Hi all!
New year and new resolutions. I’ve read that somewhere around 90% of New Year’s Resolutions are abandoned. I wonder what that means for my goals of becoming fluent in both French and Spanish, visiting Australia, performing a drum solo for bellydance, learning how to upholster my own furniture, baking more bread and keeping my closet and bookshelves organized. I’ll let you know how it goes!
But one of the most common goals is to quit smoking. No wonder – according to the American Cancer Society, nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the US can be attributed to tobacco.
The good news is smoking is a pretty easy to give up. I know plenty of people who haven’t quit successfully yet are getting ready to stone me, but hear me out. Food issues can be complicated because you have to eat. But you don’t need to smoke. If you were trapped on a desert island, you would not die from lack of cigarettes. Heck, even a drug addict might go through serious withdrawal, but you’d be able to function, even if you were grumpy while doing it.
We all know a woman who finds out she’s pregnant and that’s it, she becomes a nonsmoker. She’s not writhing on the ground, dying. She moves on. Sure, she may have a craving, but she lets the thought pass and moves on. The reason this works is because she has a compelling reason to be nonsmoker.
Plenty of people quit cold turkey everyday, no patches, pills. Just quit smoking. Why? They’ve found their compelling reason. So what’s yours? Is it your money, your significant other, your family, your self image or your health?
You can let thoughts of smoking pass as you focus on the compelling reason in front of you.
