I only just saw the 'embed' function of YouTube videos so I want to try it out. It helps hugely that I really like this video and am desperate to share it, even if just on this blog. It's a bit hard-hitting:
What do you think, does this make young (and younger) people more likely to vote?
I think it would have influenced me, particularly because I like to think that I have a contrarian bent... Not sure how true that is but this video would have spoken to me.
On the other hand I have often voted. And I like politics: I read and watch as much as I can and I feel hopeful that more people voting can and will make this world a better place - if we could only all make the effort: pay attention, think about context, causes and consequences and then exercise our democratic right to have our voice heard. In a nut shell: to vote.
What do you think?
Showing posts with label pressure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pressure. Show all posts
Friday, 28 September 2018
Sunday, 9 September 2018
Procrastination - how to slip, slide past it
The easy, not the hard way. [Prepared earlier, in Jan 2018. Oops, talk about procrastination...]
Any time I see an article about how to beat procrastination, I read it. I hope for the ultimate insight that will help me get rid of this awful obstacle that makes me feel paralysed and bad, bad, just horribly bad. Ugh.
"I would like to do xyz, but...! I can't get going, I can't make myself do it, it's too hard, there is xyz difficulty that's stopping me, I just can't." - It's this awful feeling of being stuck in hardening mud. Very close to dried in concrete consistency.
Horrible!
So this last post I read talked about a mental exercise that is meant to connect you with the person you will be once you've done it, or achieved a long-term goal (something like it, I'm not actually quite clear on that point). I'm not too keen on this because it asks you to put yourself rather deeply into the paralysed state of how you feel when you're stuck. To my mind that's not helpful because it makes me feel even more paralysed. I'd rather come from the other side: from a positive, constructive angle.
This other piece has a different piece of advice that might be pretty helpful: trading in the whole shebang of how dreadful you feel about being stuck right now with what it takes to spend only five minutes and make yourself do the dreaded task, - literally just for the five minutes. You can stop at that point.
I find this pretty helpful actually, particularly when it talks about being in the flow that puts you in a mental state when you no longer care that you used to be stuck once upon a time (when on earth was that? Oh pooh! I've forgotten already!). That all sounds pretty familiar.
Embed from Getty Images
I just don't know that I can commit to these "just five minutes" all the time and with all the procrastination issues that I run into. Sometimes I am unable to motivate myself into even just five minutes, and that ends up making me feel ever worse... Bleurgh. You can imagine.
I found a way of sort of slipping or sliding past the procrastination obstacle, it works relatively well for me. I suppose it is a version of the five minute rule. But hey! Whatever works, right?
So: here's what I found what works for me. There are a few different elements to it so it hope that some of it I might work for you too.
Procrastination is all about feeling very stressed or fearful of doing something. There's a heck of a lot of anxiety because I either want or desperately need to do something but it is getting worse and worse because I am just not doing it. I put it off, and put if off, and put it off...
While I do that I manage to get all sorts of other things done! I'll voluntarily wash up, change the bed sheets, shine shoes... or those displacement tasks. The mere thought of the task makes me shudder and quickly turn to something else, because it is just all too much.
Anxiety Central.
But let's go with the constructive angle, let me pick an example. I made this beautiful embroidery of orange trees and and a gorgeous border of fruit and berries. The embroidery was all done (halleluya!) but I wanted to turn it into a cushion cover and give the whole thing to my mum as a present. I knew she'd love it and was really looking forward to being able to hand it over.
Did I? Nope. It must have taken me about 10 years, give or take. And the most horrible, "I could kick myself in the butt" part of it all was that it took me an hour to put the cushion cover together. Once I started.
It was that starting that was the problem and something else.
Before I successfully stopped smoking I had the same issue and it got me onto the solution:
How am I going to do this?
What are the practical, actual steps that I'll do? How am I getting this done? What does it take? That was it!
Before I was able to envisage stopping smoking I had to start thinking about how I was going to do it. Was I going to use nicotin replacement products like gum or patches, would I want to go with sugarfree lollies to give my mouth something to do? How did I want to approach it?
It still took months but this was the essential first step I needed to put in place, it didn't work without that. In the case of the cushion I needed to ask myself what sort of cover I wanted to make and what the first step was.
