You might have uttered the title of this post before — I know I did when I tried to quit smoking. And when I considered giving up meat, cheese, sugar, and more.
Quitting something can seem incredibly hard, so much so that we don’t even want to put ourselves through the suffering.
Have you tried giving up alcohol? Marijuana? Biting your nails? Complaining? Cigarettes? Junk food?
I can confirm that it’s hard to quit an addiction, but there are several things that stand in our way:
- The physical addiction — this is hard but it only lasts a few days. Fortunately, I can tell you that if you really put your mind to it, you can do anything hard for a few days.
- The reliance on it as a coping mechanism — this is a problem because we’re so used to using the addiction as a crutch when we’re stressed or sad or things are difficult or we need to socialize. Fortunately, there are plenty of other healthier ways to cope.
- You don’t believe you can do it. This is the worst one, because if you give in to this obstacle, the other two are not conquerable. Fortunately, this one is entirely self-caused, and so the solution is entirely within our hands.
Read more in ZenHabits.
