Every year around this time, many people get into a reflective mood thinking about the past year. And every year we make resolutions about things we are going to change. Personal goal setting has become a cliche’ among corporate America, so-called life coaches, and unmotivational speakers everywhere. Here’s how I deal with resolutions, so sit back and enjoy a good cigar (unless your resolution is to quit smoking, in which case it should be cigarettes your quiting , not cigars).
First, you have to really not focus on it. I know this goes against everything you have ever been led to believe but I’ll give you an example.
I quit smoking cigarettes about 5 years ago, cold turkey. I didn’t make a big fuss about it, although I had been thinking about it for a while, I didn’t announce it to the world , I didn’t have a big last smoke out, none of that. I remember I was working on my car and I lit up a cigarette and smoked it and when I was done I flicked it off into the air and I said that’ll probably be my last one.
And it was for about 6 months, then I slipped and smoked a couple with a friend (sounds bad huh?LOL). Did I say,” the hell with it, I already screwed up what’s the point?” No, I simply dismissed it as a minor infraction and went on. This happened a couple of times again and each time it became less frequent, it’s now been well over 3 years since I have smoked a cigarette.
During the intial part of my quit smoking plan (or lack thereof), I had an assignment for a psychology class in college which had us keep a diary of something we wanted to change. Perfect , I thought. I’ll just use my quiting smoking as the behaviour I wanted to change and I’ll get an easy A. The diary I kept worked like personal goal setting worksheets. In them I would write down per the assignment how and what I was doing to change that behaviour. Some of the things I listed were:
- visualize with each smoke inhalation my lungs turning darker
- imagine the tar being soaked up by the lungs and spreading as a thick sludge through my arteries
- believe that for every smoke particle I inhaled, one cancer cell would form
Some of this sounds extreme, but it works. You get so tired of thinking of all this stuff that you eventually say screw it I quit. As I said, I had already quit while doing this assignment, even though I was in the midst of minor relapses, but it did help to reinforce my decision.
Remember, if you don’t accomplish what you do the first time around, just keep doing it. I’m now cigarette free, I honestly don’t even think about it. I’m able to enjoy a cigar once a week, without worrying that I might start smoking cigarrettes again.
It takes time, but you’ll get there.