A big frill around it has to be sewn to something, and not just the embroidery itself. I didn't realise that: it was just this big mystery about how a mysterious process that would turn a flat embroidered piece into a slip cover. Funnily enough I did a cushion cover with the same technique a few months before I finally spent the hour getting over my ten year long hump. So I learned just in time, but I hadn't thought it through.
So that's what I want to think about in future: anything I procrastinate about: I want to think of the practical steps I either need to take, and that I want to do. It doesn't have to be the way other people would get this done, I can find my own way!
If you want to do the same but feel totally clueless about where to start: the Internet is your friend. It is your very clever friend. It seems to obvious but type in your question: how do I...? More often than not (and several hours of fun researching this later. Beware the rabbit hole, but hey! That's fun too) you will find an answer of something to try. If it doesn't work for you then keep looking. Figuring stuff out is part of the feeling of achievement, you don't need someone to take you by the hand and talk you through this: you've got this!
Just one little bit
My other very practical advice for those tasks that I find difficult to get started on is to get to your feet and go get one very small bit done. Something as small as winding a sewing machine bobbin with the right colour sewing thread, or washing an ashtray out. Or pulling out one of the bits of paper you need for your tax return, something small. Anything at all.
With the understanding that you don't have to do anything else. I don't like to commit to five minutes, it feels like too much pressure. All that expectation that I'll get even five minutes done! It is paralysing. I might be able to do a single little bit - and I like to go do that as soon as I think of what it might be. Just slip it in there! Just a nice, quick one. Nothing more. Oh no Sir! Utterly, completely, definitely no, not at all, nuthing more...
...oh go on then, just a little bit more. Or not, no pressure. But if the next little bit seems easily do-able, why not? Every little helps!
Sometimes you get into the flow (that's what you're aiming for) but not always. Be proud of that single thing you managed to do! It is more than you had gotten done before that. Sit back down, celebrate the feeling of achievement! You've done good.
And whenever the urge or the thought comes up of what the next step might be, go and do that too - however long after the first one. At some point you'll start doing this thing that you've put off for so long. You've "tricked" yourself into it by taking the pressure of expecation out of the equation. That's sometimes all it takes.
And here's the last element that helps me.
A change is as good as a rest
When I sew a project that feels endless and I find it difficult to keep going - this often happens when I haven't found "the flow" or dropped out of it. I know I could do more but I am feeling something close to revulsion about having to carry on with the blasted task.
Then a bit of a change is good. You can do something like changing the order of things that you need to do to complete your tasks, or you can go do another small (unrelated) task that also helps you feel achievement. It's probably a good idea to do something that won't take long. It does happen that I'll happily distract myself from the dreaded task by deep-diving into something else that I get the flow thing with. You might get yourself back into it with another stab at a small thing only.
The benefit
And the last thing I'd like to add is that it helps a lot to have a visual image in mind: something that will or could happen once you're successful. I kept imagining the look of sheer surprise on my father's face when he'd realise that I no longer smoked. It really kept me going, it was such a nice thing to aim for because it made me feel exceedingly good.
So that's my ideas. I'd love to hear of other things that help you get around procrastination. Please comment!
PS: These posts are also pretty good: why procrastinators procrastine (part 1) and how to beat procrastination (part 2). Actually thinking about it, these posts probably did influence my ideas (as above) quite a bit. So give them a read, see if if kicks something off in your brain.
Any time I see an article about how to beat procrastination, I read it. I hope for the ultimate insight that will help me get rid of this awful obstacle that makes me feel paralysed and bad, bad, just horribly bad. Ugh.
"I would like to do xyz, but...! I can't get going, I can't make myself do it, it's too hard, there is xyz difficulty that's stopping me, I just can't." - It's this awful feeling of being stuck in hardening mud. Very close to dried in concrete consistency.
Horrible!
So this last post I read talked about a mental exercise that is meant to connect you with the person you will be once you've done it, or achieved a long-term goal (something like it, I'm not actually quite clear on that point). I'm not too keen on this because it asks you to put yourself rather deeply into the paralysed state of how you feel when you're stuck. To my mind that's not helpful because it makes me feel even more paralysed. I'd rather come from the other side: from a positive, constructive angle.
This other piece has a different piece of advice that might be pretty helpful: trading in the whole shebang of how dreadful you feel about being stuck right now with what it takes to spend only five minutes and make yourself do the dreaded task, - literally just for the five minutes. You can stop at that point.
