Where would you be without your excuses?
Where would you be without your excuses?
I was a smoker from the age of 17, to my early 40’s, I remember an advert on TV with the quote “where would you be without cigarettes” I used to shrug & say “well you gotta die of something” which is true - some years later I helped nurse my father-in-law in his final 6 weeks of lung cancer, I think there must be easier ways to go. And whilst that had a profound effect on my life, it didn’t make me quit smoking, it took a little longer for me to wake up and be completely honest with myself - that I was actually addicted, and I could indeed quit but I needed the right mindset. I needed to get rid of all the excuses, including the fact that I was addicted - the fact is nicotine leaves your body fairly quickly
“Generally, nicotine leaves your blood 1-3 days after you stop using tobacco, and cotinine (something your body makes after nicotine enters it) will be gone after 1-10 days. Neither will show up in your urine after 3-4 days. “ https://www.webmd.com/
once the nicotine is gone the rest is just simply a habit, it’s simply a bad habit that you have formed and habits can be broken with the mindset of simply choosing a different route - I have used the word “simply” 3 times in that sentence - because frankly, it is that SIMPLE - we as individuals choose what we do, what we eat, and drink if we exercise if we don’t if we look after our health or not, what mood we are in, how we choose to react to people & situations - there are of course times when things are out of our control, but we still have the ability to control our reactions.
But, our human minds are almost conditioned to make excuses, take the easy options - I guess its a kind of self preservation, its a lot easier to convince yourself of an excuse than face reality and be honest with yourself.
I used to sit on the couch and watch the London Marathon, the excuse side of my brain would be thinking “silly buggers killing themselves” whilst I lit another fag (the irony was lost) but the wishful side of my brain would be thinking “imagine being able to run a marathon - wow I could never do that”
Ditching my excuses and choosing to stop smoking was for me the turning point the catalyst for a complete change of lifestyle.
When you are doing a habit which is damaging to your health, like smoking, overeating, eating the wrong foods, drinking too much, not exercising, in a stressful job or relationship - you accept the symptoms of that habit as normal
like having a smokers cough, or having backache because you are carrying too much weight, or being out of breath when you exercise, having a hangover, losing sleep & not being able to relax because of stress
All of the above are not normal, but over time we use excuses to dismiss the reality of what our bad habit is doing to us.
Choosing change requires complete honesty, and you actually realize you don’t have to live like that - the answer to “where would you be without cigarettes”
Not only alive - but living, there is a vast difference.
Ditch your excuses, re - engage with yourself - be honest, you will never know where it will take you
xx Sheila