Are You an Excluder or Includer When it comes to Quitting Cigarettes?

There are certain predictors of who’ll be successful in quitting cigarettes and those who’ll struggle. One such predictor I tab as an “excluder” or “includer.”

The phases come from our mind-speak and whether we view others as having something special to achieve a goal but we don’t poses it – a person whose an excluder – or whether we feel if somebody else can do this then so can I  – an includer.

When it comes to quitting cigarettes you can see how being an “excluder” could hamper your ability to quit.

These people are going to struggle when the going gets tough or they realize as a therapeutic hypnotist I don’t have a magic pill to give them to take smoking away.

An “excluder” looks at others who have quit smoking using hypnosis and feels they’re not like those others who’ve stopped smoking. There mind-speak to themselves of others who quit is “they have something that I don’t have so I’ll never be able to do what they can do.” If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking this way then you know whatever you’re trying to achieve when you have those thoughts ensures you’ve got a battle ahead.

It goes without saying that an “includer” is a long way towards quitting even before the first hypnosis session. They have a positive attitude and feel if others have been successful at quitting using hypnosis then there’s no reason why they can’t quit.

Does this stop “excluders” from being successful at quitting? No. They can overcome their tendency to view themselves differently from other who stop smoking with hypnosis. In fact, part of my work as a hypnotist is to help them overcome this barrier to achieving their goal. There is generally more pre-work and discussion before the actual hypnosis session to practice the preferred mind-speak.

This is one of the reasons why a phone interview is so important before the stop smoking hypnosis session. I can discover a lot about barriers that’ll be brought to the session by the smoker and even work out approaches for the hypnosis session to help overcome them.

But the bottom-line for an “excluder” is a less successful rate than for an “includer” on quitting cigarettes long-term. In some circumstances, and depending on how other questions are answered, I’ll recommend they’re not ready yet to quit or maybe they should try a self-hypnosis product first.

Likewise, being an “includer” doesn’t guarantee you’ll quit. An “includer” may have underestimated the impact of withdrawal symptoms. Everybody is different and it may be more difficult for them to quit than others they knew. However, an “includer” brings an attitude of overcoming barriers and so the prediction of success for them is still more often accurate.

Whether my client is an “includer” or “excluder” my role as a therapeutic hypnotist is the same, and that’s to guide my client to the resources they already have inside them to stop smoking that day. The resources are in all of us, but a major difference between the “includer” and “excluder” is the belief those resources exist in them and can provide the path to being smoke free for life.

My quit smoking hypnosis programs considers all types of smokers looking to stop. If you’d like to discover if hypnosis can help you quit cigarettes then learn more about my stop smoking service here or just pick up the phone and call 508-529-2490.

 

Erika Slater, CH
Director
Free At Last Hypnosis