I find this pretty helpful actually, particularly when it talks about being in the flow that puts you in a mental state when you no longer care that you used to be stuck once upon a time (when on earth was that? Oh pooh! I've forgotten already!). That all sounds pretty familiar.
Embed from Getty Images
I just don't know that I can commit to these "just five minutes" all the time and with all the procrastination issues that I run into. Sometimes I am unable to motivate myself into even just five minutes, and that ends up making me feel ever worse... Bleurgh. You can imagine.
I found a way of sort of slipping or sliding past the procrastination obstacle, it works relatively well for me. I suppose it is a version of the five minute rule. But hey! Whatever works, right?
So: here's what I found what works for me. There are a few different elements to it so it hope that some of it I might work for you too.
Procrastination is all about feeling very stressed or fearful of doing something. There's a heck of a lot of anxiety because I either want or desperately need to do something but it is getting worse and worse because I am just not doing it. I put it off, and put if off, and put it off...
While I do that I manage to get all sorts of other things done! I'll voluntarily wash up, change the bed sheets, shine shoes... or those displacement tasks. The mere thought of the task makes me shudder and quickly turn to something else, because it is just all too much.
Anxiety Central.
But let's go with the constructive angle, let me pick an example. I made this beautiful embroidery of orange trees and and a gorgeous border of fruit and berries. The embroidery was all done (halleluya!) but I wanted to turn it into a cushion cover and give the whole thing to my mum as a present. I knew she'd love it and was really looking forward to being able to hand it over.
Did I? Nope. It must have taken me about 10 years, give or take. And the most horrible, "I could kick myself in the butt" part of it all was that it took me an hour to put the cushion cover together. Once I started.
It was that starting that was the problem and something else.
Before I successfully stopped smoking I had the same issue and it got me onto the solution:
How am I going to do this?
What are the practical, actual steps that I'll do? How am I getting this done? What does it take? That was it!
Before I was able to envisage stopping smoking I had to start thinking about how I was going to do it. Was I going to use nicotin replacement products like gum or patches, would I want to go with sugarfree lollies to give my mouth something to do? How did I want to approach it?
It still took months but this was the essential first step I needed to put in place, it didn't work without that. In the case of the cushion I needed to ask myself what sort of cover I wanted to make and what the first step was.
A big frill around it has to be sewn to something, and not just the embroidery itself. I didn't realise that: it was just this big mystery about how a mysterious process that would turn a flat embroidered piece into a slip cover. Funnily enough I did a cushion cover with the same technique a few months before I finally spent the hour getting over my ten year long hump. So I learned just in time, but I hadn't thought it through.
So that's what I want to think about in future: anything I procrastinate about: I want to think of the practical steps I either need to take, and that I want to do. It doesn't have to be the way other people would get this done, I can find my own way!
If you want to do the same but feel totally clueless about where to start: the Internet is your friend. It is your very clever friend. It seems to obvious but type in your question: how do I...? More often than not (and several hours of fun researching this later. Beware the rabbit hole, but hey! That's fun too) you will find an answer of something to try. If it doesn't work for you then keep looking. Figuring stuff out is part of the feeling of achievement, you don't need someone to take you by the hand and talk you through this: you've got this!
Just one little bit
My other very practical advice for those tasks that I find difficult to get started on is to get to your feet and go get one very small bit done. Something as small as winding a sewing machine bobbin with the right colour sewing thread, or washing an ashtray out. Or pulling out one of the bits of paper you need for your tax return, something small. Anything at all.
With the understanding that you don't have to do anything else. I don't like to commit to five minutes, it feels like too much pressure. All that expectation that I'll get even five minutes done! It is paralysing. I might be able to do a single little bit - and I like to go do that as soon as I think of what it might be. Just slip it in there! Just a nice, quick one. Nothing more. Oh no Sir! Utterly, completely, definitely no, not at all, nuthing more...
...oh go on then, just a little bit more. Or not, no pressure. But if the next little bit seems easily do-able, why not? Every little helps!
Sometimes you get into the flow (that's what you're aiming for) but not always. Be proud of that single thing you managed to do! It is more than you had gotten done before that. Sit back down, celebrate the feeling of achievement! You've done good.
And whenever the urge or the thought comes up of what the next step might be, go and do that too - however long after the first one. At some point you'll start doing this thing that you've put off for so long. You've "tricked" yourself into it by taking the pressure of expecation out of the equation. That's sometimes all it takes.
And here's the last element that helps me.
