In this blog post about New Year's Resolutions, we want to help smokers understand how to quit smoking with advice and inspiration for how to make your 'give up smoking' New Year Resolution succeed.
First, to make your resolution work, you should have a strong and firm desire to quit.
In other words, you should really want to give up smoking.
Many smokers, especially young smokers, might think it would be nice not to smoke, but they don't really feel it's a problem.
So they don't really want to stop smoking at the moment.
They might also feel that it won't matter if they keep smoking for a little longer - and they are might think that they can stop anytime at a later date, if they really want to.
So with this attitude it will only be a half-hearted attempt to quit smoking as a new year resolution. And it probably won't work.
You must want to quit and you must take it seriously if you are going to quit.
The longer you put off quitting smoking, the harder it will usually become.
This is because many smoking habits become ingrained in your life and your nicotine addiction will grow stronger.
So if you make a resolution you should try to have a strong desire stop smoking because you know that smoking is having a negative impact on your life and health.
Second, you must have a strong belief that you can quit smoking. If you want to quit and you believe that you can do it, then you will be able to give up smoking.
Third, you need an effective method. Many smokers think that the most "natural" way to quit ismoking is by using willpower.
Some smokers think that quitting by getting a helping hand is somehow for the 'weak' smokers.
Don't think that. Smoking is a drug dependence - an addictiion.
The drug smokers are addicted to is called nicotine and is in the cigarettes. If you are a smoker then nicotine is always in your brain too. For most people, willpower is not enough to fight a drug addiction.
As soon as you decide to quit and stop smoking, the nicotine drug in your brain creates "nicotine withdrawal symptoms" as the body is deprived of the drug nicotine.
This can feel very uncomfortable and most people often start smoking again because they only way to remove unpleasant nicotine withdrawal symptoms is by giving your brain a fresh dose of nicotine from a cigarette.
For most people's willpower cannot defeat nicotine. You have to "weaponize your willpower" with information and a method that can fight and defeat the nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
That's what the Stepbac® from Smoking method is. It's a way to boost your willpower with knowledge and a method which will help you to defeat the nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
When you know how to use Stepbac® method, it will feel much easier to win the fight against nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
When is a good time or day to stop smoking?
You can stop smoking any day of any month, but the new year is a good time as any to stop smoking as long as you don't have too many other resolutions to work on.
The biggest reason that new years resolutions fail is that people make too many of them. Make a list of 3 things. Then pick one thing and make it happen.
A good thing about quitting smoking as a new year resolution is that you can start the resolution any time during January.
Some people think that a New Year's resolution has work on the first day of a new year. That is not necessary. You can start any time in January.
Another good thing about quitting in January might be that it's a little easier to count the months and years since you stopped smoking.
And you won't be alone if you quit in January. Millions of people make New Year Resolutions.
In the USA alone it is estimated that 160 million Americans make a mental list or written list of New Year’s resolutions every January. If you are a smoker then you will probably have made many "quit smoking" resolutions.
New book “Stepbac from Smoking”
Why do new year resolutions fail?
The concept of New Year's resolutions is 4,000 years old and dates back to 1894 BC and the ancient Babylonians, who were a people in the Middle East region. The Babylonians celebrated the new year in March, when crops were planted.
They apparently made lots of promises to the gods to be better people and lead better lives, if only the gods would make the harvest a good one!
We don't know if the Babylonians were better at keeping their resolutions than we are, but we do know that 4000 years later, most of us don't really have a clear idea of how to make our new year resolutions work - especially the hard ones like quitting smoking.
What seems to happen, is that after a few years of failed resolutions, longtime smokers often lose hope and they no longer believe that they really can quit smoking.
What smokers are good at quitting, is quitting making new year resolutions, which of course is much easier than quitting smoking. It's understandable that people give up quitting. Most smokers often try quitting two or three times and fail and then they give up quitting. Why repeat a failure and feel miserable again?
So after trying to quit a few times over the years, it is easy to see how one might lose a little hope every year. As the years of being a smoker pass, perhaps smokers might also became more worried and anxious about how they will manage to get through life without a cigarette.
