6 Tips to Help You Prepare to Quit Smoking

As some of you already know from my last blog, I have decided to quit smoking this Thursday (April 3rd, 2008) and invite any of you to join me in doing the same. For those of you who are going to continue to wait to quit, you have plenty of time to prepare. For those of us quitting this Thursday, time is short, yet there are still things we can do to help make quitting easier.

#1  Break the Habit

If you are a smoker, I’m sure you have experienced those moments where you unconsciously grab a cigarette and light up.  This happens to me every day in my car.  This happens because you have a habit of lighting up in specific situations.  From now until you quit, when you notice yourself doing this, try to delay lighting the cigarette for as long as you can. Getting used to interrupting yourself before you quit will make it easier for you to resist the urge once you have quit.

#2 Remember to Breath

I don’t know how many times I have read that you should take a deep breath whenever you have the urge to smoke.  While breathing deeply may help you relax and lessen the urge to smoke, it probably won’t eliminate the urge to smoke altogether.   Many of the sources that do suggest breathing entirely miss the point of it.  The end goal isn’t to relax you, or even to lessen to urge to smoke.  What you really want to do is divert your focus from smoking to something else and there is nothing better to divert your attention to than the present. 

#3 Being in the Present

In the past you smoked, in the future things may happen that will make you want to smoke.  Why would you want to focus your attention on either of these while you are attempting to fight off the urge to smoke?  Instead keep your mind on the present.  Breath deeply and take time to look at what is going on around you.  What do you see?  What do you hear?  Let these things pass into and out of your mind as they happen, and just be present.  This will not only help you put more time between your cigarettes as you prepare to quit, but will also help you to resist the urge to smoke once you have quit smoking.

#4 Don’t Be Afraid to Use a Stop Smoking Aid

You shouldn’t feel intimidated or embarrassed about using a stop smoking aid.  The addiction to nicotine can be worse than the addiction to drugs that are considered to be far worse.  Just as with those drugs, your body had a chemical dependency on the nicotine which can be dealt with more easily using these aids.  Whether you choose to use something over the counter, or something prescribed by your physician, you should use something.  Over the next few days decide what you will use, and plan when you will get it so that when the time comes you will be prepared.

#5 Reach Out and Get Support

There are many places you can look to for support.  Whether you prefer calling one of the stop smoking hotlines, turning to your peers, or turning to others who are also making an attempt to quit, don’t be afraid to get support.  I will be more than glad to talk, share stories, and thoughts in comments here and on Plurk (I am sociallydistressed there).

#6 Be Excited

Just by reading this you have already made an effort toward quitting.  With sheer determination, and a little bit of luck, you may soon be smoke free.  You’ll have more money to spend or save. You’ll feel so much better.  People will no long shy away from you because you smell like smoke. 

 

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Quitting Smoking as a Technique to Improve your Self Confidence

Quitting Smoking as a Technique to Improve your Self Confidence

This morning on my way into the office this morning, I made the decision to quit smoking once and for all. As I was driving and thinking about the implications of quitting I realized how overcoming the nicotine addiction can be another big step in improving my self-confidence. Quitting cigarettes can give one much more than simply the sence of accomplishment gained from accomplishing something so difficult. Most of the positive effects are fairly obvious. You will be healthier, and will feel better day-to-day. Cigarettes are expensive, so depending on how much you smoke, and how you buy them, you could end up saving a fairly large chunck of change each month. When you go out in public, you will no longer wonder if you smell like cigarettes. All of these can make a huge difference in your self confidence, which in the end will help your social anxiety. You may be afraid to try to quit, because you might fail. You shouldn't be. The nicotine addiction is extremely difficult to dump for some people (including me), and there is no way to guarantee that you'll be able to do it. Our goal in this case is to try our best to make our lives smoke free. At the very least, we'll smoke a few less cigarettes than we would have otherwise. While keeping that in mind, also keep in mind that our long term goal is to quit. In order to do that we need to maintain positivity, and believe that we will succeed. If you're nervous about quitting alone, feel free to join me. I will be quitting on Thursday, July 3rd (2008). Feel free to comment, or join me on plurk and we can work together. In addition to being open to talk, I will also be blogging about my experiences, and providing tips and thoughts as I go, so make sure you check back often. I hope to see a few of you join me in this adventure!

