I started smoking cigarettes when I was 17 because it was fun and forbidden and gave me a good buzz, especially when I was drinking.

By the time I was 19 I was smoking up to a pack a day. Every time I hit that threshold and smoked more than a pack I would consciously dial the habit back, in a vain attempt to convince myself that I wasn't one of "those guys".

By 21 I had accepted the fact that I was addicted, and started to fantasize about quitting. Every time I stepped back inside from smoking and realized how much my clothes stank, every time I dug around in the console of my car for extra quarters to buy cigarettes with, every time I brushed my teeth and spat brown into the sink. 

 

I would think - "Damn, that's enough. I'll just finish this pack and call it good."

At 23, after a few false-stops over the years, I finally quit cold-turkey. Gave away the pack I was working on and didn't buy another. I was frankly amazed at my own ability to do it.

Because, no shit people. It's hard to do. 

 That was two years ago, since then I have probably smoked about a pack total, mostly bummed from one of my old college buddies (I know, I'm that guy … Fuck me, right?) on the rare weekends when our favorite women have left us to go do woman things and we are allowed to play our nerdy board games and consume adult beverages immoderately. 

 But this post is not about my confession or "Success Story", such as it is. 

 

This post is about the things that I learned about my own short-term compulsive behavior, and how I was able to manipulate it to better serve my long-term interests.

 I think that these lessons will be valuable to the Steemit community, not because I am trying to convince anyone else to quit cigarettes, but because our ability to form and break habits - to take control of the animal brain - is one of the single most important factors that will make or break our overall success in life. 

 Here are the main reasons I believe that my last attempt to quit was successful, where previous attempts had failed. In list format, because everybody loves a good list ;) 

 

1. Stop Making Promises to Yourself

Promises are bullshit. Stop promising things. Stop creating ultimatums and deadlines and arbitrary rules in your brain and then feeling guilty and defeated every time you fail to meet them.

In fact, when it comes to compulsive behaviors, stop telling yourself you are going to make any permanent choices or hit any long-term objectives whatsoever. Your animal brain DOESN'T FUCKING CARE. 

 

The most successful strategy I ever employed in the process of quitting cigarettes was literally the opposite. I would tell myself "I'm just going to skip this one cigarette in the morning, don't worry animal brain, we can smoke an extra one this afternoon if you like."

 Then when the afternoon came around I would delay by one more day - dare myself to go to bed without a cigarette and promise my compulsive demon that it could have as many smokes as I wanted in the morning. 

 Weeks turned to months turned to years, and although I haven't taken up smoking again, I haven't made any commitments either. As far as I'm concerned, I can smoke a cigarette tomorrow just because I feel like it, and it won't change anything or break down my will or discourage me if I do that - because I haven't promised myself anything. 

 It's amazing how well this level of self-imposed reverse psychology works. But it does! Your animal brain is not very smart, and only functions in the short term. 

 "I'll just finish this one last pack, and then I'll quit." was the dumbest thing I could have ever told myself, because I was giving myself permission to keep smoking in the current moment, which is the only moment that matters. 

 As I mentioned before, I ended up giving away the last pack that I purchased while it was still half full. I handed it to a coworker and informed him that I was cutting back. Instead of promising myself that I would quit, I assured myself that the cigs were still there, and I could go back to my coworker and borrow one whenever I needed - there was no need to panic or feel stressed about the decision. This small difference in how I thought about the problem made a huge impact in my success. 

 

2. Stop Trying so Hard

Self-control has less to do with tenacity than people think, and more to do with strategy. If you try to white-knuckle your way through every problem with the same grim determination that you might apply to working out in the gym, you are going to fucking fail. It's as simple as that. You cannot erase bad habits with sheer willpower, or create good ones. Not consistently anyway. 

 

You need to stop trying and start thinking. Examine the problem, find out what NEED in your life the undesired habit or compulsion is filling, and try to address that need with a better solution.