A change is as good as a rest
When I sew a project that feels endless and I find it difficult to keep going - this often happens when I haven't found "the flow" or dropped out of it. I know I could do more but I am feeling something close to revulsion about having to carry on with the blasted task.
Then a bit of a change is good. You can do something like changing the order of things that you need to do to complete your tasks, or you can go do another small (unrelated) task that also helps you feel achievement. It's probably a good idea to do something that won't take long. It does happen that I'll happily distract myself from the dreaded task by deep-diving into something else that I get the flow thing with. You might get yourself back into it with another stab at a small thing only.
The benefit
And the last thing I'd like to add is that it helps a lot to have a visual image in mind: something that will or could happen once you're successful. I kept imagining the look of sheer surprise on my father's face when he'd realise that I no longer smoked. It really kept me going, it was such a nice thing to aim for because it made me feel exceedingly good.
So that's my ideas. I'd love to hear of other things that help you get around procrastination. Please comment!
PS: These posts are also pretty good: why procrastinators procrastine (part 1) and how to beat procrastination (part 2). Actually thinking about it, these posts probably did influence my ideas (as above) quite a bit. So give them a read, see if if kicks something off in your brain.
Sunday, 7 January 2018
Another blog post that I started in 2012.
I just came across a brilliant quote: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - said by Yogi Berra, a US baseball player who coined quite a few often used phrases. His most famous and most often used phrase is: 'it ain't over till it's over'. I didn't know he said it.
They are often interpreted as malapropisms but I can't agree to see it just like that. Some of the time accidental bon mots are a lot deeper. A fork in the road: whatever route you go, it is much better than not 'taking it'. It's got to be the worst thing to be stuck at a decision and not know which way to turn.
It's not easy to listen to your inner voice that can help you figure out what it is exactly that you want to do. Some of the time we seem to be utterly out of touch with that wise guide. At other times we think we ought not to listen to it or get stuck with a multitude of facts that we think we ought to consider before we set off on any course of action.
That's not how human beings work though. We would like to think of ourselves as sensible, rational beings. People who make up their minds after careful consideration and mulling over of all the pros and cons. Yeah, right, as if.
We don't. Lots of times we make a gut decision and go with that, only rationalising it later.
- -
I seem to have lost track of what I was trying to say. A bit like wandering around in the wilderness looking for a path. That reminds me: there was a second quote I read on Twitter today that I really liked: "Searcher, there is no road. We make the road by walking." (Antonio Machado, from a 1912 poem by him) - I don't know if I'd be comfortable feeling myself traipsing about on completely untrodden ground, that sounds downright scary.
But if the road we walk is the path we take throughout our lives, then this is indeed new territory as we go, otherwise we'd be lemmings. Nah, thanks.
This quote really struck me as something I'd like to mull over a bit. I wonder if I am approaching a fork but I haven't quite gotten to it yet. That's why this blog post sounds so theoretical.
Oh well, hey ho. Food for thought!
I just came across a brilliant quote: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." - said by Yogi Berra, a US baseball player who coined quite a few often used phrases. His most famous and most often used phrase is: 'it ain't over till it's over'. I didn't know he said it.
They are often interpreted as malapropisms but I can't agree to see it just like that. Some of the time accidental bon mots are a lot deeper. A fork in the road: whatever route you go, it is much better than not 'taking it'. It's got to be the worst thing to be stuck at a decision and not know which way to turn.
It's not easy to listen to your inner voice that can help you figure out what it is exactly that you want to do. Some of the time we seem to be utterly out of touch with that wise guide. At other times we think we ought not to listen to it or get stuck with a multitude of facts that we think we ought to consider before we set off on any course of action.
That's not how human beings work though. We would like to think of ourselves as sensible, rational beings. People who make up their minds after careful consideration and mulling over of all the pros and cons. Yeah, right, as if.
We don't. Lots of times we make a gut decision and go with that, only rationalising it later.
- -
I seem to have lost track of what I was trying to say. A bit like wandering around in the wilderness looking for a path. That reminds me: there was a second quote I read on Twitter today that I really liked: "Searcher, there is no road. We make the road by walking." (Antonio Machado, from a 1912 poem by him) - I don't know if I'd be comfortable feeling myself traipsing about on completely untrodden ground, that sounds downright scary.
But if the road we walk is the path we take throughout our lives, then this is indeed new territory as we go, otherwise we'd be lemmings. Nah, thanks.