Finding Encouragement in Discouraging Situations

Just as with anything else you put your mind to, it’s inevitable that you’ll experience ups and downs as you become more confident in social situations.  Perhaps one day, you may be a social animal, while the next you might feel like hiding.  While the ups can be very gratifying, the downs can be very upsetting and discouraging.  It is important as you venture toward a more social life that you learn to let these negative experiences roll off your back. 

Most likely people have told you “Just shrug it off” many times in the past, never explaining how one can simply drop failure and not dwell on it.  In fact, it may very well be impossible to do so.  If there were no such thing as failure however, there would be no need to “shrug it off.”   A world without both success and failure couldn’t exist, could it?

That answer to that question depends on how you choose to look at any given situation.  Lets assume for a seconds that we are running a lemonade stand.  Yesterday our goal was to make $10, yet we only made $8.  In this case we can choose to consider the day a failure, or choose to look at the success we did have during the day.  So perhaps the day before we had only made $5.  Perhaps during the day we discovered a method of enticing new customers.  Perhaps we improved the flavor of the lemonade.  Despite not meeting our goal, we still had success, and the day was not a failure.  Instead of shrugging off your failure, you turn it into a success.

Having the ability to see your success even when you fail to meet a goal is a very powerful tool.  This gives you the empowerment to transcend the negative effects of failure and to remain positive. You will feel more energetic and capable of accomplishing your other goals.  In addition to all of this you can look deeper and learn how you can better set your goals. I will write more about this in the coming days.

On a Personal Note

I have recently applied these principles myself.  I had set a goal for myself to write a minimum of 1 blog post per day. During the past week, I found that to be impossible.  I would get half way through a post before drawing a complete blank.  I’d save the post and move on to another idea.  No matter what I was writing, I would get about half way though the post, and get stuck.  I didn’t let it discourage me though.  I worried a bit about the effects not posting might have on my readers, but didn’t focus on my inability to complete a post.  Instead I looked at the fact that with each post I started to write, I was half a post closer to another great post for my readers.  In addition those posts will get more review, and consideration than my posts normally would leading to overall better articles.  So in the end despite the fact I couldn’t manage to give you, my readers, something to read last week, I was still successful.  When I am able to finish those posts, you will be reading posts that have received much more thought and time than most of my writing.

The Guide to Goals

Setting goals for yourself is very important to making any change. When making a change, goals provide us our only insite into whether we are successfull or not. Without them we would have nothing to motivate us to move forward.

Often times, when people fail to make a change, it isn't because they couldn't accomplish the change. Instead they fail because they fail to see the progress they are making toward their goal and get frustrated. Because of this we need to break our big goals into smaller pieces that we can accomplish fairly easily.

For example, if I were building a house, I couldn't build the whole thing at once. First I have to build a foundation, but I can't just drop in a foundation all at once, I can only lay the foundation one block at a time. Once the foundation is done, I could build the frame of the house one board at a time.

In the same way, I can't instantly become comfortable in every social situation I might encounter. I have to break it down into smaller pieces that can be accomplished more easily and break those into smaller pieces that I can accomplish.

I would break the overall goal into smaller ones like saying "Hi" to everyone, approaching people to ask questions, opening more complicated conversations. If I didn't think I could approach someone and say "Hi" the first time, I would break that goal into smaller goals that lead up to it like nodding at the person, beginning to walk in their direction, and finally saying "Hi" as I passed them.

The whole point is to have goals that you can accomplish because accomplishing something is being successfull. If you're contantly failing to accomplish your goals, you will lose motivation, but if you are normally successfull at the smaller goals you will feel more motivated toward and able to accomplish your larger goals.