Personal Development through Thinking

Fourth Week

I hope you feel ready for this one because we change tactic again. But what’s the first thing we do? Yes, congratulate yourself for getting this far. I do not mean this to be patronizing by telling you to congratulate yourself. There is a real purpose behind this act. Its purpose is to make concrete the process of giving up smoking. It serves to remind you that you and you alone have decided to do this and have got this far. You need to be continually aware of your journey to reinforce your desire to give up smoking (not so much of the destination).

How are you feeling now? Are you puzzled by what’s going on and where this is leading? Are you feeling that this is leading nowhere because you want to quit and you are still smoking? If you are feeling any of this then ask yourself why? You want to quit and as far as you can see you are not any closer but how are you judging your success rate? Old thinking creeps in at every stage as we are all used to getting results the moment we want them. In the West we live in a fast paced, consumer society, and expect fast results with almost everything we do. This way of thinking falls into the success and failure thinking again. Even if you say to yourself that you owe it to yourself to quit you put yourself into the success or failure thinking mode.

You might now be saying but why am I doing all this if it’s not to quit smoking. Yes, the idea is to quit smoking but the journey to that point is far more important. Think about going on a trip or holiday. You can get excited the moment you leave your house and get in your car, or taxi. Everything around you takes on a different meaning because you know that you are going somewhere nice. So, packing luggage, taking taxis, catching planes, all the preparation becomes part of the holiday. You can get frustrated, but you are engaged in preparation for that holiday, the journey to your destination is very important. Another analogy is one used by a friend who is a clinical psychologist. If you are climbing a mountain you know the summit is your goal. However, if you take your eyes of where you are on that mountain you will more than likely fall off. The steps you take here and now are moving closer to that goal but your efforts need to be applied to the journey. Now we come to a difficult stage.

For seven days I want you to collect every cigarette you smoke and keep them in an open container, perhaps on an old plate. They must be visible from every angle and place them somewhere like the living room. Now choose a day in the seven days - remembering not to choose a Sunday or a Monday - when you will not smoke at all. Make this day the easiest day for you and also the most active. I want you to take one third of the cigarettes you smoke in a day, half if you want to, and divide them over the day of non-smoking. Always keep in mind that if you smoke a few more than you divided up for the day that you have smoked less than usual and not failed anything. The next thing is to write down why it was important for you to divide up the cigarettes the way you did. For example, if you give yourself two for the morning, and two for the lunch, but only one for the afternoon why were those times more important to you? At the end of the day I would like you to think back about how you felt smoking the cigarettes at that time.

Did your anxiety level increase at the thought of having fewer cigarettes? Did your body react differently? Are you feeling the same about smoking or sickened by it? If you are feeling sickened by it then try to get out of that mode of thinking by thinking of your efforts now. I want to stress how important it is that you do NOT chastise yourself for your lack of will power or lack of anything else that you might have heard. You have smoked for years and now wish to stop, to free yourself from the grip of tobacco. Always come from the other side. It’s not about what you aren’t doing it’s about what you are doing. To summarise:

Week 4

a) Take one third (or half) your cigarettes for one day and divide them up over the day you are quitting. (Keep in your mind that this is a non-smoking day when you do this)
b) Keep all the cigarette ends for the seven days in an open container in your full view. (If others ask you about this tell them it is only for two weeks and to please be patient with you)
c) Make your day of non-smoking (smoking) an active one
d) Write down - for each time you have decided to smoke - why it was important to you.
e) At the end of the day think back on how you felt smoking the cigarettes at the times you did. (If you smoke more than the amount then remember to congratulate yourself for smoking less than usual)
f) Keep thinking about every cigarette you are smoking
g) Keep your cigarettes in packs of 10
g) Keep on quitting for 1 hour a day
h) Prepare yourself for quitting in week 5 (resist reading week 5 till you are ready)
i) Don’t slip into failure and success language
j) Never start chastising yourself, if you do, challenge the voice. Be kind to yourself. (You are on a journey of self-realisation)