How to Quit Smoking: Kick the Habit in the Butt and Don’t Look Back

Being honest with yourself, understanding your triggers and reasons for smoking, taking personal responsibility, and realizing that the power to stop smoking is YOURS and yours alone are the keys to becoming a non-smoker.

Preparing to Become a Non-Smoker

Before you become a non-smoker, you’ll need to prepare your mind and your environment.

Preparing your mind

Take a minute – yes, right now – to make a short list of words or phrases that describe you. Don’t overthink it – do it quickly. Write down whatever words come to mind.

Now, look over your list.

The words and phrases you wrote are good indicators of your self-concept.

Is “smoker” (or some variation) one of them?

Here’s why I asked: The first – and perhaps most important – step to becoming a non-smoker is to stop thinking of yourself as a smoker.

In fact, it would greatly benefit you to consider yourself a non-smoker NOW.

That’s because there is power in “faking it until you make it.”

If you see yourself as a smoker, it is part of your self-image, or self-concept.

Your self-concept started developing in early childhood, and everything you have done and experienced throughout your life has contributed to its formation.

If you have tried to stop smoking in the past and have not succeeded, it is very likely that a negative self-concept – one of failure – has been reinforced in your mind.

You will always act – and can ONLY act – like the type of person you SEE yourself to be in your mind.

If you see yourself as a smoker, you will behave like a smoker.

If you see yourself as a non-smoker, you will behave like a non-smoker.

(Continue reading for more on mental and physical preparation and the BEST way to quit smoking for good…)