Getting Motivated to Quit Smoking: Three Ways to Tap into Our Inner-Motivation at Any Time
If you’re waiting for the perfect moment to quit smoking, then I’ve got some bad news for you:
You may end up waiting forever.
There’s this idea many of us have that, at some point, all the stars will align for us and the universe will gift us with all the tools, resources and motivation we could ever need to quit smoking.
So far, I’ve found that the stars never quite align in such a way. Motivation doesn’t just appear out of the cosmos as though gifted to us by some divine muse, nor can anyone “give” us motivation or do our motivating for us.
Sure, we can read books, spend hours pouring through motivational quotes on Pinterest, or even hire a motivational coach to give us a swift kick up the backside, but all those things are doing is triggering the motivation that’s already within us.
Think of a match. You strike it against a wall and it bursts into a flame.
The wall didn’t put the flame into the match. The wall didn’t infuse the match with some magical property it didn’t previously possess which made it set on fire.
All the properties for making that flame were already in the match, it’s just that the action of striking it against the wall activated those properties and put the match to work in fulfilling its true potential, at least in as much as we can say that the full potential of a match is to become fire.
The same happens with us. All the properties we need to reach our full potential, to become happy, healthy, awesome non-smokers are already within us.
The best part of all this?
We don’t need somebody to strike us against a wall, hire a coach, or even get a Pinterest account to activate those properties — we can do it ourselves.
The motivation we need to get started on our quit -and to stay the course when cravings, withdrawals, and good-old-fashioned temptation try to knock us off it- is already within us.
Today, I’m going to share with you a few things that helped me to tap into the motivation and determination that I needed to quit smoking and stay quit for over two years, the same things that I’ve since used to help drive me to lose 40lbs in weight, run a marathon, change career and do a bunch of other cool stuff.
The three things that I’m about to share with you are:
1) Getting very clear on the intrinsic reasons for quitting
2) Turning those reasons into bright, beautiful pictures of our ideal, non-smoking selves
3) Creating small, regular reminders to keep us on course.
Ready to dive into it?
Let’s do it.
Getting Clear on Why We’re Quitting
None of us decided to quit smoking for a giggle. We did it because at whatever level and for whatever reason, we felt compelled to make a big, positive change in our lives.
Those reasons can serve as much more than just the catalyst for us starting this adventure we’re on, they can serve as the first powerful tool we can use to keep us motivated as we go.
That said, I’d argue strongly that if those reasons are really going to be helpful to us, then it has to be because they’re based around things that benefit us, rather than other people.
Back in the 90s, researchers from the Center for Health Studies in Seatle, Washington found that smokers with higher levels of intrinsic motivation for quitting smoking were more likely to enjoy long-term success than those whose reasons for quitting were mostly extrinsic.
In other words, if your reasons for quitting are that you want to make a positive change for yourself (for example you want to become fitter, healthier, or happier), then you’re more likely to abstain from smoking than if you’re only doing it to get your partner off your back or because it’s largely frowned upon in your social circle.
If you haven’t already, go grab a pen and paper (or open up the note-taking tool on your phone) and jot down as many reasons as you can think of for wanting to quit smoking.
Of course, I say “as many as you can think of,” but it may well be that you only have one very specific reason. It may be that you recently lost a loved one to smoking-related illnesses and you want to get healthy before the same thing happens to you, or to save money towards a wedding, or whatever it may be.
If you only have that one reason, that’s fine too.
Write it down.
If you find that you have multiple reasons -as I did- then get those written down. My reasons were that I wanted to be healthy, I wanted to get my finances in order, and I wanted to improve my self-confidence. Yours might be anything at all.
As long as they’re intrinsic -as long as they’re about what you want and not what somebody else wants for you- they’re going to be helpful.
I’d suggest at this point that you keep this list of reasons and take it around with you so that you can, whenever you need to, take it out as a solid reminder of why you’re on this journey.
However, I’d also suggest that a list of reasons on its own may not be powerful enough to help us tap into all that inner-motivation that we need to succeed.
To do that, we’re going to use those reasons to help us with our next step:
Creating Big, Bright, and Beautiful Pictures of Our Ideal, Smoke-Free Selves
Saying “I want to quit smoking to be healthier” is a good start. Saying “I want to quit smoking to have more money” can be a good way to get us into the right frame of mind, but what do either of those things actually look like?
How will we know when we’re healthier?
How will we know when we’ve achieved “having more money.”
What will it look like?
What will we feel?
What will see, do, and think that’s different from the things we see, do and think now?
In a moment, we’re going to go through a visualisation exercise that will enable us to answer those questions, but first, let me explain why this is important.
When we see words like “healthier” or “wealthier” written down, or even when we say them to ourselves, they might spark a flicker of positivity within us. We recognise that health and wealth are good things, and we may even recognise within ourselves some basic level of desire that these are things we want to move towards.
Yet it’s only when we really start to think about what being healthy and wealthy actually means to us that we really start to get inspired. When we start thinking of ourselves as slimmer, more attractive people with bags of money and bulging bank accounts that we get excited about the possibilities of being healthier and wealthier, and the more excited we get, the more eager we become to get up off our arses and actually DO something to get some of that health and wealth for ourselves.
