GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or even just thinking of quitting, please join us! We kindly ask that politics be left outside. You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts, or access the GUS Library (the archived version for now).
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A message to ALL quitters (and would-be quitters): You don't have to avoid GUS if you have a failed quit. We won't give you a bad time or nag you. We consider the failed quits as "practice" for the real quit.
'Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know,' is an old saying… Trollope, Barchester Towers
Behavioral change is a tricky undertaking for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that there may be a whole bunch of hurdles to overcome and stages to pass through before we actually get down to the part where we actively try to change the behavior.
While a few of us may be blessed with the ability to just wake up one day and decide that something's got to change and then go ahead and instantly change it (and wouldn't that be sweet? If the world worked that way, most of us wouldn't even be here!) the majority of us aren't so fortunate.
No, most of us have to feel things out, think about it for a while, fight a few internal battles, recognize and face up to our fears, overcome our own rationalizations, and formulate a plan. Only THEN do we really get down to business and grapple with changing the behavior.
Except not all of us even get to that stage.
For some of us, the journey can begin and end in the early stages, where you're considering a change, when you are only thinking about considering making a change or---even more challenging----the whole idea of change is something you're not even thinking about (or are avoiding thinking about). That's called "precontemplation," and it's a real thing. It can happen to people attempting behavioral change for the first time, and it can happen to folks who have been down this path before but for whatever reason have lost hope that this time it'll work, and can't generate a sense of immediate need to change.
Some of those stuck in this state of precontemplation can get really down on themselves, but they shouldn't be; it's perfectly natural to have this reaction to the idea of overhauling your own behavior or situation. Honestly, there are lots of reasons for getting stuck there, and not surprisingly, many of them are perfectly rational reasons. There's a good article on this phenomenon in Psychology Today. One of the things that stood out for me was this, because I struggled with this very issue when I was first toying with the idea of quitting:
Recognize that you may feel safe in this stage. You may not be happy about your situation, but at least it's familiar, and you know what to expect. In addition, there may not be as many demands placed on you because of your situation. Allow yourself to recognize these aspects, while at the same time, maintaining a nonjudgmental attitude toward yourself.
That really resonates with me because that was one thing I had a hard time acknowledging: that the familiar---bad though it was---was less scary to me (and therefore preferable) than the unknown that change might bring. That the status quo, miserable as it was (the devil I knew) was preferable to whatever upheaval might occur if I made the change (the devil I didn't).
And this wasn't a short-term thing, either. I got stuck here for a good long time---years and years---wavering from precontemplation to contemplation and back again. Like I said, I had my reasons, and frustratingly, they made sense to me at the time.
But in all my wavering back-and-forth, I eventually did one thing that the linked article recommends: I finally stopped beating myself up for being stuck in the first place. Once I started practicing a little self-compassion and recognizing that it was a big deal just to think about attempting this change, things got "un-stuck" for me.
Eventually.
Hey, I'm only human!
What did it take for you to stop listening to that Devil you knew? Or is it still making too much noise for you to sort out why you're stuck?
Have you asked yourself why you might be there, and what it might take for you to move to the next stage, pay attention to the better angels of your nature, and take real steps for change?
Who's Your Little Buddy?
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