Written by Isobel

I was going to start this by re-telling a story I first heard from Tony Robbins to illustrate how what we believe determines what we can achieve. In the story as it’s commonly told, many athletes and scientists believed that it was impossible for anyone to run a mile in under four minutes so no one did. Then Bannister achieved it in 1954 and within a few months another 12 or 15 runners did it too. Therefore proving that once someone has shown us that something is possible, we believe it’s possible for us too. And neatly demonstrating “if you can see it, you can achieve it”.

That all sounds pretty reasonable. Right?

Except I wanted to know exactly how many other runners broke the four-minute barrier in 1954. And what I discovered was …. surprising, to say the least …

My smoking days

In 1999, I was a heavy smoker, and had been for about 25 years. By “heavy” I mean that by that point I was smoking 3 or 4 packs a day. I’d tried to stop a few times, using acupuncture, nicotine gum, will-power, cutting down gradually … the usual suspects.

At the time I was working in the City of London, with a 2 hour commute each way. I used to get up at 5:30am, have several cigarettes before I left the house, then another one at the coach stop before starting my 90 minute journey into London. Another cigarette as soon as I got off the coach, before I got the Tube (subway) to the nearest stop to where I worked, and one or two more on the walk from the station to the office. I worked with a group of people who were mainly also smokers; smoking was no longer allowed in the office so we used to meet on the (concrete) fire escape stairs every hour or so for our fix. I usually managed to smoke 2 cigarettes in that time.

You get the picture.

It wasn’t easy to fit in that many cigarettes a day, but I managed. I would feel uncomfortable and “antsy” if I was in a non-smoking area for long, I always checked as I left the house that I had my cigs and lighter with me and immediately felt panicky if I realised I didn’t have them, and I didn’t think twice about going out at 2am to buy more if I had less than half a pack left for the morning.

My life pretty much revolved around being able to smoke when I needed to. As far as I was concerned, I was physically and psychologically addicted to nicotine.

Remember Year2K?

I worked for a technology company, and there was pretty widespread concern that something approaching the end of the world was going to happen on January 1 2000, when vital computer software would cease to work.

To prepare ourselves my amazingly generous boss, who usually offered us a bonus of either a short vacation or a sum of money at the end of each year, announced that this year’s trip would be to South Africa for a long weekend in December, all expenses paid!

Shortly before he announced this, I had come across a book by Allen Carr called “The Easy Way to Give Up Smoking”. Carr ran a stop-smoking clinic in London and was getting remarkable results, and this book was based on the methods he used there. “No harm in reading it” I thought, especially as he encouraged you to continue smoking while reading about his method. The idea was that at the end of the book you were a non-smoker, without even trying.

I’ve forgotten most of the book, except for one small section that hit me like a bolt of lightning.

WTF??

He was comparing heroin and nicotine addiction, and he said (paraphrased): “a heroin addict HAS to have his fix at regular intervals. He will even wake in the night if the previous one has worn off. Most smokers can go seven or eight hours without their nicotine “fix” if they’re asleep, but can’t go more than an hour or so when they’re awake. If you can get through the night without a cigarette, you are NOT physically addicted to nicotine. You just have a bad habit!”

I still remember what a shock it was to read that and how I instinctively knew that he was right. Tobacco companies WANTED us to think we were addicted and “couldn’t” quit without dire consequences and we’d fallen for it.

Hmm …

But I still worked almost exclusively with smokers and then my boss announced we were going on this trip together and my room-mate was a smoker … I wasn’t ready to make a decision yet. And I still panicked if I left the house without my nicotine crutch or if I was “trapped” somewhere where I couldn’t smoke.

Every smoker knows that fear of what life will be like without cigarettes. If we panic after an hour, the idea of coping for the rest of our lives is … terrifying.

Then we got on the plane …

It’s a 12 hour plane trip!

