How to Imagine Away a Bad Habit

You practice being a non-smoker before you actually quit.

Years ago I smoked a pack a day of Lucky Strike unfiltered cigarettes.

I wanted to quit. I would say: after tonight, I’m never smoking another cigarette. I would crush the pack with the remaining cigarettes and hurl it at the garbage can.

But you know the story. Sometime the next morning, my brain would come up with some scheme to keep me smoking: “This is not the right time. Go buy another pack. You can quit anytime.”

What ultimately worked was spending three weeks “rehearsing” not smoking, rehearsing in my mind.

Here’s the process step-by-step I used to retrain my brain.

How I Rehearsed

Step 1: On set.

The set is the place I normally smoked.

There I would have my cigarette, and I would imagine what it would be like not to smoke.

Step 2: Have my cigarette

While smoking away, I would take a few moments to imagine what it would be like if I were in this place and not smoking.

Will I be unhappy? What will I like about it? What will I not like about it? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? What would it feel like? Smell like?

I would get into it with all the detail my mind could think up. Would my life change for the better? Worse? What would people who know me as a smoker think of me as a non-smoker? Would I be ostracized?

No urges. The cigarette is right there in front of me. I could take a pull whenever.

For example, one of my favorite smokes of the day was after breakfast. So every day during the three-week rehearsal period at the breakfast table, I would say to myself, “What will it be like on the day I don’t have this cigarette? Will I be unhappy? Will I be happy? What will it feel like? In my throat? The slight buzz? What will I enjoy about not smoking? Not having the burn in my throat? What will I miss? The slight buzz brought on by the coffee and the cigarette.

That’s a lot of text and it makes it seem like a long process, but it’s not. The mind can imagine much faster than the time it took you to read the above example.

Step 3: Rehearse not smoking every time and everywhere I had a cigarette

No pressure. I smoked whenever I wanted, but I used the occasion to imagine what it would be like not smoking on that occasion.

In that calm environment I and my auto-brain could get a preview of being a non-smoker in that breakfast scene. The auto-brain’s control of the smoking habit is not being attacked head-on.

In that calm environment I and my auto-brain could get a preview of being a non-smoker first thing in the morning, call it Scene One.

This rehearsing for the stop-smoking day went on every time I lit a cigarette. At breaks at work. After other meals. Just for the hell of it. With after dinner drinks.

There were many scenes throughout the day. I rehearsed them all every time I had a cigarette.

When smoking in a bar, I took time to imagine what being there would be like not smoking? Would the beer taste better? Or worse? Did it matter? Would the people around me give me crap for quitting?

Rehearsals didn’t take a lot of time. No more than a few minutes.

I rehearsed often is short sessions. I tried to cover every situation (scene) where I smoked.

About half way into my rehearsal period, I started looking forward to the big day when I would no longer smoke. The anticipation grew until I couldn’t wait until Opening Day.

When Opening Day came, I was relieved! I didn’t have to smoke!

And so it was in the following days. The only time I had serious urges was in situations that I had not rehearsed.

What I’d done was tackled the problem in small doses. I “made it easy,” as James Clear promotes in the fabulous book, Atomic Habits.

And my imagination did the work.

Habit Change Is Identity Change

I changed from smoker to non-smoker.

In his best-selling book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the importance of “identity-based habits”. Mental rehearsal makes quitting easy. It made me, the smoker, become a non-smoker. It made me feel normal and comfortable as a non-smoker.

When My Show Opened after 3 Weeks of Rehearsal

I did not feel deprived. I felt relieved.

If you want to change your future self – whether it’s being a non-smoker, a healthier eater, or a regular exerciser – don’t just make a goal. Rehearse it before you start.