Likewise, once we’ve started our journey, we encounter all manner of challenges and obstacles. In the case of stopping smoking, those usually manifest themselves as withdrawal symptoms, cravings and temptations. Every time we encounter one of those things, it takes a little bite out of our initial excitement and enthusiasm, so we need to go back and “top up” — to remind ourselves of exactly WHY we’re on this journey and just how wonderful it’s going to be when we get there.
This exercise does that. It helps us to paint big, bright, beautiful pictures of how good things are going to be once we’ve quit smoking, pictures that we can not only see but feel and experience, pictures that get us excited about getting started, pictures that can keep us excited as we go through our journey, keeping our enthusiasm and motivation fully topped up, even when we’re going through the worst phases of the quit process.
Before you start this exercise, read through all of the instructions first so that you know what you’re doing.
1) Close your eyes and take three big, deep, slow breaths.
2) Imagine yourself as you’d ideally like to be when you achieve what you want to achieve when you quit smoking. If you want to be healthier, what would that look like for you? If you want to be wealthier, what would that look like? If you have another goal in mind, how will you look when you’ve achieved it?
For example, if your goal is to have more money when you quit smoking, maybe you see yourself wearing a new, expensive outfit, or on holiday on a tropical island.
3) Think of it like looking in a mirror with your ideal self looking back at you. Look at your eyes, see how they’re bright and full of life. Notice the big, beaming smile on your face. Notice how you stand tall, proud and confident. Keep looking at this picture and really pay attention to the details.
4) When you’ve got that image, make it bigger, brighter, more beautiful. Make the colours bolder and more vivid. Make the details sharper. Make the whole image bigger. Make it so that you’re no longer looking in a mirror but up on a movie screen at the cinema, even bigger if you can.
5) Keep going with this, make that image as big, bright and beautiful as you can possibly make it.
6) Next, step into that image. Imagine it’s like you’re merging with that ideal you, or like you’re putting on a new suit of clothes and BECOMING that person. See through the eyes of your ideal self, really feel what it feels like to have quit smoking, to be healthy, happy, wealthy and to have achieved all of your goals for quitting. Hear what you’ll hear, notice how exciting, how joyful it feels to be successful.
7) As you embrace this positive, exciting feeling, say to yourself in a strong, confident voice “THIS IS WHO I REALLY AM!”
Now that you’ve had just a taste of how good it can be to have quit smoking and achieved all of your goals, you may well find that you’re super excited to succeed with your quit.
After all, isn’t the comparatively small bit of discomfort and unpleasantness that comes with quitting worth it if you can feel SO GOOD on the other side? Isn’t it worth going through this process to become that ideal version of you?
Practice this technique as often as you like to help “top up” your motivation, to remind you why you’re on this journey and just how good you’re going to feel when you successfully quit.
Speaking of reminders.
Using Regular, Brief Reminders: A Few Quick Tips
In 2003, Professor John Hughes at the University of Vermont found that repeated, brief reminders of the advantages to be gained by quitting, the risks of not quitting, and the amount of support available can have a very positive impact on people’s ability to successfully quit smoking.
Hughes suggested that people should be encouraged to use “behavioural and supportive therapies” such as group work and one-to-one counselling.
That’s partly why I created the Finding Freedom group on Facebook — it provides a platform through which people who are quitting can come together and support each other while simultaneously reminding themselves of why they’re quitting.
It’s also why I’ve started doing some one-to-one mentoring and support, providing people with a safe space through which they explore the way quitting is affecting them mentally and emotionally.
Yet away from that, there are several things we can do to help us get those repeated, brief reminders using nothing more than our smartphones and a pack of post-it notes.
Remember earlier I said that maybe you should put your list of reasons for quitting in the notes on your phone? You can dig in and pull that out whenever you feel your motivation waning.
Don’t trust yourself to actually do that? Use the “reminders” or calendar function on your smartphone to set reminders that will go off at regular intervals.
Maybe you do it so that every couple of hours or so your phone gives you a quick “hey, you got this!” pick me up. Or maybe you use it to send you a helpful reminder when you really need it most, such as in trigger situations.
For example, if you struggle with not having that post-meal cigarette after dinner, set a reminder to go off around the time that you usually finish dinner that says “Hey! You’re doing great on your quit! You’re getting healthier all the time!”
That in itself can help you to stay the course even when those intense cravings strike.
Finally, consider using post-its or design some kind of fancy “motivational quote” style image and print them off. Put them in the places where you usually smoke the most, such as in your car or in certain rooms around the home.
For example, I used to do most of my smoking in my kitchen so, when I first quit, every time I walked into the kitchen would be like a little trigger for me. Something in my brain would say “hey, you usually smoke here, get to it!” so I put up post-its in the kitchen to remind me of why I was on that quit smoking journey.
It may only sound like a small thing, but trust me, it can be incredibly helpful in empowering us to tap into the sense of motivation that’s been inside of us the whole time.
