When we quit smoking there's a lot of bargaining that can happen initially.
I feel if you make tough deals with yourself, you won't succumb to the little things.
I'm a person who follows things through to completion in my mind before I begin something.
This is why I could never do a construction bid with software. There is no consideration in any software I know of for walking truckloads of materials 300 feet from the street to where they need to be stored on the jobsite.
There is no allowance for bad weather or crawling up unsheathed rafters in a rain at night to tarp an entire building in order to protect the original structure and finish.
When I did a bid the parts of a job I would physically do or supervise I estimate that for every $3000 in cost, I spent an hour bidding those costs.
Then, I would have all my subs come to the site and do a walk through and give me their price. They were all honest and fair, they knew my standards and expectations from the years we worked together and, they knew they could count on me to have everything ready so they could come in and do their work and not have to redo it because something was done out of order.
If the owner tried to hammer me about their prices, I explained that I had worked with them for years and, that if you hammer a persons price before they even begin, if there is additional unforseen work that comes up, they might hammer you back and if you have someone else come in to do that extra related work, there could be repercussions as to who guaranteed the work.
In other words, there is nothing willy nilly about my thought process.when I approach a task.
When I considered what could make me smoke, there was only one terrible thing and that was if I lost my wife and daughter in a traffic accident.
Yes I know it's morbid but it was the worst and only scenario where I had given myself permission in advance to smoke.
For me I believe it was ok to imagine the worst thing that could happen and make that deal with myself.
Why? Because the worst rarely happens!
I also made a deal with myself when I stopped using the patch the second week. I kept one in my wallet for my entire first year with the promise I would slap it on and wait an hour rather than smoke.
These are the concepts I try to express here. They worked for me but they go way beyond me in what they might do for others.
It's not a crime to think things through. It's ok to make deals with yourself if they are tough deals.
The worst tragedy's and fears we project in our minds rarely happen.
Onward and Upward!
