Have you succeeded in big life-change and kept to it? As you think about it now was it one particular mental switch that made the difference? The other night my partner revealed how he finally quit smoking after many painful failed attempts. At the heart of his success was sticking to one simple rule. That was the ‘not even one puff rule’.

I suspect you don’t think that’s significant enough to make a quit attempt successful. However, if you’ve tried and failed you will know that game ‘Just one will be OK’. You play it in your head all day, like holding a revolver to your temple with one bullet in the barrel. Just a trigger away from being back where you started; a hooked smoker.

Quitting is easy; the hard part is to stay quit. Millions of smokers quit every day and go cold turkey. The sad fact is only a miserable one or two percent who launch their new non-smoker life this way actually succeed. There are millions of smokers and 70 percent want to quit. Add to that the fact that 90 per cent of smokers know their habit is killing them.

Successfully staying off cigarettes needs sustained motivation. The trick is understanding your own motivation to quit. Here are a couple of insights for you to consider and decide which one applies to you. Generally, a decision to quit is driven by either a need to solve and get away from a problem or a desire to gain and achieve something that’s highly worthwhile. Once you realise this, the rest is planning and reinforcing the good habit.

How Do You Start Giving Up?
Most smokers initiate a quit when their doctor warns them that the game is up and their habit is going to kill them. For others it’s when they realise their kids will take up the terrible habit if they don’t stop. They want to maintain their hero status and be around for their kid’s future and be healthy.

Whatever the trigger is that starts the quit the next bit is how to keep going. What do you do when your mates at work beg you to come out with them for a smoke? Perhaps your ‘friend’ keeps telling you just one won’t hurt. The trials of a quitting can be like the agony of a marathon runner who hasn’t trained properly.

Reasons to Keep Going
And there’s the clue, you don’t just start to run a marathon on the same day you decide to enter do you? Likewise, success with a lifestyle change like quitting comes if you prepare and train for it.

First step towards this great change is knowing what’s important to you about it. What’s it all for, why bother? If you can sit down and properly answer this on your own or with someone then you will have some clear goals to keep in mind when the going gets tough.

Goals drive people to do amazing things. For instance, my partner who has a breathing problem trains to run a marathon. Even though it causes him pain and takes up a lot of time. The goal that keeps him going is to have better health and lungs. He loves the feeling fit. In fact, it’s his personality. As a kid he was famous for running everywhere.

Goals can be positive or the kind that get you away from problems such as smelling of smoke, the guilty feeling you get when your kids know you’ve had a fag, again.

Imagine the Future
The next thing you can do is imagine what it will be like to be this new you enjoying life free from the burdensome habit of the weed. When you do this your mind and body knows what to aim for. That’s why a good hypnosis session with an expert will really get you on the road of being happy and not smoking.

You see as far as the brain is concerned once you’ve deeply imagined something it’s as good as having done it. Perhaps you’ve heard of sports psychology that athletes go through nowadays. They mentally run their race perfectly and repeatedly prior to the big day. When they race for real it’s a repeat of their perfect performance.

Also during a hypnotic session you’ll have experienced the change as if it were for real. Doing so triggers that sense of change at the identity level. This is the foundation of change you ‘become’ the you who doesn’t smoke and your belief systems starts to back this up.

Keep Practising
Consciously you support all this deep level change by committing to the daily practising of your new self. You decide that there’s no going back, not even for one puff. You know that that one puff is the end of the smokefree you. It’s a bit like riding a bicycle and then leaving it in a shed for a few years. You can get on and be a bit wobbly for a short while but then you’ll get the habit back.

People around will notice the change in you and you can enlist their help to keep you going. It’s great receiving praise from those important people in your life. Plan some meaningful milestones along the way for some rewards. Having something good to look forward to will reinforce the motivation and pleasure you’re getting from your success. Or if you’re motivated by solving a problem the satisfaction of know you’ve overcome You know what they say, success breeds success.

You might be curious enough to test your motivation and complete my questionnaire ‘Are You Ready to Quit?’