Another fear for long term smokers, is that they start to think that they might be the "only ones who cannot quit." They see others around them quitting one by one, but they just can’t seem to do it. They start to be convinced that they are different and they are the only ones who just don't have what it takes to quit.
Well here's the good news. They do have what it takes. Everyone does. Anyone can quit smoking with a little help. All of this fear and worry is a myth. Anyone can quit. The fear and worry comes from their so-called “friend”, the cigarette.
Yes, while smokers often think that cigarettes calm them and help them relax when ironically they are the things that end up making a smoker worried sick and scared to death.
Well, this willpower drain is just one of the sneaky ways that nicotine addiction afffects you when you smoke. Nicotine messes with our brain and drains our willpower which leaves smokers feeling small and weak-willed about quitting smoking.
Don't give up hope! At Stepbac we firmly believe that anyone can quit smoking - and what’s more you can quit anytime. A new year is a good time to quit, but really any day, any week and any month is just as good.
If others can quit smoking, then you can quit too. Never think and never believe that you do not have what it takes to stop smoking because you do! You just need to believe in yourself and learn how to quit.
Remember that smokers, just like you, do many incredible things in their life. They work hard, they earn promotions, they save money, they build houses, they raise children, they put them through college, they care for sick relatives, they do charity and community work, they lose loved ones, they have accidents, they make tough decisions, they overcome setbacks, they get up when they have been knocked down.
Are smokers weak willed? No! Smokers have the same joys, sadness, fortune, misfortune, adversity and challenges as everyone else.
Do they overcome all life’s challenges because they smoke? Do cigarettes strengthen their willpower to help them overcome the tough times. No! Of course not.
People use their own force of will, courage and character to face and overcome the daily challenges of life. Cigarettes don't help with this at all anymore than coffees or mars bars do.
We get through tough times ourselves using our willpower and character. Do you really think, that if you did not smoke, your life would collapse and you would not be able to handle everything life throws at you. Of course not.
Think of all the things you accomplished before you started smoking. Many of us were in our teens when we started smoking. But before that we faced challenges at school and in our teen years. We faced them without cigarettes.
Cigarettes don’t solve any problems or even help solve them. Cigarettes are a problem. Think of the non-smokers you know and ask yourself how they deal with the problems of life without the “comfort” of a cigarette.
They deal with them just fine without cigarettes because cigarettes do not solve problems. So believe that you can quit when you want and that when you do will have one less problem.
But to succeed in quitting you need two things. You need to want to quit and you need to know how to quit. We assume that most smokers eventually really want to quit because smoking is such a hassle not to mention being a health hazard.
Knowing how to quit smoking is really the key to success. You cannot learn to quit smoking by reading 5 quick tips online about how to quit smoking for 2018. We are not saying, it can't be done but you are making it harder for yourself by not taking a few hours to learn exactly how to quit.
Ask yourself this. Let's say you want to drive a car. Would you search Google for 5 quick tips on how to drive a car without passing a driving test. Or if you want to make a lasagne, would you search online for 10 tips for how make lasagne without a recipe?
Probably not. You can’t make a lasagne just be deciding to make one. You can’t drive a car just by deciding to drive it. It's pretty much the same with quitting smoking.
Many people think they can quit just by deciding to quit. Well.. you can try that.. Just the same as you can try making a lasagne without the recipe. You probably won’t be successful. IT can be done, if you get the right instruction and the recipe. Then quitting smoking is like cooking lasagne or baking a cake; it’s easy when you have the recipe and know how to do it.
The “recipe” for learning how to quit smoking is in our book "Stepbac® from Smoking" Buy it today on Amazon in e-book version or in paperback. It’s written in a light easy-reader style with lots of diagrams to help understand how to quit smoking cold turkey.
Then you can quit as a New year Resolution for 2020 or why not make another kind of resolution, a Better Life Resolution and quit today, or tomorrow.
Good luck and don’t forget to have faith in yourself. We know you can do it. You just need a little help, a little planning and then you too will be able to quit smoking once and for all.
DISCLAIMER. Individual results may vary
Please click on the link below to view the book in the Amazon Bookstore.
Buy Quit Smoking book "Stepbac® from Smoking"