How To Know If You Are Ready To Quit Smoking
How to Know When You’re Ready to Quit Smoking
As a clinical hypnotherapist with a fulltime private practice I have met and helped hundreds of people who wanted to quit smoking. Every client gets treated with the same respect and seriousness, no matter what they say or do, but I have to be honest, after treating so many smokers, I have learned that there are keys that reveal which ones have the best chance of quitting.
It isn’t age. I have had teenagers who quit and others who didn’t. I have had a woman who smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day for 50 years become a non-smoker after one session. She sent me a nice letter two years after she quit just to let me know she was still a non-smoker.
It isn’t the frequency of how often they smoked, either. I have seen people who only smoked a few cigarettes a week who had more trouble quitting than people who smoked 3 packs a day. I have also seen people fail because they didn’t think their habit was all that bad because they didn’t smoke that much. So the key to success isn’t how much or how little you smoke to begin with.
It isn’t lifestyle, either. At first you might think people with the most stressful lives would have the hardest time quitting, but that isn’t true. I have had as many people tell me they smoke out of boredom as those who tell me they smoke to relieve stress. People who drink alcohol often think they are addicted to tobacco because they drink and they link the two habits together. But alcohol and tobacco are two different addictions, if you don’t believe me, go to an AA meeting and see how many people who are successfully dealing with an alcohol addiction are still smoking. So smoking won’t make you drink and drinking won’t make you smoke. The only truth I have seen in this is that if you drink it lowers your inhibitions and that makes it easier to give in to the desire to smoke when you are in the process of quitting.
While we are on the subject, and since the phrase is out, let’s talk about “the process of quitting.”
If you are considering quitting smoking, have done research on quitting smoking, or actually not smoking, in fact, if you are just reading this article because you are curious about quitting smoking, then you are in the process. Because quitting smoking requires a mindset that is developed during the process of quitting smoking and is part of the process. You develop that mindset while you are in the process of quitting. If you don’t develop it, I think your chances aren’t as good, though no one should ever say you can’t quit for any reason at all. But to be sure, there is a certain mindset that seems to be a key to who will be most likely to successfully give up tobacco for good.
It all comes down to a few simple questions. While I was interviewing my clients to determine what the keys and triggers to their subconscious mind were so I could custom tailor suggestions that would work for them (by the way I only worked with one person at a time) I would ask many questions, but there were two questions that seemed to be the best indicators of whether or not my client stood a good chance of being a non-smoker when he or she walked out the door.
The first question is, “Do you want to quit smoking?”
Wait a minute, you’re thinking, if they were at a hypnotherapist office paying for a smoking cessation session, they must have wanted to quit, right?
That isn’t necessarily true. While many people answered simply, “Yes,” some people said things like, “not really but my wife thought it was a good idea,” or, “no but I guess I have to,” or, “I thought I’d give it a try since so many other people I know are quitting.”
The sad truth is, these people didn’t have a very high success rate. While the effect that smoking has on other people is one of the considerations for quitting smoking, the number one (successful) reason is that the smoker wanted to quit for him or herself. When I heard, “I am doing this for me!” I knew I had a winner.
The other question I asked that was a good indicator of whether or not a client could succeed was the question, “Are you ready to quit now?”
Many people will tell you they are ready to quit, but the addition of that word now, means no more excuses, delays, or putting it off. Now can be a frightening word, or an exciting word. The clients who found it exciting and anticipated it were the ones most likely to succeed.
So there you have it. Two keys to successfully quitting smoking that are included in the mindset of being a non-smoker for life. If you would like to learn more and take a free test to see if you are ready to quit then go to the Quit Smoking Quiz and take the free quiz. Answer some simple questions and get a free evaluation by an expert.
Wil Langford, R. Hy., is a 54 yr. old. Clinical Hypnotherapist, Integrated Energy Therapist, and teacher. He is the author of, “Your Loved Ones, Your Self; Finding and Raising the Family Within.”
With hundreds of hours of clinical work with smokers Wil is an expert on finding the keys to quitting smoking, no longer how long you may have smoked or how impossible the task may seem. Hypnosis, the method I use to help smokers, was approved as an effective method by the American Medical Association.
Take the free quiz to see how close you are to successfully quitting smoking and getting some free advice from an expert at… Take the Free Quit Smoking Quiz and find out how close you are to being a non-smoker. Ther results may surprise you!
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Tags: addiction, cancer, cigarettes, cigars, lungs, nicotine, quitting smoking, stop smoking, tobacco