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If you’ve been a smoker for any length of time, you’ve given thought to quitting. Why haven’t you? Because you keep making excuses like “Now’s not a good time for me” or “I need to lose some weight first.” You know exactly what I mean because if you haven’t said these words, you know someone who has.

First things first. Get out a notepad and spend some time writing down the exact reasons that are driving you to rid yourself of this habit. Then once you are done with that, turn the page over and jot down all the reasons (excuses) you might make to justify why you haven’t.

Just putting excuses down on paper so that they are something solid you can see is enough to make some people look at how silly they really are. For others, they may have to analyze their list of excuses and figure out why they believe these reasons to be true. Usually it is due to repetition. You’ve been telling yourselves for years that these are the reasons why you smoke, and if you tell yourself something enough times, eventually it will become an ingrained belief, whether it is the truth or not.

Have a look at a few of the most often stated excuses and apply them to your list if applicable, however in the end it is your job to list every single excuse as to why you smoke that you can think of.

“Smoking helps to keep me thin.”

The blunt answer to this one is ‘who cares!’ Studies have shown that you are better off to be 70+ pounds overweight than to smoke when it comes to your health, but that’s not a goal you are looking to attain either. The truth is that yes, some people do gain weight after quitting, but this is usually less than twenty pounds and if that frightens you, then this problem can be easily remedied by careful and detailed planning before you quit. Get it through your mind that you are not going to substitute food for cigarettes and if you do, it is healthy foods like celery, carrots and fruit, not candy bars, chips and other ‘comfort food’.

“Smoking is too enjoyable to quit.”

If that were truly so, then chances are you wouldn’t be sitting there now gathering information on quitting, would you? Don’t worry. I’m not picking on you. I used to say the very same thing. Making statements such as this creates one major issue. And that is the fact that the more times you say it, the more you become to believe it. I’ve said it before. So time to come clean and be honest with yourself, is smoking really that enjoyable or is it just a fallacy you’ve convinced yourself to be true? What is it that you think smoking gives you? More money, better health and cleaner, fresher breath? Looking at it from that angle and writing down the answers will show you that you really don’t enjoy smoking that much at all.

Now don’t take those statements as viscious or cruel. In no way are they meant to be that way. What they are meant to be is a wake up call - and one that I needed as well. If, as smokers, we keep making excuses as to why we continue the habit, the outcome is that we will remain addicted to the nicotine. And the sooner we realize this reality, the easier quitting will be.

You have what it takes to beat those lies, once and for all.

Tags: Health

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