I Quit a 10-Year Smoking Habit in One Hour

Most people didn’t know, only a few friends and family. I knew it was out of alignment with who I wanted to be, but it was true: I was a smoker.

I had been for a decade. I started as a teenager for the usual reasons. I wanted to belong. To be seen as someone who could handle whatever was thrown at me. Maybe even to seem a little bit edgy.

I was fifteen when I smoked my first cigarette. What that fifteen-year-old didn’t know? My “every now and then” cigarette would become a habit that buried me in shame. It would haunt me even as I pursued—and achieved—impressive health goals.

I tried quitting. It only ever took one slip-up to put me back where I started. I was stuck.

Do you know what that’s like? To keep on doing something even though it undermines who you aspire to be?

I can remember my first cigarette like yesterday. I can remember my last cigarette like yesterday, too.

Here’s how it happened.

It was 2020. There was a virus attacking people’s lungs. I needed a way out that worked. I needed help.

So I hired a hypnotist to help me quit. It took one session—one and a half hours—for me to go from a decade-long smoker to a non-smoker. I have zero cravings. Zero detox. Zero negative side effects. How? I rewired my brain.⁣

I’m not a specialist in addiction, and our Full Focus team isn’t either. If you find yourself stuck in an addictive cycle, I suggest you take a page out of my book and ask for help. (Maybe add hypnosis to your list of possible avenues.)

Here’s what I do know: The process I walked through that day isn’t just for smokers. It’s for you.

Your decisions have a cost.

Sometimes—usually—we’re not in tune with the costs of our decisions. We just make them. My hypnotist had me start by imagining my life progressing if I kept the habit.

One year later, I was still hiding and ashamed. Ten years later, I was stepping out of the house every few hours to protect my children from the dangers of secondhand smoke instead of holding them close. Then I was on my early deathbed, dying of lung cancer, looking into the grieving, resentful faces of my kids. I could see the truth in their eyes as tears streamed down my face:

It didn’t have to be this way. I had let it happen. 

What is it for you? A marriage where the distance just keeps growing? That nagging insomnia? The gossip habit? The chronic overwork? Your obsessive phone use?

Whose eyes will you have to look into ten years from now? And what will they be saying?

I stared into my children’s eyes and couldn’t handle what I saw. And then, my hypnotist gave me what we all need: the chance to build a vision for a better future.

It’s not too late to change course.

⁣The future isn’t here yet. Yesterday doesn’t define tomorrow. What you do today matters. But we don’t change direction without a powerful outside force. You need a vision.

My hypnotist invited me to imagine a different future. One in which I’d quit smoking that very day. The future unfolded before me: races I’d run and personal bests I’d set, long years with my children and grandchildren, no more hiding in shame. Instead, I saw myself walking in confidence borne of triumph. I wanted that future more badly than I’d ever wanted anything.

When the session ended, the thought of a cigarette wasn’t tempting anymore. I had a future worth chasing. So I went after it.

A future worth chasing isn’t just course correction. It’s a deep well of motivation for the journey.

We’ve just launched a new life-planning product called LifeFocus, and I know in my bones that this product will have the kind of impact on others that hypnosis had on me. I haven’t been this excited about a product since the release of the Full Focus Planner.

I want you to have a future you’re excited to live. I want you to walk in confidence. I want you to flourish in every area of your life, not just one. I want you to live the Double Win. I can’t imagine a better way there than LifeFocus.

This is my story. What will yours be? It’s time to dream again.