This quote really struck me as something I'd like to mull over a bit. I wonder if I am approaching a fork but I haven't quite gotten to it yet. That's why this blog post sounds so theoretical.
Oh well, hey ho. Food for thought!
Friday, 31 December 2010
How I managed to stop smoking and stuck with it
This is part 2 of my 'how I stopped smoking' post.
I woke up one morning, my throat felt like a fuzzy chimney and I really, really did not feel like a cigarette (the run-up to that is in part 1).
After thinking about it for half the day of dozing, I did decide that I was going to see how the next hour would go without smoking.
It went okay.
I cleaned out all the ashtrays, I found things to do to take my mind off it - and after that hour I decided that I wanted to do this 'not smoking thing' for another hour. Again, no pressure, and just to see how it would go.
That went okay too.
By then I felt emboldened! Maybe I could go the rest of the day and not smoke, and actually make it the first day of being a non-smoker? Wouldn't that be something?
It was quite exciting, actually.
I went through the day after, a Sunday, halfway expecting for that excitement and resolve to melt away and vanish into nothingness, - or give way to overwhelming craving that I wouldn't be able to stand up to.
I always thought that you would have to muster a heck of a lot of will power and really fight against the craving - to get to be a non-smoker. I have never done well when my hopes and ambitions go up against pressure and expectation.
I figured out that you can deal with a craving a different way: wait it out.
It may sound a bit silly, but I found out that the passive way worked much better for me. So much better that I did stop smoking that day and for the last six years (hah, and a bit!) I have not smoked. Not even one puff. How good is that?
And I think that my success is down to how I did it.
The waiting out thing worked for me like this: the craving would come and I'd be afraid that it would build and build and build, as in get stronger, with me climbing the walls (I could literally picture myself spider-like stuck to the wall near its ceiling) and that I would then have to give in and light up. To make the horrid pressure go away and stop the craving.
Well, I wasn't using will power, I wasn't fighting this. Instead I let the craving wash over me like a wave and I waited to see what would happen. Funny thing is: the craving did not get stronger, in fact it wouldn't even last very long. Maybe two minutes at the most? But I think most of the time it wasn't nearly as long as that. More like half a minute, some times even just 20 seconds, at other times closer to a minute.
But I found it really doable to just wait until it passed.
You can do a minute or two at a time of feeling crap and horrible and feeling like you want to give up. My nicotine cravings didn't stick around for very long, they never got stronger than when the craving first hit.
Over the years I've had a pretty bad attack of the craving maybe up to ten times. I almost faltered at about four of those occasions. I am a bit surprised that I didn't.
The other thing I did was research on the Internet: I found out what happens with your body 20 minutes after your last cigarette (the nicotine level in your blood goes back to normal), and what happens after so and so many hours and days, weeks and months, etc.
It was nice to check my progress against that sort of timeline. I also found some quite supportive stuff that built my morale.
The biggest help was imagining the face of my father once he realised that I'd stopped! My inner eye produced quite a picture! That got me past many sticky moments. I also marked each day with a big red letter in a paper diary. Particularly up to Day 20 when I knew I would meet up with my Dad.
It was the funniest thing ever: he noticed immediately that I no longer stank of smoke but didn't dare ask me straight away if I could have possibly given up. In fact he left it almost two hours and by then it had become very apparent that I hadn't lit up and wasn't going to any time soon. And I wasn't going to tell him because I wanted his surprised reaction! It was wonderful to get his very hesitant question if it was at all possible that I might have, possibly, at all, uh... given up? And to be able to answer: Yes! I have!
That was so good.
The other things I did was to go for a walk around the block: before I would have taken a quick cigarette break in the morning, and also during the afternoon. I was worried that I would miss those breaks away from my desk so much that I might be tempted to pick up smoking again. So I checked with the people at work to make sure it was okay to disappear for five minutes for my breather - in support of this whole 'giving up smoking' business! They were happy to.
It was brilliant to walk round and be able to smell stuff that I hadn't noticed for years: the scent from a flower pot, someone's perfume, even the acrid smell of petrol from somewhere were all reason for celebration and joy!
I also kept a diary that I wrote in almost every day. Just to put on paper how I was feeling, what I was experiencing, how it was going. Sort of chart my progress and how things felt. I also included my findings from the Internet: if something I'd found helped, if it sparked off any ideas or insights. It felt like I was getting support from this, getting rid of some of the tension: by sticking it all down on paper.
