“How do you not think of smoking when hanging around smokers and you when you even blog about smoking?”

This was a question that a friend asked me recently who saw how I had struggled at the beginning when I came to quit. He was amazed at the fact that when I finally made up my mind to quit smoking, despite several failed attempts, I have seriously quit even though I hang out with a lot of friends who smoke and tempt me all the time to smoke, and I run a quit smoking blog :)

So how do I not “Think” about smoking?’

Not such an easy question to answer, I couldn’t really give him a direct answer and have resolved to posting it up on this blog? I hope you like it Michael!

From my experience when I think about why I struggled in my latter days to quit and how I came about to finally quit smoking, it comes down to a few things I did differently and here they are, I just hope they help and encourage you to quit and stay quit or at least motivate you to attempt your next quit.

1. I quit and quit and quit and quit. I hope you get the idea here! I tried over and over again. I failed and failed and failed. My quits ranged from a couple of weeks, to sometimes months and I even had a relapse after a long six months off the cigarettes, but I got back to quitting in no time, sometimes a relapse would be just one cigarette but nevertheless it is considered smoking.

The lesson: to be learned here is never give up, NEVER. If it doesn’t happen today it will happen tomorrow when your body and mind are both ready.

2. As for not thinking about cigarettes I began by keeping myself occupied. When I decided to quit, I took up a new sport, being the extreme person that I am I decided on rock climbing. To say the least it’s one very stressing activity yet very fulfilling and had me coughing up all the toxins within days.

Let me mention this, I hadn’t done ANY sports in four years, so when I went for my first rock climbing session, not only did I come back home short of breath and worn out with stiff muscles, I came back home with a super great sense of well being. A concept that had become lost in my life was soon ignited. I came to realize that by climbing that 25 meter stretch of wall, the same endorphins that were activated by nicotine were active on an even greater intensity in my brain! I could feel it and I just couldn’t stop smiling and actually laughed all the way home. WOW what a high that was!

Lesson here: Take up a sport, it does not have to be something so extreme but something you will enjoy. The trick here is to let this sport activity take over from the cigarettes in it’s role of keeping your endorphins kicking.

3. Finally I have engaged on a personal goal of daily learning. Everyday I have to improve myself in some way or another. Any learning material I can get my hands on I make use of it. Even though I know there is no way I would get back to smoking, I still read every material I can about quitting smoking. The reason being, there is a gold nugget in every learning program that is available. Now don’t get me wrong when I say learning I do not mean just about quitting smoking I mean any subject that gets me going.

This learning and all the new knowledge I have acquired has conditioned my mind in a way to realize what is ultimately useful in my life and what is not and has helped me advance in ways I could never imagine. Oh and you guessed it, for sure I came to realize that smoking was a useless habit. The idea of continuing it just does not appeal to me anymore. I have to mention hypnosis did help me reinforce the idea of staying quit during the early stages, it helped me greatly, and not just for quitting smoking I have used it in other ways to improve my life and change a couple of habits, its an awesome natural remedy for curing yourself.

Lesson here: Preoccupy your thoughts with new and interesting material/knowledge that will engange you and help you develop your brain and mind it could take your life to a whole new level.

Finally to sum up I think I can confidently say, find ways to keep your Mind, Body and Soul occupied with fulfilling activities and whatever it is you want will come to you with ease.