Elements of a Smoking Habit

Posted by Patrick Glancy

Imagine you wanted to start a habit. A strong, automatic way of thinking and acting. How do you start a habit like this? There are three basic ways; emotions, authority figures, and repetition.

Example:

We need a person to use for our example. Let’s use you, when you were 10 to 14 years old. For the sake of discussion, let’s use the smoking habit. Ok?

So when you were around that age I think we can safely assume you were learning about life and how you fit into it. If you were like most kids, you weren’t as confident about yourself as you would be later in life.

Kids that age sometimes feel self-conscious, dependent on others, powerless, not good enough, or??. We’ll call this feeling “bad”. This is not saying you felt miserable, but maybe didn’t feel “good” as you thought you should feel? Did you feel as “good” as you thought other people felt?

Maybe, maybe not. If you sometimes felt “bad” you probably wanted to feel better, you wanted to feel “good”. What your mind would see as an answer to this problem would depend upon your experiences and life lessons up to that point. Right?

How does a person learn things like that? Emotions, authority figures and repetition. You probably saw authority figures smoking - parents, family, friends, role models, and of course, advertisements. Smoking is perceived as tough, strong, independent, self-assured, and unique. All the “good” feelings you were feeling a lack of.

This would start a feeling in your mind, the beginning of a craving. A part of you that believes smoking is what your life needs to fix the bad feeling. Not just in a “knowing” way, but a “feeling” way. This concept will make the most sense to someone whom has tried to quit any strong habit, you know your “feelings” are stronger than your “knowing” any day.

Then you tried your first cigarette, and chances are that you weren’t so good at smoking. That would come with practice.

As life continues you come across situations that make you feel “bad” again and do what you’ve been taught makes you feel “good”. That is repeated emotions and practice and you have a strong habit.

People that have tried to quit smoking have spent a lot of time analyzing their habit, fighting themselves for control of cravings. But, you didn’t learn the smoking habit with the thinking and analyzing part of your mind, so why try to use that part of your mind to change the habit?

It is common sense to quit smoking using the same elements that created the habit. A “hypnotized” mind, along with emotions, authority figures and repetition. These are the elements of modern hypnosis.

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