You don’t need willpower to quit smoking or reduce how much you smoke.
The key is to overcome the mental addiction and change how you think about smoking.
Because when you stop seeing smoking as something you want or need in your life, you don’t need to use willpower to resist it. Same way, you don’t need to use willpower to resist eating a food you don’t like or you’re allergic to.
In the program, you will learn how to build mindpower which is greater than willpower.
Why Willpower Makes Quitting Hard
1. Willpower is a state of resistance – it takes a lot of effort and creates stress.
2. Using willpower means you want to smoke, but you go against that desire, which makes you feel deprived. You may have noticed this from your own experience: when you feel deprived, you (eventually) end up smoking more.
3. Willpower is finite. It’s like a muscle that gets tired the more you use it. Even if you’re someone with lots of willpower, your willpower will run out by the end of a long day or during a demanding situation. (That’s why we tend to make poorer choices in the evening)
Willpower is not all bad. Willpower is great to get you started on something (e.g. watch a quit smoking video), but it is not reliable for creating long-lasting change. You can’t spend all your life using willpower to resist smoking. You may be able to resist 5, 10, or 20 cigarettes with willpower, but can you resist every craving throughout your whole life, even in moments of stress and intense emotions? This would be really hard and unpleasant.
What is Mindpower?
Mindpower is a way to zap craving thoughts before they become a desire.
The concept of mindpower as an approach to handle urges was developed by the CBQ Method. Instead of resisting the cigarette you desire, mindpower helps you change your thinking so that you will not want to smoke.
Willpower: You want to smoke but resist the cigarette you desire.
Mindpower: You change your thinking and lower the perceived value of a cigarette so that you will not want to smoke.
Mindpower is something you already possess; The CBQ Program will show how to use it (and practice it) so you can make cravings vanish!
In the video below, I explain what is mindpower, and why changing our thinking with mindpower, removes the momentary urge to smoke.
By going through the program with the mindset outlined in day 0 video 3, recording every single cigarette you smoke, filling the smoking notebook correctly, and doing all the exercises, you will learn how to use mindpower and notice yourself cutting down without willpower.
Physical Cravings & Mindpower
Mindpower silences physical cravings too. The mind affects the body! Your mindset directly impacts how you experience physical cravings too.
If you think about smoking as something you want or need, your body will experience that “wanting.” Or if you think about cravings as a painful experience, your body will reflect that thinking.
Just think about the last time you felt anxious and experienced stomach pain. Or when you paper-cut your finger but felt pain only after you noticed you were hurt.
The mind gives meaning to our physical experiences, so using mindpower will ease the physical cravings too.
Physical cravings are subtle and pass unnoticed. As smokers we experience physical cravings non-stop during the day and night, but don’t even notice them.
See, what makes a craving (physical or mental) overwhelming is not the craving itself; it’s the stories we tell ourselves about what this craving means. “If I don’t vape now, I won’t be able to vape all day, and I won’t be able to manage without it.”
How to Know if You Are Using Willpower or Mindpower?
➡️ When you’re using willpower, you want to smoke, you see a benefit in smoking, but you deny yourself the cigarette you desire.
If you smoke to reward yourself for not smoking earlier, then it’s fair to assume that the cigarette you avoided was with willpower (because you felt deprived later).
If you feel you’re “allowed” to smoke then you may be using willpower. Viewing the countdown as being “allowed to have X number of cigarettes today”, means you’re still seeing some benefits in smoking or that smoking is something you’re being deprived of and are allowed to have in small chunks. Feeling deprived = using willpower. I would encourage you to think about it differently: you are allowed to smoke as much or as little as you want.
➡️ When you’re using mindpower, you’re able to counteract your craving mind by talking yourself out of smoking.
If reducing your smoking is painful, you’re using willpower. If you’re able to talk yourself out of smoking, you’re using mindpower.
Quick Guide: Willpower vs. Mindpower
| WILLPOWER | MINDPOWER |
| Feelings of Deprivation: Resisting something you want. Denying yourself the cigarette you desire. | Feelings of Empowerment: Recognizing it’s the addicted self, not the true self, that wants to smoke. |
| Battle inside with thoughts about smoking and not smoking. | Acceptings cravings can’t break you or make you do anything. |
| Delaying smoking and using it as a reward later. | Cutting the craving thought short. |
| Feeling you’re not “allowed” to smoke. | Not being seduced by the craving mind’s story. (Story: X thing will happen if you don’t smoke.) |
| Watching the clock for when you can smoke/vape next. | Being able to mentally “move on” from the idea of smoking. |
| Entertaining the idea that smoking will help you feel better. | Refusing to entertain the thought of smoking. |
| Guilt-tripping yourself into not smoking. | Seeing cravings as memories, not commands. |
| Saying “I managed” or “lasted” x amount of time. | Saying “I chose” to not listen to my craving mind. |
| You see value and benefit in smoking. Cigarettes seem precious. | Recognizing that smoking only triggers the next craving. |
You can also watch this short video:
What if you feel like you’re talking to yourself but still worry that you’re using willpower.
There’s a difference between using your mind and thinking as a way to shock/guilt/jolt yourself to what you know “should” be true VS. using your mind to think of something that moves you emotionally or changes how you view that cigarette at that moment.
Practice Mindpower (Make it Fun)
‼️ Remember: it’s okay if the willpower-mindpower difference takes a while to get down. It may need some practice (that’s what the experiments are for), but once you feel the difference, it can change everything. It only takes a little bit of practice to make mindpower instinctual and effortless!
CBQ Program member Lucy said about mindpower, “I took my time with the CBQ method and I’m glad that I did, because I have definitely felt a shift in thinking as each day passed. It all clicked when I understood mindpower and experienced it. Then the Day 9 exercises were very powerful and I felt that….Thanks for this fantastic program and helping me to regain my freedom!”
Note: It’s okay if you don’t know how to use mindpower yet or you’re not doing it “right” all the time.
The program lessons and exercises are designed to unlock your mindpower.
For practice while cutting down and doing your experiments (CBQ Program day 5), you can find many additional mindpower techniques here: https://support.cbqmembers.com/support-base/cravings/