 In the case of cigarettes, the most addictive thing for me was that they offered a mental break from working. I could step outside, clear my head and get a nice buzz. Very often, I used it as a problem solving technique in it's own right. If I was stuck on a sentence or hated the prospect of opening 3 more emails, I would step out for a cigarette. By the time I got back, my head would be clear, I would have more energy, and very often I would have a good solution for whatever problem had stumped me. Frankly, writing about it makes me kind of want a cigarette, and I bet a few of you reading this feel the same way ;) 

 My replacement solution contained all the same elements that I loved except for the cigarette. I would go outside and eat an apple, which took approximately the same amount of time and gave me some energy. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it did the trick overall. I experimented with a few other replacement activities with varying degrees of success. A (rich) friend of mine who also quit successfully was able to break the habit by installing a treadmill in his home next to his desk and running a mile every time he felt the urge to smoke. The endorphins and accelerated heart rate from running were able to replace his nicotine buzz, and he got a lot of exercise to boot. 

 I'm not specifically recommending eating apples or buying a treadmill - the point is simply that we can't hope to break bad habits unless we identify specifically what REWARD our animal brain is getting from the habit whenever we indulge it, and then finding a more constructive way to provide that reward. 

 

3. Structure your Environment

 Full Disclosure: Social pressure played a huge role in my ability to quit. 

 My girlfriend asked me to stop, so I did. It was that simple. 

 She appreciated the "sacrifice" on my part, and I got the motivation I needed to get serious about modifying my own behavior and think about the consequences of my actions. It was a win-win. 

 

When the tiniest things can be a trigger for an addiction or compulsive behavior, It is massively helpful to have social pressures in place that reduce or outweigh your desire to indulge that behavior.

In my own, uneducated opinion, that is the reason support groups like AA are proven to be effective. Not because of a higher power, or confessing to strangers twice a week, or apologizing to your loved ones to free yourself from guilt - But because social pressure is the most powerful evolutionary force governing our behavior.

 

Social pressure makes young people charge headfirst into machine-gun fire or buy North Face jackets, depending on what the media tells them.

It makes old people wear uncomfortable suits and repress their homosexual tendencies, and it makes middle-aged people buy land-rovers even though they live in the suburbs.

It can be a force of evil, or a force of good. But the most important thing about social pressure is that YOU CAN CONTROL IT. 

 

You can pick your friends. You can structure your environment. You can decide what social influences to surround yourself with.

It's easier than you think!

What I am about to say next might sound a little bit sociopathic, but it works. 

 

Try to imagine for a moment that your life is a company, and your friends are consultants.

You hire them with your time and social currency to come onboard and advise you, help you grow and help your company prosper. Your friends are there to help, but as the owner, YOU are the person solely responsible for the success of this company. And not only are you responsible for yourself, you are responsible for your friends - their success partially depends on your success as well, because you are working together. 

 

Now, bearing in mind that level of responsibility. If you wouldn't hire someone as a consultant - DON'T HIRE THEM AS A FRIEND

If you have toxic friends in your life whose values do not align with your long-term goals, take steps to reduce their influence in your life. There is no reason to be cold or hurtful to anyone, but you absolutely must stop depending on people who are not going to help you in the long term.

 

This does not mean that you should surround yourself with people who always agree with you - quite the opposite. Going back to the company metaphor, some of the best consultants are the ones who can provide you with alternate points of view.

Instead, the critical decision - Hire or Fire - should be made based on how well these people are accomplishing their own goals, even if those goals differ from yours. In a nutshell, surround yourself with people that you admire and want to emulate.

 

—

To wrap this post up, I cannot stress enough how much these simple changes in perspective have helped me. Not only to accomplish goals, but clarify my sense of purpose and peace with myself.

 

Since putting these ideas into practice to quit cigarettes, I have applied the same logic to other problems with a decent success rate - reducing my tendencies toward procrastination and disorganization, improving my success at work and making my free time a lot more productive. (Basically, the same shit we ALL tell ourselves we are going to do.)

I meet a lot of people in my day-to-day life who are weighed down with pointless feelings of guilt or inadequacy which could be overcome without any herculean effort, just a simple shift in perspective. For this reason I really want to share my experience, and encourage anyone that can relate to me to try a few of the things I've talked about here. They are simple, seemingly stupid steps, but they've had a huge impact for me.

 Thanks for reading, and keep on Steeming!