Chris Toal – Kicking the White Dust Coat Guy Habit

Why you think you can’t stop smoking, and how you can.

Remember being told you can do anything when you set your mind to it. Smokers are told they can give up whenever they want, as an ex smoker I can tell you it’s not that simple. I remember giving up a few times myself before I actually worked out how to get out of that addiction.

One of the amazing things about the mind is that it really can get your body to do almost anything, but first it must have a success path to follow.  You have to ‘know’ you can do it, or you don’t really believe and next thing, you fail.

Belief is a funny thing. Research into passenger ship sinking’s shows that roughly 20% of the passengers on sinking ships sit down and prepare to drown. They are sure that is what’s going to happen anyway, so they don’t even try to get on deck.

Smokers are literally in the same boat. They will make up any excuse to keep the drug coming, telling themselves it’s “their decision”  even talking themselves into believing they’ve already done all the damage to their health, and they will fail anyway, so it’s a waste of time to try to give up.

Here’s why that can change: None of those things are true.

You can repair a lot of lung and overall health damage with the correct fitness training, and with the right mindset, you can easily succeed on giving up.

In 1953 an esteemed group of medical professionals declared it “medically impossible for a man to break the 4 minute mile.

Despite this on the 6th of May 1954 Roger Bannister did just that, broke the 4 minute mile. By the end of 1957, 16 more runners had logged sub 4 minute miles and the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds since then.

Roger Bannister trained to break the impossible if you want to give up smoking you need to train as well, and the best thing to train is your mind, you need a strong mind to break the nicotine addiction. I found this exercise really helps you stay focussed.

There are a lot of reasons why I’m happy about what we are achieving at our Bodywall training centres, one of them happens all by itself and shows us that once people don’t feel like they are going to drown, they can find their way to the lifeboat.

Bodywall is fun to train on, it’s like a big kid’s jungle gym and play room that get’s you fit really fast. What we’ve noticed is that when smokers start to train on Bodywall as their fun fitness and enjoyment levels go up, they want more and more challenging exercises. Next they ask I want to give up smoking. How can I give up smoking, how do I do it?  We’ve had this happen quite a few times, we always tell them this story.

Finding “The One”

Many of us spend a big chunk of our life waiting for, or in search of, ‘the one’.  The mate, the person or life partner that is clearly the one you are supposed to be with.  If you have that now or even had a taste of it, you will know that it’s special, worthwhile, and, that you will happily give up or change lots of other things in your life, to make sure that relationship stays wonderful.  

So here’s something to think about.

Imagine that you have just met ‘the one’
Oh my god it’s real, this actually happens.

Life is cruising along and yep you know this is it. Yee haa your life search is over. Now fast forward three weeks. All is going great, you’ve never been so happy, and this is definitely it, they’re loving, attentive, clever “employed” all is wonderful. Let’s do a DVD, so over you go, relax on the couch, and the movie gets underway.

Life is good.

Halfway through the movie “your very special one” stops the movie and says with a smile “would you mind going outside for ten minutes? I‘ll call you when it’s time to come back in”. It’s all a bit strange but something must be cooking. Times up, you go back in and the movie continues, end of the movie same thing happens.

Again the tolerant smile “would you mind going outside for ten minutes?  I‘ll call you when it’s time to come back in”. Ok now it’s getting a bit weird, but the surprise is probably worth it so, out you go. Coffee and dessert, and same again, outside ten minutes, “call you when you can come back in” Ok now we have a problem, they are controlling you way above your comfort levels, and there really is no upside to this, being controlled is being controlled.  

Now if you smoke, read this bit slowly, and think about it. Very clearly.

Somewhere on the other side of the world a man in a white dustcoat is pressing a red button on a machine. He’s ordering you around remotely, telling you to go outside, stop what you’re doing, get a fix of his very powerful drug, and, taking money from you, your friends your family, then giving it to his.

At the same time he’s ruining your health, your food tastes like crap and he’s and taking years off your life. He is giving the best healthcare to his shareholders and company directors extending their lives with your money.  Marlboro alone is valued at $49.4 billion.

Just remember, you wouldn’t let your partner – ’your new special person’ – order you around that way. Get it in your head this drug is very powerful, remember the guy in the white dustcoat pressing the red button on his machine, he is pressing your buttons. Remember this and it will help you to train yourself out of this addiction.  Stop getting your buttons pressed.

Good Luck it’s worth it. Let me know how you get on after 6 months.

Chris Toal.

www.wellnessatwork.co.nz . www.bodywall.com . www.scarsaway.com

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