Your list of reasons to quit smoking carried with you and read daily can help you stay smoke-free and save your life.
It's such a simple concept but far more potent than it looks at first glance. Steeped in traditional old-fashioned learning techniques, the idea is based on repetition as a learning aid. And it works.
Creating the List
First, sit down in a comfortable place and reflect on specific reasons you have concluded that you want to quit smoking. Jot down each reason briefly and flesh it out later after all your bases are captured in writing.
Once you have the complete list, embellish it with a more vivid picture involving yourself to make it more natural. Put a minor detail in writing so you'll remember the image you've formed in your mind for this reason to quit.
Visualization
For instance, if one of your reasons for quitting is to stop having a stinky, smoky odor about yourself which no amount of perfume or aftershave will mask completely, make sure you "see" a picture in your mind.
Look at the nearly visible stench coming off you in waves and people shrinking away from you with thought balloons of "eeewwwww!!" This is visualization, and it is powerful.
Another of your reasons for quitting could be to avoid getting a life-threatening disease; if it's cancer, envision yourself strolling into an oncologist's (Cancer specialist) office and sitting down amongst the others in the waiting room.
Nobody is smiling, and many look sallow and emaciated; indeed, you see no healthy glow among them. And now you are worried. You are about to receive the news from your new physician that they have found lung cancer in your body.
Think how scary that would be for you and your family. Then picture a healthy glowing YOU in your mind because you stayed smoke-free!
Your Looks
Do you want to preserve your quality of life, your passion for life, and how about your looks? Smokers have wrinkles. As a smoker, you'll get wrinkles sooner and be picked out of a crowd even when you are not smoking.
The area just above and below your lips gets ugly lines; you get crow's feet, your skin gets less oxygen and loses elastin, and collagen changes shape. Your skin loses its healthy glow.
Your Passions in Life
Your passion for your sex life as a male is another reason you might want to quit. Smoking causes the blood vessels to constrict, restricting your ability as a man to get and maintain an erection.
Your quality of love life and HERS also suffer. You may find yourself not only spending more money on cigarettes but also spending dollars per erection courtesy of Viagra.
Your significant others might not tell you so, but kissing you is probably as romantic as licking an ashtray. Visualize these things. They will stick with you when you need them the most.
Perhaps you know that smoking shortens your lifespan. Did you know smoking also interferes with creating a healthy baby?
Infertility is a problem for smokers. Not only is secondhand smoke harmful to your children in many ways, but smoking also affects your unborn child. Pregnancy and smoking do not go together if you want your baby to be healthy.
One of your reasons for quitting may be to be able to watch your son or daughter grow up, attend and graduate college, get married, and have grandchildren of their own. What a wonderful picture for the future!
Crack that picture if you remain a smoker because you may not get the chance to see them grow up and get that diploma. You may not be there to give your daughter away at her wedding.
You may never get to meet your grandchildren and play with them. And the anguish of those you left behind feeling about your life and theirs being robbed due to a little rotten white cylinder filled with toxins and tobacco was the cause of it all, would fill an ocean of tears.
The Money Pit
Picture yourself having to decide between food for your family's table and cigarettes with which to feed your addiction. You may be making enough money now to be able to afford anything you want, but many smokers quit because the cost is too high in dollars alone.
Now that you want to stop thinking of all the extra things you can do with the $3 to $5 per pack per day you have been spending on making smoky lungs, and you'll see a world of possibilities out there.
Maybe you'd like to save up for your kid's college fees. How about a down payment on a new car? How about some new computing equipment? How about a beautiful smoke-free vacation of a lifetime for you and your spouse?
Write down YOUR goals for the money you'll save and start an Anti-money pit jar of savings and watch how fast it grows. Use some to reward yourself every week you stay smoke-free. Have a monthly celebration and the first year spend till you're silly! You've earned it!
Sports ability improvement
Your reasons for quitting should include your physical activity goals for the near future and the long run. Picture yourself running twice the distance you can run today. Smokers are not known for distance running, nor walking for that matter.
It takes oxygen and stamina and carbon-monoxide-free lungs to accomplish any meaningful exercising. Think of how winded you get when climbing stairs now. You won't miss that wheezing and gasping, will you? Please write it down as a reason for quitting and a goal to reach for. Picture yourself excelling at what you like to do!
Include "minor" reasons
Make your list include even minor reasons, like the inconvenience of running out to a convenience store to grab a pack when you're out. The way it makes your clothes and hair smell. That awful stench that comes from your car air conditioner after it's been locked up with your smoke fumes all day. The waste of good money.
The wasted time is smoking instead of working and trying to find a place to light up in the blistering heat or cold. List these and any of the many reasons for quitting that are personal to YOU.
Read that list every night before you go to bed and repeat one of the reasons ten times while looking at yourself in the mirror. Talk to yourself personally and up close! It may feel silly to do this, but it can help you quit smoking. Visualize yourself as a healthy non-smoker, free at last.
Carry the list with you daily
Suppose you are feeling the urge to smoke. In that case, the first thing you should do is think of "My List," whip it out and calm yourself down by reading the list and remembering the visualizations of the reasons you quit and tell yourself that you want to remain a non-smoker and see yourself BEING a non-smoker.
After that, you probably will not like that cigarette anymore. If you still do, get yourself to your support group in a hurry and talk to them before you pick up a smoke. You are NOT alone in this. Use your tools, and you will do it well one day at a time. Lists work!
