Few people make the decision to quit smoking easily. In addition to fighting the addiction itself, the smoker has to resist the environment of former like-minded people - smoking colleagues. And if it's easier to deny yourself a cigarette at home than to miss another smoke break at work, it's time to start radical action.
Don't smoke in front of me, please
Smoke breaks at work are akin to short meetings. Over a cigarette, colleagues often exchange information, discuss working moments, and far from always it all comes down to empty gossip. That is why it is difficult for a smoker to give up smoke breaks once and for all. Indeed, in addition to the dose of nicotine, he loses an information source.
A little corporate trick allows you to overcome the fear of remaining in information isolation. Smoke breaks should be gradually replaced with tea or other business five-minute breaks. After all, not all former like-minded people in smoking are valuable informants. It is important to select those participants in the workflow who are important for achieving results in the work. If you need to find out important information from them, it is better to once again come up in a working order than constantly pumping your body with nicotine in the hope of establishing interaction.
The same goes for the relationship with the management. Getting close to a smoking director on the basis of a unifying addiction is a fragile and dubious career path. For a person deciding to quit smoking, these strategies are not suitable. Knowing that an employee has quit smoking, for a management suffering from nicotine addiction, such a characteristic, better than any resume, will indicate the high volitional qualities of a subordinate.
The ridicule of skeptics - in the ashtray
In any team, there are certainly skeptics who question the volitional qualities of a colleague quitting smoking. Such deniers can stifle morale, and their haughty witticisms can provoke the first drag in a long time. To insulate yourself from their negative skepticism, it is important to set up corporate barriers:
- talk less about personal and reduce all conversations to discussing business issues. As soon as it comes to the topic of smoking, it is important to have time to take the dialogue into a working channel - “There are much more important issues than my struggle with cigarettes. How is the work on the quarterly report progressing?"
- if a skeptic smokes, then it is better to fend off stories about the positive consequences of quitting smoking - easier breathing, improved performance and fresh breath. Typically, these conversations quickly undermine the skeptics' eagerness to pursue teasing attacks.
- if the skeptic now and then calls for a smoke break, then you should clearly inform him that he should find another partner in the smoking room.
Ultimately, any skeptic can become a like-minded person. A little discussion about the dangers of smoking and the snow-white smile of a colleague who has coped with addiction can be the beginning of a new corporate fashion. This is often what happens.
At the corporate party
The most dangerous events for a quitting group member are corporate parties. An informal atmosphere does not allow all communication to be reduced to business interaction, and smokers can leave the table without restrictions for another nicotine break. Skipping a cigarette with colleagues is a serious temptation, which is doubly difficult to resist when drinking alcohol.
Therefore, if the morale is not so strong and there is an understanding that it will be difficult to cope with the temptation at a corporate party, it is better to skip this event altogether. In the event that it is impossible to miss the holiday, you can refuse to drink alcohol or sip quite a bit and try to leave the holiday as soon as possible. Alas, the fight against nicotine withdrawal syndrome at first requires such sacrifices for the sake of the end result.
If there are allies in the team who are also in a state of phasing out cigarettes, it is important to cooperate with them and sit at the table next to them. The threat to become the object of their reproaches will serve as a protective factor against the temptation to miss a couple of puffs.
