So, You've Decided To Become a Non-Smoker

5 Steps To Becoming a Non-Smoker (Even If You've Tried Quitting Before)

As you would imagine, one of the key requests that hypnotherapists receive is to assist people to stop smoking. Many people reach the point where they logically know that smoking is bad for them and that it is time to quit, yet seem to struggle with finally telling the habit to butt out.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to run a series of blog posts that will explore what steps you need to take to help you finally get to the point where you can become a non-smoker.

It isn't uncommon for me to meet people who have stopped smoking before but who then went on to fall back into the smoking trap. It might've been a stressful situation. It might've been a friend who convinced them that 'just one won't hurt'. It might've been just a moment in time when it all just felt too hard. Whatever the reason, it started up again and that moment of defeat can often feel like becoming a non-smoker is almost impossible.

Let me tell you though, many people relapse after they've stopped smoking and this can often be a good thing as it is an indication that there was still something unresolved there that you're now one more step closer to. Once all those reasons for smoking have been addressed and reframed, then the desire and need to smoke simply just falls away.

My hope is this; smoking is one of the leading causes of heart disease and cancer globally and the more people can discover skills and tactics to deal with their habitual behaviour and to allow themselves greater freedom to finally leave that old smoking behaviour aside, the better. I hope that these blogs posts over the next few weeks bring you one step closer to that.

Who is responsible for your change?

Whenever anyone comes to see me, I'll often begin by asking them if they're truly ready to make the change to become a non-smoker today?

If they answer yes, I'll then ask them who is responsible for making that change today?

If they come back with an answer anything less than an indication that they are 100% responsible for their change, then I need to push back on to them and make them realise that regardless of the skills and techniques I will teach them to help them become a healthy non-smoker for life, the choice to become that non-smoker is 100% their own.

They had a choice at some point to try their first cigarette and they made the decision to become a smoker. That choice was 100% theirs. If you can accept that the decision to become a smoker was entirely yours, then you also need to accept that the outcome in becoming a non-smoker is entirely yours as well.

I ended up creating a process to help people become non-smokers that I call the D.R.E.A.M. Process.

The benefit of something like the D.R.E.A.M. Process is that it is going to highlight many of the beliefs that you may have that keep that smoking habit in place. Once you start to shine a light onto them and to blow them up, reframe or dismantle them, they simply just don't work any more. You begin to see them for the trick that they are and so it becomes so much easier for you to make that honest, genuine, committed decision to become a non-smoker.

That starting point is still the same; are you ready to become a non-smoker? If your response is a 100% resounding YES, then becoming a non-smoker is going to be easy for you. If your response is less than 100%, or anything less than a 10/10, then it is time to begin digging deeper so that you can change your relationship with that smoking habit and increase that motivation until it is a rock solid 10/10.

TAKEAWAY POINT: Unless you are 100% committed to becoming a non-smoker, you risk relapsing at some point. You, and only you, have to make that decision and fully, honestly and genuinely commit.