I have been smoke free for the last 1 year. For all of you on the verge of quitting smoking, looking for that moment of fulfillment in your life when you can actually say Good-bye, rest assured, that moment will never come. Your need to quit now.
After many attempts, i finally succeeded in quitting. The follwing is a list of the 10 advice that helped me.
1. Find Your Motivation
Your girlfriend hates you smoking? Your children look down on you for smoking? Find yourself a very good reason to quit and engrave it in your mind. Repeat it to yourself every morning, the first thing you get up. Every urge, remind yourself. After you do this consciously for a couple of days, your mind will automatically start reminding you (sub-consciously) of your motivation as the urge comes.
2. Join an Online Community.
There are tons of people around trying to quit. Motivate them to quit and drive motivation from them at the same time. It helped me, its bound to help anybody. Post about your urges, read about others' urges. Embrace members of the community and their suggestions. Let them help you quit. If you find the urge intolerable, let people in the community know of your moment of weakness. Make this a habit. The repeated embarrassment will help you reduce to the very least. If you end up quitting, stick to the community for about 30 or so days, and empower people with your success story.
3. Apply delay tactics.
If you have an urge, apply some delay tactics.
Exercise: I went for a run. Sometime even for 5 minutes of my treadmill. You would be surprised how out of shape you really are. Go for a run in the morning. With your ruined stamina, you will realize how soon you need to quit.
Snack & Drink Water: Another way to kill the urge is to snack. When the urge comes, treat yourself with any snack of your choice. You may switch to healthier food after the first two weeks. Here are some foods that may help you quit.
4. No Moment of Weakness.
Your mind will play games. When the urge strikes, remind yourself of your motivation, meditate for 2 minutes, take ten to fifteen deep breaths and ignore. Do not rationalize with your mind and adopt a 'just a puff wont hurt' attitude. The one puff makes all the difference. If your friends smoke, don't ask them for a quick puff. Don't go out with them. A single puff leads to another, and then another, and then another. In such moments, if you find yourself justifying your habit, this may help you.
5. Build a Strategy.
Quitting wasn't easy for me. Rest assured, it isn't going to be easy for you either. Unless you have super human control over your will, you're going to need a solid strategy. Start by preparing a list of things to do when you get the urge. Print out this list, engrave it in your mind. Just make sure, you are ready with your strategy BEFORE the urge strikes.
6. Incentivize Yourself
It's simple. You pass a day without smoking, reward yourself. You pass a week, reward yourself. You pass a month, you're there. The nicotine is almost flushed out, and the urges will fade, reward yourself big. You need to incentivize yourself at each milestone. Ensure you put these rewards in your strategy list. Go three months without smoking, and you may safely claim that you've quit. Keep a reward ready. An iPhone, a new car, a Mac book air, go crazy, you deserve every bit of it.
7. Follow your milestones as if your life depended on it.
Your life actually does depend on it. But this article is not to demoralize you. Your first and hardest milestone is day 2. Second hardest is the week. Pass these two milestones and you're golden. After this, it gets easier. As long as you're meticulously following the other tips i mentioned, the road to recovery will be smooth sailing.
8. Never say never again. If you fail, don't give up.
These tips have been compiled through learnings made after a number of trials. You too, will fail on numerous occasions. What is important is to make a mental note of the reasons for your failure and learn from them. If you've failed, don't give up. Try again, and again, and again.
9. Be genuinely committed.
No half hearted efforts are ever successful. Do you actually want to quit? Have you found your motivation yet? If you find yourself succumbing to the urge very easily, without a fight, question yourself!. Are you actually committed to quitting? After a series of moments of weakness, i realized i wasn't genuinely committed. Quitting was a conscious decision that i had to take with myself. After i decided, there was no turning back. (This article tells you how you may trick yourself into quitting.)
10. Be Positive
This is perhaps the most important tip. Adopt an extremely, overtly, obsessively optimistic attitude towards quitting. Get cute about it. Remind yourself that you're a happier and healthier person post addiction. Be positive! In your moments of weakness, remember to be positive. Adopt the "yes you can, yes you will" - Obama mantra. If it helps, you may even choose to go to the extent of seeing some cheesy motivational speeches on Youtube. Bottom line, If you want to quit smoking, you need to be positive about your approach.