Do you have a bad habit you desperately want to quit?
And I am sure you must have looked up on the internet or read something about how you can quit it.
If you have looked it up, then some of these might sound familiar to you:
– Habit routines
– Go cold turkey
– Affirmations
– 21 days challenge
– 90 day challenge
– Change your environment
– Change your mind
– Be more present
Blah, blah, blah.
Do they really work? Yeah, maybe for 5% of people.
But what about you? Why didn’t it work for you?
Here’s why.
I used to smoke. And just like any sane person, I wanted to quit. Desperately.
I was willing to do anything. Give any amount of money, try the worst tasting soup, eat any insect, animal, or bird, or sit in a graveyard at 2 am.
Anything. That was the level of my desperation.
And just like you, I read books, saw hours of videos, even went to see a hypnotist. Nothing worked.
But then one day, something clicked.
You see, while I was trying all these different methods to quit, I started seeing a pattern.
A pattern that was common in all these methods and techniques I used trying to quit my habit of smoking.
And seeing and understanding this PATTERN was what actually helped me to quit. Let me explain how it works.
The one Pattern no one told you about:
All the self-help books, motivational stuff created to help you quit your bad habit have a basic 3 part structure:
- Problem
- Understanding
- Solution
So, it teaches you more about your problem, helps you understand it better and then it gives you an actionable solution.
You try it for a few days, then what happens?
You’re back doing the same stuff. It fails to make a permanent change.
So how can we make it permanent? Is it even possible?
I honestly don’t know. But what I’ve figured, what helped me quit smoking permanently, is this:
If you can look at your habit from the outside of this 3 part structure of problem, understanding and solution, you will realize that all three originate from the same source: YOUR OWN MIND.
You know you have a problem – using your mind
You find how to fix the problem – using your mind
You understand the problem – using your mind
You use the solution to the problem – using your mind
The real solution isn’t outside, it is inside you.
The real solution is a deep observation of your own mind to understand how it makes you repeat the bad habit over and over again.
Your mind is the greatest conman in the world. It is the world’s greatest, smartest, and the most intelligent manipulator.
Why do I say so?
Because whenever you try to quit any habit, it knows all the counter reasons to make you do it.
It knows exact words, exact feelings, exact emotions that will hook you back to the habit.
So to quit a habit, you have to understand what your mind is SAYING to you to make you repeat that habit.
And I can guarantee, the moment you’re able to detach yourself and see how your own mind tricks you, you’ll be laughing your guts out.
Because you will know all its tricks.
It’s like you were so fascinated by a magic trick performed on the stage by a magician. And then you go backstage and see how it actually works..
And you’d be like,
“Oh. Is that it?”
Now the real challenge is how are we going to catch it.
Here’s what I did
I made a list.
A list of actual things my mind used to talk me into smoking.
I’ll give you a few examples. This may sound crazy, but honestly these are the exact words my mind used to trick me into smoking again and again.
Here are some examples from my 8 page list. (yes it was that long)
“Last time.”
“Last 100%”
“The weather is great, one cigarette.”
“I’m stressed, just one.”
“It’s been almost a month, one won’t do any harm.”
“One doesn’t even count.”
“Oh common’ it’s the weekend.”
“Only with a glass of wine.”
“It’s raining. You love smoking when it rains.”
“Ok this is it, last, this is the last. No more.”
“I’m alone.”
“I’m tired.”
And there were hundreds of others.
And it went on for 8 pages straight. And I’m talking about A4 size pages.
Each sentence on that list was used by my own mind to convince myself to light up again.
And when I was reading that list, what really surprised me was how intelligent the mind is.
I mean, it knows the exact phrase, and I mean the exact phrase that will hypnotize into repeating your bad habit.
How is it able to convince us with these meaningless words?
You see, the thing is when you stay away from a bad habit, you start feeling good, you start feeling healthy because you start healing.
We forget the old times, we forget why we quit in the first place? And that is the moment of weakness when the mind gets you.
Here’s how you can get yourself out of this situation
Make the list of excuses your mind uses on you to make you repeat the habit. You have to do this. Because without doing this, it’s impossible to catch your mind.
It’s a trickster, it’s a conman, it’s a manipulator. And it will do everything in its power to manipulate you. So you have to be aware of these things.
And once you start getting aware, what it is doing to you, and what kind of excuses it uses to trick you, you’ll start getting detaching from it.
It loses its power over you.
You will see through how the mind is controlling you and dominating you and using you for its own pleasure.
So here’s the TOOL OF MASTERY for quitting your bad habit:
A high level of awareness
+
Writing down all the reasons, all the tricks, all the manipulation techniques, all the sentences, all the phrases that your mind has used in the past to trick you into repeating the bad habit you want to quit.
That’s it.
So whenever you’re in a situation where the mind uses that line, you’ll be like,
“Yeah, really? Yeah, right. Oh really, you got something better?”
It instantly gives you power over the mind.
Find all the tricks, all the sentences, all the phrases, good deep.
Sit down and recall what happened the last time you were about to quit?
Zero down to the exact words it used on you, and you’ll be liberated from the clutches of your mind.
Forever.
P.S: If you’re addicted to smoking or drinking or both and would like to quit it,
Check out my book, ‘How to Quit Smoking & Drinking’