Smoking: The Most Successful Way To Fail

It may seem odd but lets talk about failure techniques. If you are raising an eyebrow, that's understandable, but just bear with me.

This is the reason I'm considering the negatives. If you think or expect you are going to fail you will probably seek out the quickest and most convenient way you can find to quit smoking. It is a common sly ruse of smokers whose only real desire is to shake off well meaning people so that they can say they tried. After promptly failing, they can carry on with their smoking with that 'I told you so' look on their face.

The funny thing is that these smokers do not fail at all. In an upside down kind of way they are very successful. They can chalk up several victories on the board. They succeed in showing everyone that they were going to try something and they did that. They succeed in failing quickly and they succeed in being able to smoke again. What is more, they actually find the easyist and most convenient way to keep on smoking by using the most effective way to fail. Is this thinking beginning to make sense now?

In psychology there is a technique called the law of comparisons. In order to make a comparison and ultimately a decision you must have more than one option. Most people would call this plain common sense without any psychological overtones. Anyway, let's examine two options.

When you started smoking did you think you would be at it as long as you have been? Did you truly think you would continue five, ten, 20 or more years? It probably never entered your mind, did it? So if you didn't think then about your future as a smoker, you probably haven't thought about your next five, ten or 20 years with the habit. You're not alone. Most smokers wouldn't give it a thought either.

Now let's take a smoker's journey into the future. What could smoking right up to the finish do for you? Imagine your life five years from now if you continue to smoke. Try to think what condition your body will be in after 20 cigarettes a day for those five years. You will have smoked at least another 35,000 cigarettes. After that amount what would this have done to your health? Maybe you will notice you are breathing a little more heavily. Think about what you would see, and what you would hear. And how would you feel? Does this gaze into the crystal ball trouble you at all?

We'll jump forward five more years so that we are looking at you ten years from now. You are even more breathless. You really notice the old lungs struggling as you climb the stairs or walk from your car or trot around the shops. We see that your skin has tightened a little and is now drying up. As you gaze more closely into that crystal ball maybe you notice there arefewer smokers around now, so you are feeling more alone and even more trapped than you do now. Repeat the exercise to observe what is happening to you, to listen to your breathing and coughing, and to see how you are feeling.

Have a peek at your reflection in the mirror. You look so old, and you're wheezing a little, aren't you? As you look closer you see your teeth have started to yellow. It must be very scary to see how all those years of smoking have taken their toll. Weigh up everything you have observed in your imaginary leap into the future and believe that this could be the result of your reason to continue to smoke.


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Doug Grahame. I tried for over 30 years to quit smoking and I always had the excuse for failing but after one very bad coughing fit one morning I sat down and had a good long look at myself, then I looked at myself in ten years time. Did not like what I saw, so I used the best program for me, to stop smoking. Am now 10 years free!!!
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