Yesterday was supposed to be the first day of my 15 day challenge where my main focus is stopping smoking. Sadly it didn’t happen.
I started the day convinced that I was going to be able to make it through my first day of non smoking. About half way through the day I had a load of things go wrong with my work and at the same time a bunch of other problems all hit me at the same time. I got so stressed that I gave in and went to grab a pack of cigarettes. It is amazing how these problems always come at the most inconvenient times. Also amazing how my brain will twist the stress of something to convincing me that I need to smoke.
Anyway, I have committed myself to getting back on track with my mission to quit the ciggies.
This is not some spur of the moment thing, it is actually something that I have been planning for a few weeks and these are some of the things I have set up for the next couple to help me become a non-smoker.
The first thing that I have coming up that will make this maybe easier is that I have a bit of travelling coming up where I will be sat on buses and trains for hours at a time, the big challenge here is breaking my usual habit of in between journeys where I would chain smoke knowing that I had massive journeys ahead of me where I cannot smoke.
The other clever little trick that I am doing is that I have a website project that I am working on at the moment that is in the ‘quit smoking’ market. Most of the work is carried out by my guys in the Philippines, but I still have to oversee it all. So my job for the next few weeks will involve reviewing content that is all about stopping smoking. I’m having to deal with all those nasty pics of cut open black lungs aswell as having too review alot ‘how to quit smoking’ articles and should pick up a few extra tricks to help me quit along the way. This niche site project is totally intended to help put me off the whole smoking thing and perfect timing, as with the new year ahead alot of peeps will be searching for info on how to stop smoking for the new years resolutions so once everything is in place it will also provide generate a nice little bit of passive income.
The other thing I have done is got loads of food supplies in with my intention that I am going to eat my way through this. I have heard so many times from people that successfully quit smoking that end up eating more. So I’m welcoming this and am gonna consciously make an effort to eat more and roll with it. I’m also using my replacement trick of trying to tackle a craving for a cigarette by instead eating a carrot for example.
My dirty little back up plan that I have sort of threatened myself with is the idea of using some extreme indulgence to put myself off cigarettes. The idea is that I would get a full pack of 20 cigarettes. cut the top and bottom off and smoke a full packet in one go. This would most likely make me sick or at least batter my lungs so much that I will not want a cigarette for a while, which would help kill my cravings. I am hoping that I don’t have to resort to using this crazy idea, but it is there as an emergency plan.
The other thing that I’m quitting again (well for the next 2 weeks anyway) is the coke. Which after the success of 30 days with out drinking any, I have now slipped back into dirty old ways and am drinking loads of coke again. I’m also continuing with my mission to write more whilst juggling several projects all at the same time, I’m thinking that keeping myself extremely busy will also help me stay off the cigs.
Oh these next couple of weeks are gonna be tough for me. I say, “Bring it on !”
Hey, and while we’re on the subject of challenges, have you voted for me yet ?
