“There’s a smug little saying that goes something like, ‘Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right.’ Annoying, but also true. Your mind is so powerful. You are capable of things you can’t even imagine right now.”

—Quit Smoking for Good: From Hopeless Smoker to Healthy Non-Smoker in Five Simple Steps

My friend, if you are in a place where you don’t believe you can quit smoking, you can’t. Before you can succeed…

You Must Believe That Quitting Smoking is Possible

What are your limiting beliefs around quitting? If any of these resonate with you or you have others, please share them in the comments. Hearing that other people also struggle makes us feel less alone.

Or, maybe you are practicing positivity so hard, but when you tell yourself, “I can do this!” A small voice in the back of your head says things like, “Are you sure?” or, “Maybe you can, but it will be so miserable. Is it really worth it?”

Whether your limiting beliefs are overt or sneaky, they’re forms of self-sabotage that will keep you from reaching your goals.

“Mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
...Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.”

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

I’ve got three questions and two tactics from a psychotherapy technique called Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). Albert Ellis originally developed REBT in the 1950s, and it’s widely practiced today by professional therapists.

You can use this technique yourself, for free.

Three Questions

For each limiting belief you have, ask:

1. Is this belief serving me? Can it help me improve my life or achieve my goals?

2. Is it logical?

3. What is the evidence for, and against, this belief?

Two Tactics

1. Try visualizing your preferred outcome, like successfully navigating a craving without smoking, or visualizing the benefits you’ll experience after you have been smoke-free for awhile (breathing better, hiking, or enjoying physical activities with friends and family without feeling winded).

2. Use coping techniques like relaxation, meditation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, or self-soothing to reduce the anxiety and fears behind your belief (like not being able to handle withdrawal and cravings).

Why Does It Work/How Do You Do It? 

We’re using logic and rational thinking to notice and counter your thought distortions—such as exaggeration, catastrophizing, and all-or-nothing thinking—and employing coping techniques to calm the emotional source of these thoughts.

Current practice of REBT often follows an ABCDE Model:

First, we identify an Activating event, like telling yourself you’ll quit “tomorrow/next week/next month,” waking up on that day, and finding yourself smoking.

This event triggers a limiting Belief, along the lines of: “Quitting is impossible,” “the cravings are too awful,” or “I just can’t stop.”

Write down the Consequences of your belief. Maybe past failures to quit successfully have you avoiding another attempt, or are giving you feelings of self-disappointment or worthlessness.

Now, we apply rational thinking, cognitive restructuring, and coping techniques to Dispute the limiting belief (the three questions and two tactics shared above)

Finally, write down your Effective new belief: Example: “Every attempt to quit teaches me something about my hidden triggers or areas that need more attention or TLC.”

If you still need convincing, you can verify the truth of your new belief using logic:

Success comes from good judgment. Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment and failures.

In other words, failure and mistakes are actually your only path to success.

So let go of your limiting beliefs and get one step closer to your smoke-free future.

An earlier version of this piece was published in A Newsletter for Quitters on Substack on October 22, 2025.