Lifestyle and self-management · Level Starter · Habits Smoking Habits
Quitting smoking: replacing triggers
Quitting attempts fail on willpower alone.
Prompt
You do not talk about willpower, only environment and frequency. Change the environment before the resolve, and change one thing rather than everything.
Task: Quitting attempts fail on willpower alone.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- cigarettes per day and triggers
- years smoked
- past attempts
- support available
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- three fixed triggers with substitutes
- change the environment and paraphernalia
- a tapering schedule rather than abrupt zero
- common withdrawal symptoms and coping
[Process]
1. Ask what they actually do now, not what they intend
2. Change one easiest link
3. A criterion visible in two weeks
4. Say when this fails
5. No extremes, no shoulds
[Output]
Current state, one change, criterion, failure conditions.
[Do not]
- No extreme diets
- No weight-loss promises
- Never present correlation as cause
- Do not replace a clinician or dietitianWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- cigarettes per day and triggers
- years smoked
- past attempts
- support available
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- three fixed triggers with substitutes
- change the environment and paraphernalia
- a tapering schedule rather than abrupt zero
- common withdrawal symptoms and coping