I don’t think it had dawned of any of us that getting to South Africa from the UK required 12 hours on a plane WITHOUT SMOKING! Smoking had only recently been banned on long-haul flights and I remember the panic that overtook our party as we realised there was no escape. We were trapped in a metal cylinder for 12 hours and no matter how much we moaned and complained and tried to persuade the cabin crew – we weren’t going to be able to light up until we were in the terminal in Johannesburg. And that was it!

I was just as upset as everyone else, but talking about it non-stop wasn’t going to help. I settled down to read and sleep, counting down the hours until we would land.

When we DID land however, I was in for another shock …

I didn’t actually NEED a cigarette!

What?? I’d been gasping for one for most of the last 12 hours, now here we were in the smoking area at last, everyone reaching for their cigs to light up as fast as possible – and I didn’t particularly want one! What was going on here?

I felt calm, easy, peaceful. I looked around at the others and I knew exactly how they felt – like their nightmare was at an end, they’d been reprieved. I just didn’t feel that way.

I did eventually have a cigarette – after all, I’d be sharing a room with a smoker and I had no idea how long this feeling would last.

But the fear had gone.

For the first time in 25 years, I wasn’t afraid to be without cigarettes.

It was like someone had let me out of prison.

What decision?

The rest of the long weekend was amazing, if I ignore the food poisoning I got from an under cooked ostrich-meat burger on the last night. Believe me, food poisoning on a 12 hour plane trip is no fun – for anyone!

When I got back to work, I somehow found myself stopping at Boots the Chemist on the journey in, to buy nicotine patches. I remember the strongest one was designed for 20-a-day smokers and I was afraid it wouldn’t do the job, so I asked the pharmacist if I could wear two of them at once. She was horrified and told me that if that was my intention, she couldn’t sell me any at all! I actually had to look her in the eye like a naughty schoolgirl and promise to follow the instructions and only wear a single patch at a time.

I hadn’t consciously decided to quit smoking, but everything I was doing seemed to be leading towards that. My thinking had changed. I was no longer afraid to envisage a life without cigarettes, in fact I realised I would have a lot more freedom.

And finally … the millennium hits

31 December 1999. I had 17 cigarettes left in a pack. I carefully broke each one in half, put them in the rubbish bin and poured ash and cold tea over them. (Clearly, I still didn’t totally trust myself!) That was the point at which I knew I’d made the decision to quit.

I put on my nicotine patch and went to bed.

I’d gone as long as 10 days without a cigarette in the past before I was hit with an intense craving, so I decided that if I could get past that I’d be home and (literally) free.

Day 2 as I replaced my patch, I thought how funny it would be if the patch came off and I didn’t even notice.

On Day 3, guess what? When I undressed that night, the patch had dropped off and was caught up somewhere in my sweater. I threw the rest of them away.

By the time day 10 came around, I was kind of bored with counting them off. I’d gone back to work, where no one could believe I’d stopped. People started following me around to see if I slipped in a crafty puff or two when I thought no one was looking. It seemed every day, someone invited me to lunch! 😀

But there was no stress, no craving that lasted more than 15 minutes and I breathed through those, no real strong desire for a cigarette, not a moment when I regretted quitting.

And 20 years later, I’m still a non-smoker.

So, what changed?

The main change happened when I realised I wasn’t addicted … I just thought I was. And when the noise of insecure, stressed or fearful thinking stopped – I could see differently. What to do became obvious.

Change became effortless because I let go of the thoughts that said it would be hard.

We don’t experience reality. We experience our thoughts about reality.

And when those thoughts change – so do we.

And Bannister?

Oh yeah … 6 weeks after Bannister ran his four-minute mile, John Lundy smashed Bannister’s record by just over a second. No one else ran a mile in under four minutes that year. It wasn’t until May 1955, more than a full year after Bannister’s run, that 3 athletes in the same race came in under that time.

So Tony Robbins’ story is just that – a story. Sorry Tony.

Love, always
Isobel xx