These are the sorts of things that helped me. It was a huge relief to find that the craving would remain at that intensity instead of getting worse, and would diminish relatively soon. I found my walks a welcome interruption from work, and the anticipation to tell people once I felt successful enough to tell them: that was wonderful as well!
I reckon most of the things I did were setting myself up for success. I managed to avoid the things that had often served to set things up for failure. I don't handle pressure and expectation well, letting the craving pass by waiting it out worked so much better.
I hope this helps someone else. You may find that there are other things that are useful to you but perhaps what I said sparks off something beneficial.
And I must say: I really enjoy being a non-smoker. The money I save, the time I have available, the absence of the cigarette smell in clothes, hair and my home, the relief that I am no longer endangering my health but getting better every day - it is all good. And I am so very glad that I didn't smoke that next cigarette on the day that became my first day as a non-smoker. I would have gotten there but it would have taken so much longer.
Good luck to you! Take heart.
It is difficult but simpler than you think. It is not as easy but also not as harrowing as we expect.
I woke up one morning, my throat felt like a fuzzy chimney and I really, really did not feel like a cigarette (the run-up to that is in part 1).
After thinking about it for half the day of dozing, I did decide that I was going to see how the next hour would go without smoking.
It went okay.
I cleaned out all the ashtrays, I found things to do to take my mind off it - and after that hour I decided that I wanted to do this 'not smoking thing' for another hour. Again, no pressure, and just to see how it would go.
That went okay too.
By then I felt emboldened! Maybe I could go the rest of the day and not smoke, and actually make it the first day of being a non-smoker? Wouldn't that be something?
It was quite exciting, actually.
I went through the day after, a Sunday, halfway expecting for that excitement and resolve to melt away and vanish into nothingness, - or give way to overwhelming craving that I wouldn't be able to stand up to.
I always thought that you would have to muster a heck of a lot of will power and really fight against the craving - to get to be a non-smoker. I have never done well when my hopes and ambitions go up against pressure and expectation.
I figured out that you can deal with a craving a different way: wait it out.
It may sound a bit silly, but I found out that the passive way worked much better for me. So much better that I did stop smoking that day and for the last six years (hah, and a bit!) I have not smoked. Not even one puff. How good is that?
And I think that my success is down to how I did it.
The waiting out thing worked for me like this: the craving would come and I'd be afraid that it would build and build and build, as in get stronger, with me climbing the walls (I could literally picture myself spider-like stuck to the wall near its ceiling) and that I would then have to give in and light up. To make the horrid pressure go away and stop the craving.
Well, I wasn't using will power, I wasn't fighting this. Instead I let the craving wash over me like a wave and I waited to see what would happen. Funny thing is: the craving did not get stronger, in fact it wouldn't even last very long. Maybe two minutes at the most? But I think most of the time it wasn't nearly as long as that. More like half a minute, some times even just 20 seconds, at other times closer to a minute.
But I found it really doable to just wait until it passed.
You can do a minute or two at a time of feeling crap and horrible and feeling like you want to give up. My nicotine cravings didn't stick around for very long, they never got stronger than when the craving first hit.
Over the years I've had a pretty bad attack of the craving maybe up to ten times. I almost faltered at about four of those occasions. I am a bit surprised that I didn't.
The other thing I did was research on the Internet: I found out what happens with your body 20 minutes after your last cigarette (the nicotine level in your blood goes back to normal), and what happens after so and so many hours and days, weeks and months, etc.
It was nice to check my progress against that sort of timeline. I also found some quite supportive stuff that built my morale.
The biggest help was imagining the face of my father once he realised that I'd stopped! My inner eye produced quite a picture! That got me past many sticky moments. I also marked each day with a big red letter in a paper diary. Particularly up to Day 20 when I knew I would meet up with my Dad.
It was the funniest thing ever: he noticed immediately that I no longer stank of smoke but didn't dare ask me straight away if I could have possibly given up. In fact he left it almost two hours and by then it had become very apparent that I hadn't lit up and wasn't going to any time soon. And I wasn't going to tell him because I wanted his surprised reaction! It was wonderful to get his very hesitant question if it was at all possible that I might have, possibly, at all, uh... given up? And to be able to answer: Yes! I have!
That was so good.
