There are two states of mind that must be appeased before anyone will freely break the smoking addiction. These elements are called "Desire," and "Decision."

DESIRE: A want, crave or a wish for

DECISION: Making up of one's mind / a verdict or judgment

In order to break the smoking addiction, a person must have a DESIRE to stop. You probably want to break the smoking addiction, at least some part of you does, or you wouldn't be reading this article.

In addition, in order to break the smoking addiction, a person must DECIDE to give up the smoking addiction. Since you haven't quit smoking, it simply means that you have not DECIDED to stop smoking yet.

So what you need is to feel a compulsion to make a "DECISION" to stop smoking.

MOTIVATION, we all want it. The foundation of each of our motivations is what we believe. Think about it, if you did not think it was true that you would be hurt if you stepped in front of a moving freight train, then you would not experience motivation to be wary. If you did not believe that the gnawing sensation in your stomach meant that you were hungry, you wouldn't feel motivated to eat.

When it comes to giving up an addiction to smoking cigarettes, people who are addicted to smoking cigarettes need to feel a great deal of motivation to make the DECISION to quit smoking. Motivation is based on the ideas that we believe. So you will need to DECIDE what thoughts will motivate you (when you start to believe them). Because when you feel powerfully motivated, you will break the smoking addiction.

Thanks to NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and self-hypnosis for motivation, it is much easier to learn how to believe these new ideas than you think. However, you don't believe the ideas that will motivate you to break the smoking addiction at this point in time, or you would have already broken the addiction.

For the purpose of this discussion, we need to define a few words.

DOUBT: Uncertain/distrustful/dubious - "maybe it's this way, and maybe it is not."

BELIEF: Trust/faith/tenet - A state of mind free of all doubt. In other words, belief means, "this is the way that it is."

HIGHLY VALUED CRITERIA: What is most important to you, as an individual humanbeing.

When you totally believe that if you continue to smoke your highly valued criterion will be in jeopardy, you will feel the motivation that you require to break your addiction to cigarettes. We call this is a negative motivator, because it is a belief that motivates by giving you dire sensations. Negative motivators are great for getting you to make decisions.

When you believe that if you do stop smoking, that which is most important to you will become enhanced, you will also feel the motivation that you require to break the smoking addiction. This is a positive motivator, because it motivates you by promising good feelings if you stop smoking.

The first task is for you to DECIDE what the most vital things in your life are. Your most highly valued criteria are usually things that you cannot see. For example: Money would not be highly valued criteria, but the freedom, fun, or security that money can buy could be highly valued criteria. Write your list of highly valued criteria down on a piece of paper.

Next you need to figure out what you will need to believe to feel motivated to quit. Here is the good news, sort of: Logic has nothing to do with belief. Things don't have to be logical for a person to believe them. As a matter of fact, they rarely are. So don't worry about logic!

The format for your negative motivator beliefs will be: "I believe that if I continue to smoke, something dreadful will happen to my most highly valued criteria."

Make sure that you frame your motivators in the positive. In other words, always state what you want or what will happen. Never state what won't happen. Eliminate the "not" word from the beliefs.

In this example we will say that your children's welfare is your most highly valued criteria.

WRONG: "I believe that if I continue to smoke, I won't be doing my kid's health any good."

CORRECT: "I believe that if I continue to smoke, my secondhand smoke will ruin my children's health."

Next, create a list of positive motivators. "I believe that if I break the smoking addiction: (something very important will be enhanced)."

WRONG: "I believe that if I stop smoking, I won't harm my children's health."

CORRECT: "I believe that if I break the smoking addiction, my kids will be healthier because I'll eliminate their contact with the dangers of my secondhand smoke."

The next step is to modify the computer codes in your brain to make yourself actually believe these motivational ideas. Now for a shocker: Your beliefs have nothing to do with or what is real. Instead, your beliefs have everything to do with what your perception of reality is. In other words, it has a lot to do with the way that you see things.

Our belief systems are based in our unconscious mind. The subconscious is like a computer. Computers don't reason. The input controls the output. To demonstrate, I want you to think of something that you already believe without the slightest bit of doubt. So come up with a belief that gives you a good feeling.

For instance, it's easy for most people to believe that they love their kids. If that is true for you, make a mental image that lets you experience that love.

I'm going to ask some questions, and there aren't any right or wrong answers.

Is your mental image a moving picture, or a still?

Is it in color, or in black and white?

Is it close or far?

Is it focused or fuzzy?

Is it normally bright, overly bright, or dim?

Is there a border on it?

Is it borderless?

Is it a panorama?

It does not matter what your answers are, just write them down. These are the computer codes that your subconscious mind uses to make you feel your feelings of belief. In this case they are the mental codes for positive belief, because you have chosen a belief that gives you a positive feeling. You've just calibrated your positive belief.

All positive belief pictures are bright and focused. If yours aren't, then you probably don't really have total belief. You probably have an element of doubt. So find another belief to calibrate.

If you think of something that you doubt, and you make a mental image of it, one or more of these computer codes will probably be different. Similarly, if you have a belief that gives you a bad feeling, (a negative belief): one or more of those codes or submodalities will be different.

In NLP we call these particular computer codes visual submodalities.

Now you will need to calibrate a negative belief. So repeat the same exact process, but do so using an idea that you already believe, that makes you feel terrible.

Once you have calibrated your positive and your negative beliefs, it is a simple affair to manage what you believe so you can motivate yourself to DECIDE to quit.

So, to summarize, using the above example: "I believe that if I continue to smoke, my secondhand smoke will ruin my children's health."

1. Sense how motivated you feel to break the smoking addiction.

2. Make a mental image that illustrates the above belief.

3. Adjust the computer codes (visual submodalities) of the picture so that they match the computer codes from your calibrated negative belief.

4. If you are right handed, move your eyeballs (and your picture) up to your left and hold it there for five seconds. If you are left handed, go up to the right. This will make you quickly memorize the belief.

5. Now become aware of how well motivated you feel to break the smoking addiction. Do you feel more motivated? Do you feel less motivated? Or are your feelings the same?

Using this technique you can make yourself believe almost anything by making an image in your mind that illustrates your new idea and then adjusting your mental image to match your calibrated belief pictures.

And if you have a belief that is holding you back, you can use the same technique to change that belief to doubt by changing one or two of the submodalities and memorizing it that way.

Now that you can motivate yourself to DECIDE to quit, you will break the smoking addiction. A DECISION to quit means: I'm quitting no matter what. If you are similar to most people, you won't want it to hurt and you don't have to. Because there are several hypnotic methods that can greatly reduce, or even completely eliminate the discomforts of withdrawal from the cigarette addiction. And you can read about them in my library of unique hypnosis articles.

(c) 2007 By Alan B. Densky, CH. This document may be re-printed as long as it is not altered and the author's name and clickable web address are retained.