and tension that might result? Actually, these are your ‘excuses’ for not trying to quit. These are props so you don’t have to face the fact that you’ve failed before and expect to again.

Consider that if you do gain a bit of weight or feel tense for a few days it’s far less harmful than smoking for the rest of your life.

If you truly want to quit, why focus on reasons to continue smoking? It really is illogical, but that’s the way humans think. The sooner you can change your thinking about these issues, the sooner you will be able to quit for good.

And if you find the right teacher, you won’t suffer the withdrawal symptoms and weight gain that you are expecting.

Sylvia Dickens is an ex-smoker who has been smoke-free for 32 years. Today, she repeatedly gets a clean bill of health from her doctor, which she contributes to quitting smoking all those years ago. She understands the struggle and has routed out this terrific program that is guaranteed to work, no matter how long you’ve been smoking or how many times you’ve tried to quit. If you truly want to Quit Smoking (and are fed up with programs, patches, pills and gums that are expensive and don't work), don’t disappoint yourself. Click here and get started in 3 minutes. Quit in 3 hours. Read the review at http://www.book-titles.ca/StopSmoking.htm . Stop Smoking, Anxiety Relief, Dog Training, Music Instruction (piano, guitar) and Family Vacation Getaway ideas are just some of the topics covered on Sylvia’s site at http://www.book-titles.ca She offers articles and ebooks on a variety of themes in which she has previous knowledge and experience.