The other things I did was to go for a walk around the block: before I would have taken a quick cigarette break in the morning, and also during the afternoon. I was worried that I would miss those breaks away from my desk so much that I might be tempted to pick up smoking again. So I checked with the people at work to make sure it was okay to disappear for five minutes for my breather - in support of this whole 'giving up smoking' business! They were happy to.
It was brilliant to walk round and be able to smell stuff that I hadn't noticed for years: the scent from a flower pot, someone's perfume, even the acrid smell of petrol from somewhere were all reason for celebration and joy!
I also kept a diary that I wrote in almost every day. Just to put on paper how I was feeling, what I was experiencing, how it was going. Sort of chart my progress and how things felt. I also included my findings from the Internet: if something I'd found helped, if it sparked off any ideas or insights. It felt like I was getting support from this, getting rid of some of the tension: by sticking it all down on paper.
These are the sorts of things that helped me. It was a huge relief to find that the craving would remain at that intensity instead of getting worse, and would diminish relatively soon. I found my walks a welcome interruption from work, and the anticipation to tell people once I felt successful enough to tell them: that was wonderful as well!
I reckon most of the things I did were setting myself up for success. I managed to avoid the things that had often served to set things up for failure. I don't handle pressure and expectation well, letting the craving pass by waiting it out worked so much better.
I hope this helps someone else. You may find that there are other things that are useful to you but perhaps what I said sparks off something beneficial.
And I must say: I really enjoy being a non-smoker. The money I save, the time I have available, the absence of the cigarette smell in clothes, hair and my home, the relief that I am no longer endangering my health but getting better every day - it is all good. And I am so very glad that I didn't smoke that next cigarette on the day that became my first day as a non-smoker. I would have gotten there but it would have taken so much longer.
Good luck to you! Take heart.
It is difficult but simpler than you think. It is not as easy but also not as harrowing as we expect.
My decision to stop smoking and how I got to it
This is the big blog post that I was looking forward to writing since I started this blog. I am hoping this may help someone else, or perhaps just spark off an idea to set you onto your own path to do things your own way.
I used to smoke quite heavily, 40 a day for the last two years or so. I smoked for 22 years. The daily number of cigarettes had steadily increased over those years and I was worried, and more and more anxious about my health. I didn't like the fact that I would get a cold and keep the cough for six weeks or longer. I hated getting breathless and feeling annoyingly unfit. I wasn't keen on being the only one to leave a restaurant to stand in some doorway for the cigarette that I needed.
I wanted to stop for a while but couldn't see how. I didn't think I would succeed if I tried before I was ready. Worse: whenever I had tried to stop in the past I would smoke quite a lot more when I failed and I couldn't get that number back down again.
Even thinking about not feeling able to successfully stop made me more anxious.
I reckon now that all my attempts failed because, when it comes down to it, I hadn't really wanted to stop. I did enjoy it and I resented other people telling me that I should stop. But for the last two or maybe two and a half years I got closer and closer to knowing that I definitely wanted to stop and that I now wanted to figure out how I would do so.
When you get ready to think about the practicalities (would I try sugar free lollies to keep my fingers and mouth busy? Chewing gum? Patches?) then it gets easier and easier to consider that you might me successful. That old obstacle, the fear of failure, doesn't sit quite as tightly on you with its stranglehold.
The day I stopped smoking (the first day that I didn't smoke anymore!) was a day I hadn't known would be the one. Might be the best way. I had no idea that I was smoking my last cigarette the night before. I think that's a good thing: less expectation, less pressure, more likelihood of success.
Any time I had tried to stop before I had felt like I was climbing the walls. I thought I had to exert a lot of will power to stop myself from giving in to the craving. And I didn't do well in that. At all. The whole thing made me even more anxious. When I think back I see it as horribly oppressive pressure. It just makes you feel small and powerless when you feel in the grips of something that's stronger than you. And all the worry, fear and anxiety just makes it worse.
I had completely overdone it the night before. I must have smoked about 50 cigarettes if not more (I wouldn't recommend doing that at all), I added another two self-rolled ones when I got home: I'd run out all of a sudden and had to resort to a bit of old, dried up rolling tobacco. Those two cigarettes were horrible! Hot smoke hitting the back of your throat, bits of tobacco too, eergh, horrible.
Even though I didn't want to just yet, I went to bed rather than having another one like that.
Woke up next day and didn't feel like another one. Funnily enough that wasn't the first time this happened: I used to light up first thing on opening my eyes but for the last month or so, some of the time, I had been able to put off the very first one in the day to later.
