Richard has proudly supported the British Heart Foundation’s annual No Smoking Day for some years. As part of this, he developed his 7-Day NoSmoking Challenge, which you can access for yourself now!
It’s well known smokers are more likely to succeed in quitting when they have support. That’s why Richard is making his 7-day Challenge available to you. “The Challenge contains all the preparation work I give to my stop-smoking clients, before we meet for the one-off hypnosis treatment.” He explains how “It sets them up for success. In fact some clients have even quit before they come for treatment!’
THE DAILY CHALLEGES
DAY 1 The first step is facing up to the facts. Being properly aware of what you are doing.
CHALLENGE. Write down when you smoke – every single one, at the time you smoke it -for FIVE DAYS. No iffs or butts J – every single one!
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DAY 2 Ask yourself, seriously, who’s in charge of your life? A little cigarette or you? And remember, the only one you don’t have to smoke is the FIRST ONE. Just focus on that.
CHALLENGE: Make a little money box or pot (it could just be a mug) and you put in say 60p per every cigarette you smoke. Who can you find who also wants to become a non-smoker? How about challenging each other to see who can resist the most cigarettes over the SEVEN DAYS. Then donate the £ to charity!
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DAY 3 A lot of times people smoke, they tell me that it’s habit. They do it without even thinking. So this is about interrupting the habit. It means you have to actually CHOOSE to smoke… which is a significant step to introduce. Because choosing TO smoke, is the first step towards choosing NOT to smoke.
CHALLENGE: Change where you smoke.
– Do you smoke at home? Where? Are you willing to go to a different place, outside, to smoke. If you use the back garden, then either go to the front, or around the side of the house, or down the garden. –
– At work? Go to another place at least 50 metres away.
– In the car? Decide now to either smoke before you get in, or wait till you arrive. (If you drive for a living, then work out roughly how many you would smoke in an hour. If one, then smoke that on the hour. If two, then smoke on the hour and on the half past. If three, then twenty past and twenty two. Four – that’s on the quarter hour.)
Change where you smoke.
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DAY 4 People who successfully stop smoking, begin to consider reasons why they want to stop. These reasons need to be about YOU – they have to be PERSONAL
CHALLENGE: Ask yourself ‘Why do I want to stop?’ ‘Why else?’ Write down your answers.
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DAY 5 The next thing that successful quitters uniquely do, that others don’t, is they begin to dream of success. How will you feel when you have stopped? Physically, your energy, breathing and health.. and also emotionally – how will it be to achieve what you wanted?
CHALLENGE: Imagine you have succeeded in becoming a non-smoker. Go out to that time in the future, in your imagination and then, looking back, ask yourself ‘How have I benefited, personally, having become a non-smoker?’ ‘How else?’ Write down your answers. Then really daydream about that.
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DAY 6. Life can change, and what matters to us changes too. When you started to smoke, you had your reasons. Then maybe your reasons for smoking changed over time. Now things are different again. We need to “check in” with ourselves from time to time, to check why we do things.
CHALLENGE: Each time you smoke, stop and ask yourself “why am I smoking this? What true benefit do I get?” Is there another way of getting that benefit, of meeting that underlying need, in some better way?
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DAY 7 Think about this: are there times when smoking never occurs to you? Like the carpenter who smoked 40 a day told me “When I’m busy on a job the thought never enters my head to smoke.” “But come tea break, that’s different!” And the nursery worker who said “I never even think of smoking when I’m with the children” but again, once she finished at lunchtime, she smoked straight away. And of course, no-one wakes up at night desperate for a cigarette, do they? They do with heroin! So here’s the thought: if smoking is so addictive, how can people just put it off or ignore it like that? Either their mind plays a part, or it’s not so chemically addictive as we tend to think.
CHALLENGE: Calculate how much money will you have saved even in just one week? A month? A year?
Typically, smoking 10 to 20 cigarettes a day can amount to several hundred pounds per month, or literally ££-thousands a year! That’s a decent holiday’s worth! What would you spend it on?
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END OF CHALLENGE – WHAT NEXT? Congrats! – you finished your challenges. Quitter? Not yet a quitter? Not interested in stopping? How has this helped you?
HYPNOSIS DOWNLOAD
If you have completed the challenge, and haven’t yet fully stopped but feel motivated to use hypnosis to help you, then download the audio (complete with instructions) here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aqyl3cm2kmh9re8/stopsmoking.mp3?dl=1
or listen online at
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aqyl3cm2kmh9re8/stopsmoking.mp3?dl=0
I’d love to hear from you about how you got on! Richard@abetterlife-uk.com
