If you have tried to quit smoking at any time, you would more than likely have used the phrase ‘I am giving up smoking.’
I would like to introduce to you the fact this phrase may be doing more harm than good.
If you don’t get what I mean, you may be sabotaging your quit atempts from the very beginning. In this article you will learnt his phrase actually carries negative connotations and can subliminally hinder your quit attempts when repeated over and over to yourself. At the conclusion of this article you will see the more you tell yourself you are ‘giving up,’ the less likely it is you will have success with stopping smoking.
“I am giving up smoking”, it’s a common saying that we have all heard at one time or another. It is so common in fact, that I don’t think we even realise what it actually means or implies. When you are trying to stop smoking one of the worst things you can say, or even think, is the term “giving up.”
‘Giving up’ something implies loss. You ‘give up’ things you care about and cherish. Like you would ‘give up’ your nightly bath to save power. You would ‘give up’ your morning coffee at a cafe to save money.
The term “giving up” has a strong negative connotation, that implies you are stopping something that is a great thing in your life. It does not enforce that you want to quit, it actually does the opposite. You may not even realise this is happening, but every time you say or think you are “giving up” you are inviting in negative thoughts and feelings.
When you stop smoking, it is a positive experience. You are not giving up anything, on the contrary, the benefits are endless. You get healthier, you save money, you don’t stink of smoke any more, etc etc.
Now I can imagine some people out there are reading this and thinking “Smoking is a great thing in my life and I enjoy doing it.”
Well, I can sympathise with that because I used to think exactly the same way. This didn’t stop me from wanting to quit though, because the thought of dying young just wasn’t very appealing to me.
The first few times I tried to quit, I went into it thinking “I am giving up.” I felt like I was losing something dear to me. Well guess what, I couldn’t quit. It wasn’t until I changed my way of thinking and stopped using the term “giving up” that I ironically “gave up”.
Instead of thinking I enjoyed cigarettes and the positives it brought into my life, I turned it around 180 degrees and concetrated on the positives. I no longer thought I was “giving up cigarettes” but that I was gaining life, I was gaining freedom, I was gaining good health, I was gaining more money.
I kept on reinforcing these thoughts and before long I was no longer thinking or feeling like I enjoyed cigarettes, I actually I hated them.
It wasn’t until I had been free from smoking for about two months that I realised that I never in fact enjoyed the act of smoking, what I actually enjoyed was relieving my nicotine craving. My craving was at such a level that it had fooled my brain into thinking that I actually enjoyed the bad taste, the bad smell, the having to go outside every half an hour etc.
I never enjoyed any of those things but it took to thinking of it as not “giving up smoking” but instead “what am I gaining from not smoking” to realise this.
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