That Saturday, between dozing and waking, I wondered if this was a good day for stopping. Discarded the idea: nah, wouldn't happen, and besides: did I really want to? Couldn't make up my mind. Fell asleep again. Woke up, wondered a bit more. Thought it was worth a go, changed my mind. Dozed some more.
Then it was mid day and I realised: this was half a day of those horrible, difficult first two days of no longer smoking gone! A quarter of the hardest time had passed already! I knew that if I smoked another cigarette that day then it would take me months to get to the same point. Months of black smoke going into my lungs, months of wanting to but feeling that I wouldn't be able to stop.
I thought it was worth a try - just for the next hour. No sense in piling on the pressure (I do not do well under pressure! Put pressure on me and I crumble, guaranteed!). Just to see how that would be.
So I went and cleaned out the ashtrays. I didn't have to breathe that in if I could help it.
That hour went okay.
To be continued in part 2.
I used to smoke quite heavily, 40 a day for the last two years or so. I smoked for 22 years. The daily number of cigarettes had steadily increased over those years and I was worried, and more and more anxious about my health. I didn't like the fact that I would get a cold and keep the cough for six weeks or longer. I hated getting breathless and feeling annoyingly unfit. I wasn't keen on being the only one to leave a restaurant to stand in some doorway for the cigarette that I needed.
I wanted to stop for a while but couldn't see how. I didn't think I would succeed if I tried before I was ready. Worse: whenever I had tried to stop in the past I would smoke quite a lot more when I failed and I couldn't get that number back down again.
Even thinking about not feeling able to successfully stop made me more anxious.
I reckon now that all my attempts failed because, when it comes down to it, I hadn't really wanted to stop. I did enjoy it and I resented other people telling me that I should stop. But for the last two or maybe two and a half years I got closer and closer to knowing that I definitely wanted to stop and that I now wanted to figure out how I would do so.
When you get ready to think about the practicalities (would I try sugar free lollies to keep my fingers and mouth busy? Chewing gum? Patches?) then it gets easier and easier to consider that you might me successful. That old obstacle, the fear of failure, doesn't sit quite as tightly on you with its stranglehold.
The day I stopped smoking (the first day that I didn't smoke anymore!) was a day I hadn't known would be the one. Might be the best way. I had no idea that I was smoking my last cigarette the night before. I think that's a good thing: less expectation, less pressure, more likelihood of success.
Any time I had tried to stop before I had felt like I was climbing the walls. I thought I had to exert a lot of will power to stop myself from giving in to the craving. And I didn't do well in that. At all. The whole thing made me even more anxious. When I think back I see it as horribly oppressive pressure. It just makes you feel small and powerless when you feel in the grips of something that's stronger than you. And all the worry, fear and anxiety just makes it worse.
I had completely overdone it the night before. I must have smoked about 50 cigarettes if not more (I wouldn't recommend doing that at all), I added another two self-rolled ones when I got home: I'd run out all of a sudden and had to resort to a bit of old, dried up rolling tobacco. Those two cigarettes were horrible! Hot smoke hitting the back of your throat, bits of tobacco too, eergh, horrible.
Even though I didn't want to just yet, I went to bed rather than having another one like that.
Woke up next day and didn't feel like another one. Funnily enough that wasn't the first time this happened: I used to light up first thing on opening my eyes but for the last month or so, some of the time, I had been able to put off the very first one in the day to later.
That Saturday, between dozing and waking, I wondered if this was a good day for stopping. Discarded the idea: nah, wouldn't happen, and besides: did I really want to? Couldn't make up my mind. Fell asleep again. Woke up, wondered a bit more. Thought it was worth a go, changed my mind. Dozed some more.
Then it was mid day and I realised: this was half a day of those horrible, difficult first two days of no longer smoking gone! A quarter of the hardest time had passed already! I knew that if I smoked another cigarette that day then it would take me months to get to the same point. Months of black smoke going into my lungs, months of wanting to but feeling that I wouldn't be able to stop.
I thought it was worth a try - just for the next hour. No sense in piling on the pressure (I do not do well under pressure! Put pressure on me and I crumble, guaranteed!). Just to see how that would be.
So I went and cleaned out the ashtrays. I didn't have to breathe that in if I could help it.
That hour went okay.
To be continued in part 2.
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