Day 2 - Pros and Cons - Freedom From Smoking

Welcome to Day 2 of the Freedom From Smoking e-Course!

By now you should have looked more closely at the motivation behind WHY you smoke. We then looked deeper at the subconscious payoff and context in which you smoke.

Yesterday’s lesson was to help you track your habits more closely with our Habit Tracking Worksheet.

If you haven’t spent at least a day tracking your smoking, please do so before continuing.

Today, I want to dive deeper into your habit.

We’re going to use a Pros and Cons Checklist. It’s a standard part of cognitive behavior therapy.

Step 1: Download the Pros and Cons Checklist

Step 2: Take 5 minutes and fill out all four sections to look at exactly why you would want to quit smoking, and why you’d want to continue it.

Step 3: Compare your willingness to change before and after the exercise. How do you feel? Did any of your answers surprise you?

Lastly, I want you to reflect on smoking, and take a look at your completed Habit Tracking Worksheet.

One of the big challenges with habits is identifying your trigger.

For example, let’s look at smoking.

What makes you start smoking? Is it the time of day? Is it walking by a convenience store? Is it having a meal and you just NEED to smoke after you eat?

If you’re struggling to identify your trigger, don’t get discouraged! There are still three days left and you will notice patterns in your behavior.

I encourage you to continue using the habit tracker up to 5-7 days when the trigger will become obvious.

Tomorrow we’re going to break down smoking into smaller steps to get ready for the second half of the course.