I guess each of us at some point in time, take some decisions on quitting some habits that we don’t fancy or think they are bad for us… Some of the most popular items on that list would be: Smoking, Drinking, Eating Fast food or even cursing and saying bad words.

I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were discussing quitting smoking; She wants to quit smoking because she is convinced that it’s affecting her health negatively and wanted to ask me for opinion on how to do that.

Although admitting there’s a problem is always the right first step towards solving it, having the WILL to do changes in your life is easier said than done.

This week’s tip, is about how to set a “change” goal and work towards achieving it….

First here’s something to think about: If you’re a smoker of 20 cigarettes per day, and it was the time of your regular cigarette and you suddenly received a phone call or bumped into a friend, it’s very likely you would choose to drop that cigarette for the sake of taking that call or talking to the friend. But let’s say that you only had One Cigarette left… and you know it’s the last one you will have… How would you react to the call now? chances are that you’re not going to turn off that – Now VALUABLE – cigarette for anything less than Super important 😉 .

The example above illustrated a very important issue, which implies that when we STOP something instead of replacing it with something else, it’s more likely that we’re giving or let’s say CONSOLIDATING all its values and importance.

So here’s my tips for you, whether you were thinking of implementing a small change or a Major change in your life:

• Set small achievable goals, like instead of smoking 20 cigarettes per day, now you will smoke 17 instead
• Avoid the VOID… meaning if you removed 3 cigarettes, replace them with something else, like drinking water, or eating a chocolate (use your best judgement on that 😛 )… Just don’t keep it floating!
• Repeat the 2 steps above periodically… (Instead of 17 now it’s 15… etc)

And finally, remember this:

“You won’t FIND time to do something, you need to decide NOT to do Something else”

Enjoy your Week!

SC

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project