Most smokers have tried at least once to quit smoking – often multiple times – and either failed miserably or found it incredibly difficult and frustrating.

There’s a simple reason for this; the belief that there’s something to give up.

Think about it. You get told from an early age that cigarettes will relax you, help you with stress, relieve boredom, help you concentrate, are a social prop, are enjoyable.

Two sides of a tug of war

You have a tug of war going on in your head of the bad stuff vs the good stuff:

“It stinks…yes, but it relaxes me”

“It’s costing me a fortune…yes, but it’s my time out”

“It’s killing me…yes, but I enjoy it”

In addition to this you also get told how hard it is to stop, that the cravings will be awful and that you’ll miss smoking for the rest of your life.

No wonder you put off even trying to give them up!

A different point of view

But what if smoking didn’t relax you but instead caused you to be unrelaxed?

What if smoking didn’t relieve stress but caused you more stress and anxiety?

What if you discovered that you didn’t actually enjoy smoking, but were just lighting up to feed an addiction?

And what if smoking was a confidence trick and you discovered that you’d been conned? Wouldn’t it then be easy to quit?

The truth is, smoking IS a confidence trick and through clever marketing and advertising from the tobacco companies, we got conned to believe that it provides some comfort or pleasure.

The key to quitting smoking easily and happily is to understand how the confidence trick works and once you understand it, you’ll never fall for it again.